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TRENTHAM, . 



STAFFORDSHIRE, 



THE SEAT OF ... 



The Duke of Sutherland. 



GARDENS 

 OLD-&NEW 



A1ONG the great houses and great gardens of England 

 very few indeed can vi- with Trentham. The 

 Saxon swineherds, whose "mutiny porkers ate the 

 beech-mast and acorns beneath the trees of that 

 little " ham " by the Trent, would have opened 

 wide iheir eyes to witness the triumphs anJ splendours 

 that these days disclose. Then, the classic conventions of 

 architecture and the glowing glories of spreading gardens no 

 English mind had conceived; then, no mighty smelting 

 turnaces cast alternate gloom and (lame athwart the sky; 

 then, no Wedgwood had tilled the Potteries with a bu -y 

 hive of men. But the pioneers had begun their work. There 

 was a little priory by the Trent, presided over at one time b/ 

 St. Werbergh, sister of King Ethelred, refounded at a later 

 date, as some say by Ranulph, Earl of Chester, as a house 

 ol Augustinian canons. 



Cattle, wool, and hides were carried to the markets of 

 the country towns, and the tenants brought their plenteous 

 grain to grind at the priory mill. The sounding politics 

 of mediaeval England awoke their echoes at Trentham, 

 bat of the priory I.Ule is known, until it shared the fate of 

 other houses, and was suppressej by Henry VIII. It there- 

 upon became a possession of Charles Brandon, Duke of 

 Suffolk, who had married Henry's sister, the widow of Louis 

 of France. But the place did not long remain in the Duke's 

 hands, for presently we find it in the possession of the 

 Levesons, an old family of Willenhall, in Staffordshire, 

 of whom Nicholas Leveson was Lord Mayor of London 

 in 1535. 



It was the Lord Mayor's descendant, Sir Richard Leveson, 

 who built old Trentham. His was just such a house as was 

 beloved by country gentlemen in Stuart tinus. There was 



" it 



-** ***&.&& 



Cofyright. 



t"; ' 







A TERRACE WALK. 



" Country Life," 



