Trentham, Alton To'wcrs. 391. 



from every thing else. Though he consulted almost every artist, 

 ourselves among the rest, he seems only to have done so for 

 the purpose of avoiding whatever an artist might recommend. 

 After passing in review before him a great number of ideas, 

 that which he adopted was always different from every thing 

 that had been proposed to him. His own ideas, or his vari- 

 ations of a plan that he had procured, were transferred to 

 paper by an artist, or clerk of the works, whom he kept on 

 purpose; and often, as we have been informed by Mr. Lunn, 

 the late gardener, were marked out on the grounds with liis 

 own hands. The result, speaking of Alton as it was at the 

 time of the late earl's death in 1827, and as we saw it shortly 

 before, viz. in October, 1826, was one of the most singular 

 anomalies to be met with among the country residences of 

 England. An immense pile of building in the way of house, 

 with a magnificent conservatory and chapel, but with scarcely 

 a habitable ]'oom ; a lofty prospect tower, not built on the 

 highest part of the grounds ; a bridge and an embankment 

 over a valley, without water underneath ; ponds and lakes on 

 the tops of hills ; a quadrangular pile of stabling in the midst 

 of the pleasure ground ; and, what maybe said to have eclipsed, 

 and still to eclipse, every thing else, a valley, naturally in a 

 high degree romantic with wood, water, and rocks, filled with 

 works of the highest degree of art in architecture and gar- . 

 dening. The private apj^roach roads to Alton, on every side, 

 are several miles in length ; they are conducted along the 

 bottoms and sides of winding rocky valleys, with a stream in 

 the bottom, and the sides more or less wooded. It is difficult 

 to decide whether the best approach be that from Uttoxeter 

 or that from Cheadle. We arrived from the former town in 

 1826, and from the latter this year. 



By the road leading from Uttoxeter we came unexpectedly 

 close to the house, and near the head of the north side of 

 the valley, which contains the chief wonders of the place. 

 The first objects that met our eye were the dry Gothic 

 bridge and embankment leading to it, with a huge imita- 

 tion of Stonehenge beyond, and a pond above the level of 

 the bridge alongside of it, backed by a mass of castellated 

 stabling. Farther along the side of the valley, to the right 

 of the bridge, is a range of architectural conservatories, with 

 seven elegant glass domes, richly gilt. Farther on still, to 

 the right, and placed on a high and bold naked rock, is a 

 lofty Gothic tower or temple, consisting of several tiers of 

 balconies round a central staircase and rooms ; the exterior 

 ornaments numerous, and resplendent with gilding. Near 

 the base of the rock is a fountain, of a peculiar construction, 



c c 4< • 



