2 54 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



oaks and other timber. At Wrest the margin of this 

 park, seen from the edge of the Duke's garden, is 

 beautiful in the extreme. The park itself is flat and 

 studded with splendid old oaks, mainly pollards. It 

 is bordered by the wide artificial river, which looks as 

 if it were a natural stream. On the inner side of this 

 is cut grass and turf, and next to this the groves of 

 great trees of the Duke's garden, encircled by a fine 

 cut yew hedge. 



The western canal is one of three features which 

 together make up another precinct in the garden. It 

 is called the bowling green, but is, in reality, a very 

 large lawn, forming the centre of the three very 

 different and most beautiful objects referred to. One 

 of these, on the side furthest from the house, is the 

 western canal, a long oblong of water, backed by a 

 screen of yews. These yews are treated in a novel 

 and very successful way. The lower parts are clipped, 

 and make what appears to be a lofty cut yew hedge. 

 The upper parts are allowed to grow to a great 

 height, and send out long, feathery branches high 

 over the pool. On the right of the lawn, looking 

 from the house, is another very fine piece of garden 

 architecture. It is really a very large dining-room, 

 finely, though simply, decorated in the style of Queen 

 Anne, or with an Anglicised interpretation of French 

 motives. The fireplaces are excellent in design. 

 Outside is a broad portico supported on pillars, and 

 the windows are wide and come down low, so that a 

 party dining within on a beautiful summer evening 

 would see all the tranquil beauties of the pool, the 

 broad lawn and the avenues and arcaded walks on 

 the other side of the lawn. There is no kitchen 

 attached, as there was to the garden dining-room of 

 William III. at Hampton Court ; but temporary 

 kitchens could, no doubt, have been put up behind it 

 needed. It was probably used more frequently to 

 lunch in. The opposite side of this great bowling 



green is exquisite indeed. The main enclosing line 

 is formed by a tall yew hedge, through which a 

 passage is cut, leading down a vista also made of 

 clipped yew. So that looking from under the 

 columns of this elegant Palladian banqueting-house 

 you see in front a vast lawn, and beyond that statues 

 and beyond them the greyish trunks of elms, and 

 behind them the dark yew fence, all gleaming with 

 different lights and shades, and through that a vista 

 leading to the unknown, and on the right the soft 

 greens and dark shadows of the great pool and the 

 yew screen behind. Remember, too, that all this is 

 of vast size and exquisitely cared for, and some idea 

 of the beauty of the whole may, perhaps, be suggested 

 to the reader. Beyond the yew fence opposite is one 

 of the loveliest things at Wrest. It is an avenue of 

 Dutch elms growing out of the smooth-cut turf, with 

 a pretty and very long-arched walk of some bright 

 green growth on one side of and parallel with it. 



Nearer the house lies a garden called, for some 

 reason not very apparent, "the American Ground," 

 and to the left of this, near the orangery, is one of 

 the oldest features of the gardens, and by no means 

 the least remarkable ; it is a vast yew hedge, larger 

 than all the others, and reputed to be 300 years old. 

 The yews which make it are trees, not bushes. The 

 total measurement through is 24ft. and the height 

 about 3oft. Such, in outline, is the lovely domain 

 which a scion of the house of Herbert inherited in 

 1905, together with the barony of Lucas through his 

 mother, a sister of the last Earl Cowper, who 

 throughout his life maintained the beauties which his 

 De Grey progenitors had created. It is impossible not 

 to feel that every lawn and every tree, and each pool 

 and walk is the object of individual solicitude, while 

 at the same time there is so much to see and to 

 appreciate, that a single day is not sufficient even to 

 view the whole once in any detail. 



A MARBLE SUNDIAL. 



