ABBEY LEIX 



In a picturesque, but little-known district in Queen's County, Ireland, 

 lies Abbey Leix, the residence of Lord de Vesci. It is a land of vigorous 

 tree-growth and general richness of vegetation. Hedge-rows show an 

 abundance of well-grown ash timber, and the park is full of fine oaks, a 

 thing that is rare in Ireland, and that makes it more like English park- 

 land of the best character. This impression is accentuated in spring-time 

 when the oaks are carpeted with the blue of wild Hyacinths, and when 

 the broad woodland rides are also rivers of the same Blue-bells. 



In this favoured land the common Laurel is a beautiful tree, thirty 

 feet high ; the mildness of the winter climate allowing it to grow 

 unchecked. Only those who have seen it in tree form in the best 

 climates of our islands, or in Southern Europe, know the true nature of 

 the Laurel's growth, or the poetry and mystery of its moods and aspects. 

 The long grey limbs shoot upward and bend and arch in a manner almost 

 fantastic. Sometimes a stem will incline downwards and run along the 

 ground, followed by another. In the evening half-light they might be 

 giant silver-scaled serpents, writhing and twisting and then springing 

 aloft and becoming lost to sight in the dim masses of the crowning 

 foliage. Seen thus one can hardly reconcile its identity with that of the 

 poor, tamed, often-clipped bush of every garden. The Laurel is so 

 docile, so easily coerced to the making of a quickly-grown hedge or 

 useful screen, that its better qualities as an unmutilated tree in a mild 

 district are usually lost sight of. 



The house at Abbey Leix is a stone building of classical design of the 

 middie of the eighteenth century. On the northern front is the entrance 



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