240 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



books. The house was burnt many years ago, and never 

 restored, but the gardens have been kept up in their original 

 state, as they were laid out by Mr. Benson. He was Ambassador 

 to Spain, and Queen Anne gave him a grant of land on Bramham 

 Moor ; after he had built a house and made gardens round it, 

 she paid him a visit there, and created him Lord Bingley. 

 Along the house is a terrace, and in front of it a grass parterre. 

 From thence are seen vistas through the beech and hornbeam 

 woods beyond. From the northern end of the terrace, a 

 straight walk between high cut hedges runs westward, and 

 leads at once into the most entrancing maze of long walks 

 diverging from each other at regular angles. At the end 

 of some there is a small summer-house, a seat, or statue, or 

 monument. From the ends of the walks furthest from the centre 

 the view ranges over the open country beyond. The garden 

 stands above the level of the park, therefore the terrace-wall 

 which divides them has all the effect of a sunk fence. But the^ 

 most delightful part, perhaps, is where the avenues are wider, 

 where the walks skirt the edge of a canal, and the tall trees are 

 reflected in its silent waters. There is an open space laid out 

 as a " French garden." In this case it is an oval slope of grass, 

 with large flower-beds in a regular pattern ; a summer-house 

 overlooks this garden, and to the back of the summer-house 

 there is a large bowling-green, surrounded by trees, among which 

 are the walks. At the opposite end of the oval garden there is a 

 basin and " cascade," and a short distance from this point the 

 path rejoins, at its southern end, the terrace which runs in front 

 of the house. The effect of this garden at Bramham, on a fine 

 autumn day, with the slanting beams of the evening sun, seen 

 through the long vistas shining on the golden-brown foliage of 

 the trees, is truly beautiful, and leaves an impression never to be 

 forgotten. 



There is a contemporary description of such a garden in a 

 letter written by Lord Percival to his brother-in-law, Daniel 

 Dering.* It is dated from Oxford, August gth, 1724 : 



" Friday morning left Becconsfield ; we went half a mile out 



* MS. belonging to Lord Egmont. 



