THE GREAT CONSERVATORY AT TEDWORTII. 107 



started on, only riders changed." Mr. Greene was tlie 

 first native master of hounds in Leicestershire. 



In 1845, the state of Mrs. Smith's health causing her 

 liusband great anxiety, he was apprehensive of being 

 obliged to take her to a foreign climate for the winter. 

 Both were, however, unwilling to leave a spot where each 

 had so many objects of interest and enjoyment : he his 

 favourite sport, and she her schools, her poor, and the 

 management of the house and grounds, the details of 

 which, at Ted worth, Mr. Smith intrusted entirely to her. 

 The squire, therefore, determined to bring Madeira to 

 England, rather than be obliged to repair to the former in 

 quest of health ; with this view he erected a magnificent 

 conservatory, 315 feet in length, and 40 feet in width, 

 where, with a temperature always raised to a certain heat, 

 Mrs. Smith might take walking exercise during the winter 

 months. A Wiltshire farmer, on first seeing this building, 

 observed, he supposed the squire had it made in order to 

 hunt there when a frost stopped him in the field. Along 

 the whole length of this Crystal Palace in miniature was a 

 broad walk laid with the finest gravel, and ranged on each 

 side were thousands of the most beautiful plants, remarkable 

 even at Christmas time for the richness of their hues, and 

 their fragrance. The conservatory is approached from an 

 ante-room of the house by a corridor, glazed on one side, 

 and 965 feet in length, forming, with the conservatory, 

 nearly a quarter of a mile of glass, and warmed throughout 

 with double pipes containing hot water. It was a melan- 

 choly spectacle to see the squire the winter before his 

 death, when he could no longer join his hounds, mount one 

 of his favourites — Euxine, Paul Potter, or Blemish — with 

 the assistance of a chair, and take his exercise for an hour 

 at a foot's pace up and down this conservatory, often with 

 some friend at his side to cheer him up, and wile away the 

 time until he re-entered the house, for he was not allowed 

 at that period to go out of doors. Even in this feeble con- 



