DRIVES, AVENUES, AND SERVICE ROADS. 



Unnecess- 

 arily long 

 drives. 



the fallacy of the popular dictum as to the futility of compromises. Even the artist 

 must compromise with his medium and is bound by its limitations. 



Another misconception of the Early Victorian and Georgian schools of landscape 

 gardening which it is necessary to guard against, is that a long and meandering drive 

 adds dignity to a residence. From the time of Repton, or even earlier, it was sought to 

 express the value and state of a property by the length of its private roads, and in several 

 of the better known of our lordly domains, the direct connection with the highway, 

 guarded by symmetrically-placed gatehouses, was removed and miles of long, serpentine 

 drives laid out. In some cases the drive is even made to run parallel with the public 

 highway for a considerable distance, even where the most rational and direct planning 

 of the approach to the house would result in no drive at all, but merely in a carriage 

 court screened from the public road by gate houses or a high wall and gates, a plan 

 frequently adopted in the approaches to the old manor houses. Though such an arrange- 

 ment may, at first sight, appear to some people to be aesthetically undesirable, it is, 

 in effect capable of the most charming and dignified treatment, and has the further 

 advantage of giving to the remainder of the grounds more privacy and seclusion than 

 can be obtained by any other means, especially where the main entrance door to the 

 mansion and the public highway are both on the North side of the house, while the cost 

 of forming and maintaining an unnecessary drive is avoided. The question of cost, both 

 of construction and maintenance is a very serious one, and experience proves that long 

 meandering drives, unless protected for their whole length on both sides by fencing, are 

 very difficult to keep clean where there are cattle, and that, under any circumstances, 

 they are not so good for quick transit as the wide, skilfully macadamized and tarred 

 highway with which they compete. A striking instance of this Early Victorian fallacy is 

 given in the plan of Athelhampton Hall (111. No. 86). Here, there is very little 

 doubt that the approach to this beautiful and ancient domain was originally on much 

 the same lines as those to which the Author was privileged to restore them, as shown, 

 on the plan, but, when he was called in, the drive took the course shown by the 

 dotted lines, and there is no doubt that the change from the simple, direct and dignified 

 approach to one which runs close to and parellel to the highway for quite a distance, 

 was made when this false taste was in vogue. This instance is a particularly happy 

 one, as a glance at the plan shows immediately which method is to be preferred, 

 whether considered from the aesthetic or practical standpoints. Of course there are isolated 

 cases where the character of a highway so alters as it approaches the house that it is 

 undesirable for the drive to leave it at the point nearest to the mansion. Such a 

 case occurred in the gardens laid out by the Author for Arthur Roberts, Esq., of 

 Windermere. Here, the roadway, after being of a reasonable width and more or less 

 satisfactorily graded for a considerable distance, suddenly deteriorated and became little 

 more than a farm track. In this instance, the only satisfactory solution of the problem 

 of the route the drive should take, was reached by placing its commencement at the 

 extreme corner of the estate nearest to the point where the roadway narrowed so that 

 only a few yards of the poorer portion must be traversed before reaching the main 

 entrance gates, not more, in fact, than it would be possible to regrade by agreement 

 with the rural authorities without prohibitive expense to the proprietor of the mansion. 



Another exception to the rule that the drive should be as direct as possible, must 

 be made in favour of those domains reached through exceptionally beautiful scenery, 

 where, by reasonable deflection of its course, the approach can be taken through 

 some especially fine country or romantic glen. No economic advantage, for instance, 

 could justify the removal of the drive through Hawkestone Park in Staffordshire from 

 under the natural arch of rock which at present spans it, and there are numberless 

 instances of a similar kind in other parts of the country. This acknowledgment of 



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