OX GARDENS 255 



I accompanied my Lady Clarendon to her house at 

 Swallowfield in Berks, dining by the way at Mr. 

 Graham's lodge at Bagshot ; the house, new repair'd 

 and capacious enough for a good family, stands in a 

 Park. 



Hence we went to Swallowfield ; this house is after 

 the antient building of honourable gentlemen's houses, 

 when they kept up antient hospitality, but the gardens 

 and waters as elegant as 'tis possible to make a flat, by 

 art and industrie, and no meane expence, my lady 

 being so extraordinarily skill'd in the flowery part, and 

 my lord in diligence of planting ; so that I have hardly 

 seene a seate which shews more tokens of it than what 

 is to be found here, not only in the delicious and rarest 

 fruits of a garden, but in those innumerable timber trees 

 in the ground about the seate, to the greatest ornament 

 and benefit of the place. There is one orchard of 

 1000 golden, and other cider pippins; walks and 

 groves of elms, limes, oaks, and other trees. The 

 garden is so beset with all manners of sweet shrubbs, 

 that it perfumes the aire. The distribution also of the 

 quarters, walks, and parterres, is excellent. The nur- 

 series, kitchin garden full of the most desireable plants ; 

 two very noble Orangeries well furnished ; but above 

 all, the canall and fishponds, the one fed with a white, 



