292 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



kitchen and offices and the other the stables. It was 

 an English house of its period, a house of the same 

 character and charm as Honington and Melton 

 Constable, as opposed to its great Italian neighbour, 

 Stowe the one a house to live in with delight, the 

 other a palace in which to be uncomfortable with 

 grandeur. Wotton was adorned in the style of the 

 time. The drawing-room and other apartments are 

 said to have been enriched with the work of Gririling 

 Gibbons, and for three years Sir James Thornhill 

 resided here and was employed in painting the 

 staircase and saloon, "engaged at a salary of /.'i,ooo 

 per annum, and his board." We have said enough 

 to show what was the character of Wotton House, 

 and so we may picture it, standing amid its beautiful 

 surroundings, in the possession of many great men, 



with so much violence th:it the Earl and Countess 

 Temple, their infant daughter, the domestics and a 

 visitor by whom the conflagration was first dis- 

 covered, escaped not without difficulty. The building 

 (excepting the wings) was completely destroyed in a 

 few hours." The mansion was subsequently rebuilt, 

 not, however, with all the old dignity nor improved 

 in appearance, but abridged of some of its rooms. 

 In relation to the descent of the property, it may be 

 enough to say that, upon the death of the third Duke 

 of Buckingham and Chandos, it passed, like the 

 Earldom of Temple of Stowe, to his nephew, father of 

 the present peer. 



During all the changes that came over the 

 place, nothing but good has come to its gardens. 

 These had been formed on the south and west of the 



THE STABLES, THE HOUSE AND '1HE KITCHEN. 



Earls Temple, Marquesses of Buckingham and Dukes 

 of Buckingham and Chandos. 



The sad misfortune came to Wotton House in 

 ,820 when it was a seat of the nobleman raised two 

 years later to the dukedom which we sometimes 

 fear must come, sooner or later, to all our old houses. 

 It would be a dismal prognostication that they should 

 all perish by fire, and we will hope that the splendid 

 survivors of the great fraternity of ancient mansions 

 may long be spared. The mural and ceiling 

 paintings of Thornhill, the splendid carvings of 

 Gibbons, and many other things that were beautiful, 

 were destroyed. Thus does the county historian 

 tell the tale : " These, with the house itself, its costly 

 furniture, pictures and contents of the library, were 

 doomed to destruction by an accidental fire, which 

 broke out in the night of the 2cjth October, and raged 



mansion, were varied with plantations, and included a 

 lake of 50 acres or 60 acres, which has since been 

 enlarged to about 250 acres, while the 2,000 acres 

 of the park have grown in beauty, owing to the deep 

 soil favouring the splendour of the woodland. The 

 forest trees were then, and are now, of immense 

 growth and great beauty. Lipscombe, in his 

 " Buckinghamshire," speaks of a mighty monarch 

 oak, 24ft. or 25ft. in girth, which overspread a 

 circular area of 5oyds. diameter. The fertility and 

 verdure of the park and gardens are wonderful, and 

 therein all things flourish. Strutt, who figures the 

 grand old tree in one of his splendid etchings, was a 

 careful observer, and said the girth of 2$ft. was 

 measured ift. above the ground, and that the trunk, at 

 1 2ft. from the ground, divided into four large limbs, 

 of which the principal one was I2ft. in circumference. 



