BICTON, 



DEVONSHIRE 



THK gardens at Bicton have a style aiul a 

 beauty that arc almost their own. They are 

 invested with the stately manner, which 

 hears some relationship to the sober mag- 

 nificence of I.e Notre. There are the still waters, 

 the long canal, the dense masses ot trees which we 

 associate with the great l-'rench master, although we 

 would not suggest that they are anything but Knglish 

 essentially. In them is a delightful charm and 

 repose, which the illustrations suggest, though they 

 cannot delineate every beauty. Mowers are not 

 banished from Bicton, but in the more stately parts 

 of the gardens they have no place. Dependence has 

 been set upon the varying cffcits of the moving sun, 

 giving changing aspects to the enchanted realm the 

 whole day long. 



These gardens have the advantage of lying in a 

 very beautiful part of England, about midway 

 between Sidmouth and Kxmouth in South Devon, 

 and some three miles upward from the mouth of tne 

 lovely river Otter. That stream rises in the Black 



Down Hills, ami pur.tics its uuirc through a 

 pastoral valley between height, crested with woods, 

 and often dotted with sheep on the slopes, while tin- 

 red cattle of Devon stand up to their hocks in the 

 sweet pasture of the river-side meadows. Otterton, 

 the close neighbour of Bicton, is the first village up 

 from the sea, and is a picturesque and quaint place, 

 with "cob" cottages, built of a mixture ot Jay 

 and straw, which shows red where the plaster has 

 peeled away. The warm tint of the red s,>i| gives 

 unusual richness of colour to this part of Devon- 

 shire, and there are few prettier villages than 

 Otterton. 



Beyond the bridge which spans the transliuent 

 stream is a path leading to Bicton, which iies half a 

 mile away, and has a church built in 1850 by Lady 

 Rolle to replace a venerable structure then crumbling 

 to decay. Some part of it was retained and converted 

 into a family mausoleum, connected by a cloister 

 with the ancient tower. I lere in the times of the 

 Conqueror, or not long after, was seated one \Villiarr 



THE REATER AM) If/S S//.t/)OH. 



