420 THE VILLA GARDENER. 



SECTION IV. 



DESIGNS FOR COUNTRY MANSIONS, 



483. As Country Mansions are generally places of too much importance to 

 be laid out without the aid of regular architects and landscape-gardeners, we 

 shall only give a very few examples : and these, with only one exception, will 

 be of places actually in existence. 



Design XXX. — Plan and description of Wimbledon House, Surrey, the pro- 

 perty of Mrs. Marryatt. 



484. General Observations. — This estate, which once belonged to the cele- 

 brated Bond Hopkins, Esq., and was laid out for him about the middle of the 

 last century, consists of about 100 acres of table-land, slightly varied on the 

 surface, not by undulations, bold swells, deep valleys, or precipitous declivi- 

 ties, but by unconnected hollows, or large gullies, of little beauty in them- 

 selves, but capable of producing considerable effect when filled with water, as 

 the principal one now is. In a word, the grounds at Wimbledon House have 

 naturally little to recommend them beyond their extent, and the circumstance 

 of their falling in a gradual manner from the lawn front of the house, so as 

 to display from that front an interesting view of the distant country. The 

 chief merit of the place, as a suburban residence, consists in its completeness, 

 the whole lying compactly within a ring fence, and there being a most com- 

 modious mansion, with complete domestic offices, a park, a farm (including 

 a dairy and a poultry-yard), a kitchen -garden, and a flower-garden; the 

 latter, perhaps, unrivalled in the neighbourhood of London, for the number 

 of species and varieties of herbaceous plants that it contains. Mrs. Marryatt 

 has long been an enthusiastic admirer of flowers, and especially of such as 

 are sufficiently hardy to make a display in the flower-garden. She also main- 

 tains a good collection of greenhouse and hothouse plants ; and many of 

 these, as well as hardy plants, have flowered at Wimbledon House for the first 

 time in England, as the botanical periodicals for the last twenty years bear 

 ample witness. Among the more beautiful and remarkable greenhouse plants 

 which have flowered for the first time at Wimbledon, is the Tacsonia pinnati- 

 stipula, one of the most elegant, and at the same time singular, of climbing 

 shrubs. There are few horticultural exhibitions that have taken place since 

 the Society commenced this mode of encouraging gardening, in which Mrs. 

 Marryatt, or her gardener, Mr. Redding, has not obtained a medal. 



485. The Park at Wi?nbledon House cannot be considered as having been 

 planted with much taste ; but there are some fine old trees in it, near the 

 house, especially evergreen oaks. The pieces of water do not form agreeable 

 shapes on paper, but, in the reality, at a distance from the eye, and with their 

 outlines more or less disguised by trees, the effect is good, particularly that of 

 the principal one, seven acres in extent, as seen from the house. Fig. 294. 

 shows a portion'of this piece of water, looking towards the house. Beyond 

 a certain size, the form of a piece of water is of little consequence ; but when 

 it is so small as to be readily comprehended as a whole by a spectator at no 



