13:2 



GARDENS OLD A\D 



Copyright. 



THE WEST GARDEN. 



'Country Life." 



the garden from the meadows. In the midst of the dappled 

 lawn is the recumbent figure of the river god, and beyond, 

 betwei-n those mossy urn-crowned piers, hang the famous iron 

 gates. Veneration for the eld lias certainly settled upon Ham 

 House, and many a legend is told of how the gates have been 

 opened but once since they were closed on Charles II. When 



Copyright. 



THE EAST GARDENS. 



Horace Walpole's niece became Countess of Dysart, the witty 

 scoffer noted the unchanging character of her new abode. 

 Everything was " magnificently ancient," and all his passion 

 for antiquity did not keep him up. " Every minute 1 expected 

 to see ghosts sweeping by ; ghosts I would not give sixpence 

 to see Lauderdales, Tollemaches, and Maitlands." His 



nephew was " so religious an 

 observer of the venerable 

 rights of this house that 

 because the gates were never 

 .> opened by his father but 

 once, for the late Lord 

 Granville, you are locked 

 out and locked in, and, 

 after journeying all round 

 the house, as you do 

 round an old French fortified 

 town, you are at last 

 admitted through the stable- 

 yard to creep along a dark 

 passage by the housekeeper's 

 room, and so by a back door 

 into the great hall." 



It is a sweet and charac- 

 teristic scene that we view 

 from the north terrace, looking 

 across the close-shaven lawn, 

 flanked by beds of hardy 

 flowers and splendid pyra- 

 midal bay trees, to the old 

 gates and the noble elms 

 nearer the river. But 

 Lift." wherever we go the gardens 

 are in perfect accord with the 



