THE CHOICE OF A SITE AND ITS TREATMENT. 



and service road. For the details of this work the reader is referred to a subsequent 

 chapter. It is sufficient here to point out that, as already arranged, the house is placed 

 near the old farmstead on a natural plateau about two hundred yards long from East 

 to West and eighty yards broad, and, as the railway station is about three miles distant 

 to the North-west, the most convenient position for the entrance will be as shewn 

 on the plan (No 10). This demands that the service road and the kitchen garden, 

 laundry green and offices should be to the North-east of the main block. Had the 

 main bulk of the traffic approached from the opposite direction, and the entrance there- 

 fore been placed near the North-east corner, the conditions would have been more 

 ideal. 



The kitchen garden, which is in direct communication with the service block, is, 

 with the surrounding borders, an acre in extent. It is surrounded by walls, that on 

 the North-east side being ten feet six inches high, built of the local stone with a pro- 

 jecting coping and with weather boarding as described in the chapter on kitchen gardens. 

 It has also wires strained horizontally on its South-west face twelve inches apart for the 

 training of fruit trees. The wall dividing the kitchen garden from the pleasure grounds 

 is furnished with pilasters twenty feet apart to impart character to it, and, for a short 

 distance from the garden house at the Southernmost corner, wrought iron panels are 

 inserted in the wall to allow extended views in this direction. At this corner of the 

 kitchen garden the ground is raised on the outside so that there is space under the 

 garden house for a store for tools, etc., with an opening into the kitchen garden. The 

 garden house and the wrought iron bays in the wall are clearly indicated at the right- 

 hand end of the lower portion of the section (111. No. 12). In order that the kitchen 

 garden may be used for promenading, as suggested in a subsequent chapter, a long walk 

 is formed communicating with the pleasure grounds and forming, at its Western end, 

 a part of the upper terrace. 



Having thus disposed of the more utilitarian portion of the grounds, the pleasure 

 gardens must now claim our attention. Here greater regard must be paid to the ex- 

 isting natural features than on a site devoid of natural beauty and, in order to preserve 

 the coppice woods, the formal gardens are somewhat smaller than would otherwise have 

 been the case. Apparent extent is, however obtained by means of the very strongly 

 marked axial line at right angles to the South front of the house, which is continued 

 across the lake by the garden temple on the opposite bank, as may be seen from the 

 plan (No. 10), and which has necessitated the drawing of the sections (No. 12). 



Working outwards from the front of the house along this section line, we must dis- 

 pose the levels of the made ground in accordance with the fall of the land considered 

 in conjunction with the height of the house and the breadth of frontage, being careful 

 at the same time to allow for an equal amount of cutting and filling so as just to use 

 up all the material excavated, and to arrange so that very sudden changes in level 

 with consequent engineering feats in the way of strong retaining walls are avoided. 



The principal terrace is approached from the house either from the conservatory or 

 loggia at the South-west corner or the garden entrance from the drawing room, which 

 opens into the covered way leading to the glasshouses in the kitchen garden (No. n). 

 It can also be reached from the carriage drive through a wrought iron gate in an arched 

 opening in the wall which divides this terrace from the drive. Its width is forty feet, 

 which is made up as follows. The border next to the house is seven feet wide, then 

 comes seven feet six inches of grass which divides it from the walk ten feet across, and 

 beyond this there is fourteen feet of grass between the walk and the wall, the thickness 

 of which makes up the forty feet. 



It is proposed that the upper terrace shall be supported by a handsome balustraded 

 wall, and a broad flight of steps in the centre of this leads down to the lower terrace 



Entrance 

 drive. 



The kitchen 

 garden. 



Main axis 

 of pleasure 

 grounds. 



The 



principal 



terrace. 



3 1 



