Garden Memorafidums. 



619 



The zigzag walls {Encyc. of Gard.) we consider both better and cheaper. 

 Enter on a country of stone walls and hilly roads. 



Wentworth House. — Fine effect of the mausoleum from Greasborough 

 {fig. 160.); of the arched gateway and appropriate alto-relievo of the head 

 of Diana projecting over the archway. 

 This place is in many respects one of the 

 first in England ; all the features, both of 

 nature and art, are grand, and cooperate 

 with each other in the general effect. 

 What confirms us in this opinion is the 

 perfect recollection that we had of all the 

 main features, after a lapse of twenty years, 

 while we had almost entirely forgotten 

 those of some residences in the neighbour- 

 hood. It appears by our memorandum 

 journal that we viewed Wentworth House 

 on the 21st of Sept. 1805, and the mau- 

 soleum, breadth of lawn, masses of wood, grand hall of the mansion, and 

 straight walk in the flower-garden are noted as leading features. Some 

 clumps are objected to in our notes of that date, which have since probably 

 been thinned out, as we did not now observe their bad effect. After view- 

 ing the house, we went to the kitchen-garden, where Mr. Thompson showed 

 us three stools of queen pine-plants, each of which had produced a fruit of 

 about 3 lbs. weight early in the summer j and each of these stools had now 

 four suckers in fruit, and this fruit of a size that would probably ripen about 

 Christmas to 1 or 2 lbs. weight each. We also saw a sucker taken off about 

 two months ago bearing a fruit of considerable size. The flues in the hot- 

 houses here, at Bretton Hall, and other places, are cased with rubbed flag- 

 stone, with a vacuity of two or three inches between the brickwork and the 

 stone, which has a handsome appearance, prevents smoke from getting into 

 the house, lessens the risk of overheating, and such a body of materials, by 

 retaining a large mass of heat, lessens also the risk of overcooling in the 

 night-time. At Bretton Hall and other places the stone covers are hollowed 

 so as to hold water for the purpose of supplying moisture to the atmosphere 

 {fig. 161.); an excellent plan, which we have generally supposed to be the 



invention of the very ingenious Mr. 

 Butler, formerly gardener to Earl Derby, 

 and afterwards nurseryman at Prescot. 

 Two excellent pine and grape stoves 

 have recently been erected here, the 

 plants in which are most luxuriant. The 

 upper sashes are hung and balanced by 

 weights which rise and fall in the back shed, in the manner practised by 

 Messrs. Richard and Clarke, and by others of Birmingham. In 1805 we saw 

 for the first time, in the hot-houses here and at Harewood Hall, the Passiflora 

 quadrangularis in fruit. Mr. Thompson grows that very large pumpkin, 

 known in the London seed-shops as the Mammoth, and he has had it weigh- 

 ing half a cwt. when ripe. It is used in soups, and keeps during the whole of 

 the winter. One or two would supply a small family with a slice every day, 

 for nine months in the year. We expect from him some account of the 

 uses of this pumpkin, and the weight of the fruit now growing on his pine- 

 stools. [It is not now (1829) too late to hear from him upon these subjects.] 

 All the walls of the kitchen-garden are fined, and some of them 

 had, in 1 805, projecting wooden copings. There are still a 

 number of sashes destined for forming a temporary covering to 

 any part of them at pleasure. Late crops of grapes and figs were 

 now so covered, and we observed among the leaves heart- 

 shaped pale green glasses {fig. 162.) filled to the widest part ""WiG^, 



X X 4 



161 



