GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



Richmond, and (protected on one side by the river) is so out of 

 the way that no trams or 'buses are likely to disturb its picturesque 

 seclusion it is a fact that no sooner was it known that Sir John 

 had bought it, than someone in Hammersmith came to him and 

 sought to purchase it from him, in order to turn it into a steam 

 laundry ! 



No member of the Thornycroft family a family distinguished 

 both in art and engineering science, has resided at Walpole House 

 but one has made great use of the garden. Beautiful in itself, 

 the garden gains in interest from the fact that the group in plaster 

 of the well-known Boadicea group at Westminster, the work of 

 the late Thomas Thornycroft, was housed for some time in a 

 corrugated iron building erected in the garden in a spot at some 

 distance from the house itself, which it is probable was formerly 

 the playing-ground of Dr. Turner's pupils. ' The Boadicea group," 

 to quote from a letter from Lady Thornycroft, " was cast at 

 Frome, but lived in plaster for some years in the building put 

 up for it by my husband, until he could get a site given whereon 

 it could be put up in bronze." She also tells me, in this con- 

 nection, that " A really interesting fact is that my husband, feeling 

 sure that motor vehicles would become general, started twenty-three 

 years ago, ' the Steam Wagon Company ' as a private enterprise ; 

 not in connection with the Church Wharf works where torpedo- 

 boats, and destroyers were built. The Steam Wagon Co. has now 

 become the motor works at Basingstoke, where the weekly turn-out 

 is over twenty sometimes thirty motor lorries a week, all of 

 which are built for the Government, besides motors for boats 

 for the Admiralty. ' Boadicea House,' as we called the building, 

 was the early workshop for the motor vehicles which took the 

 place of the steam-driven lorries first made." 



' Boadicea House " no longer exists the site that once it stood 

 on is now a stretch of green lawn bordered with flowers and 

 separated from the tennis lawn by a pergola of considerable length, 

 and of much beauty when the sun, shining through the trellised 

 roof, sends flickering lights and shadows across the walk below. 



The erection of " Boadicea House " in the rear of the garden 

 must necessarily have destroyed its picturesqueness for a time, 

 and corrugated iron in a Restoration garden seems incongruous. 

 What would Evelyn have said to it ? 



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