CONDOVER 



CoNDOVER Hall near Shrewsbury is a stately house of important size 

 and aspect — one of the many great houses that were reared in the latter 

 half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Its general character gives the 

 impression of severity rather than suavity, though the straight groups of 

 chimneys have handsome heads, and the severe character is mitigated on 

 the southern front by an arcade in the middle space of the ground floor. 

 The same stern treatment pervades the garden masonry. No mouldings 

 soften the edges of the terrace steps ; parapets and retaining walls, with 

 the exception of the balustrade of the main terrace, are without 

 ornament of light and shade ; plainly weathered copings being their 

 only finish. Only here and there, a pier that carries a large Italian 

 flower-pot has a little more ornament of rather massive bracket form. 



The garden spaces are large and largely treated, as befits the place 

 and its environment of park-land amply furnished with grand masses of 

 tree-growth. On the southern side of the house, where the ground falls 

 away, are two green flats and slopes, leading to a lower walk parallel with 

 their length and with the terrace above. The steps in the picture are 

 the top flight of a succession leading to these lower levels. The lower 

 and narrower grassy space has a row of clipped yews of a rounded cone- 

 shape. The upper level has a design of the same, but of different 

 patterns. 



The balustrade in the picture is old, probably of the same date as the 

 house ; much of the other stonework is modern. The circular seat on a 

 raised platform, with its stone-edged flower-beds, has a very happy 

 effect, and its yew-hedge backing joins well into the older yews that 



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