588 Garden Calls : — Michel Grove, 



dereJ so complicated and deformed by what has been already done. It is 

 but justice to Mr. Wood to state, that the leading feature of these sug- 

 gestions, the water and the pleasure-ground around it, belongs to him. 



The gardener's house here is not inconvenient; but the floor is on a level 

 with the walks, and the walls of the rooms having been plastered with sea 

 sand have an appearance of dampness. The common excuse for low floors 

 and low ceilings is the desire of concealing the building from the general 

 view ; but surely good sense and humanity require that this concealment 

 should never be effected at the risk of the health and comfort of fellow- 

 creatures of any kind, more especially of those on whom so much of our 

 enjoyments depend as servants. Wherever two stories of ample-sized rooms 

 would be too high, the bed-rooms may easily be built on the same floor as 

 the day-rooms. 



Michel Grove, near Arundel. August 15. — This is a place of consider- 

 able extent and some natural beauty, arising from the undulating chalk 

 hills, but unfortunately without water. The house is situated in a dry valley, 

 and looks on a rising bank, and like West Dean, Blackdown, and every other 

 house so situated, conveys to a stranger the expression of fixed and imprac- 

 ticable melancholy. It was purchased about the end of the last century 

 by Mr. Walker, the son of a Liverpool merchant, who, it is said, was his own 

 architect, probabl)' in imitation of the late Duke of Norfolk, and whose 

 landscape-gardener was Mr. Repton. The castellated exterior of the house 

 is not bad, though deficient in simple and grand masses ; the interior, an 

 ill-natured critic might say, displays a mixture of prettiness and gorgeous- 

 ness ; we shall only state it not to be simple, elegant, or grand. There is an 

 immense drawing-room most gorgeously finished and furnished, with an ob- 

 vious allusion in the form of the ceiling to one of the three notable rooms, 

 we forget which, in the Pavilion of Brighton, which rooms we do not like 

 much better than that at Michel Grove. The whole estate having been 

 lately purchased by the Duke of Norfolk, he has sold the furniture and ma- 

 terials of this costly house to a local auctioneer, and in a few months it will 

 be rased to the ground. As characteristic of the late proprietor's character, 

 we shall relate one circumstance that was stated to us by Mr. Wood : The 

 Arundel coach having repeatedly refused or neglected to bring from Lon- 

 don some brass work intended for a staircase erecting at Michel Grove, 

 Mr. Walker was so angry at the neglect or insult, that he determined on 

 starting an opposition coach ; did so, procured the swiftest horses, regardless 

 of their price, drove the coach himself, killed several horses worth 100/. each, 

 and ultimately put down the coach which he opposed, by ruining the family 

 who were its proprietors. When acting as coachman, Mr. Walker was 

 most active in seeking for, and assiduously attentive to, his passengers, and 

 received from them the usual gratuity of 6d, or Is. uncovered and with 

 every expression of thanks. 



In the kitchen-garden is a vinery which was planted, the present gardener 

 states, between 50 and 60 years ago, by one Russel, a Scotch gardener, and 

 this man's master. The stems of the vines are outside the house, their 

 roots in a bed ofearth 5 ft. wide and 3 ft. deep, and completely confined by 

 the front wall, which is not built on arches, on one side, and by the native 

 bed of chalk which rises to within 6 inches of the surface, on the other side, 

 and at bottom. Notwithstanding this limited space for the roots, the 

 branches inside the house have all along borne good crops. Last year the 

 gardener found the bed ofearth matted with fibres, as he expresses it, like 

 a wig of black hair, and he has removed the chalk in front and widened the 

 border, not doubting that he shall thereby add to the fruitfulness of the 

 vines, and to the size of the berries. We have no doubt Russel's object 

 was to prevent the vines from running too much to wood, the shoots being 

 confined to the rafters, and to induce fruitfulness. At all events, it is im- 

 portant to know experimentally that vines will bear for such a length of 



