194- Notices of some Country Heats 



admirably grown. On one wall there are several apricot trees, 

 which, Mr. Groom, the gardener, informed us, the general con- 

 sidered to be as old as the place : they bear abundantly every 

 year. A branch of the river Kennet passes through the lower 

 part of the garden, in a straight walled canal: thus affording an 

 opportunity of growing excellent watercresses, and of keeping 

 crawfish, eels, and other fish in stews. There is a pond for 

 carp, surrounded by a rockwork or ridge of flints, planted with 

 strawberries, the fruit of which ripens a fortnight or three weeks 

 sooner than that in the open garden. 



This is one of the very few places which we have seen which 

 come entirely up to our ideas of high order and keeping, even 

 to the melon-ground and the back sheds. The walks in the 

 flower-gardens are chiefly of turf, and the flower-beds are brimful 

 of soil ; so that the line carried round them, though distinct, is 

 perfectly soft and delicate. The grass is smoothly mown ; and 

 the decayed flowers are pinched off daily by women. The 

 general not only allows as many men and women to be employed 

 as are necessary to keep the place in perfect order, but he pays 

 the men 3s. a week more than is given in the neighbourhood, 

 and allows half-wages during sickness. The gardener here, 

 Mr. Groom, is the son of the gardener to Sir Charles Cockerell, 

 at Seisincote, Gloucestershire: a place which we saw in 1806, 

 when it was highly kept; and which, we are informed, still con- 

 tinues to be one of the best kept places in England. The readers 

 of Sir Walter Scott's works will, no doubt, recollect the singular 

 tradition which he mentions respecting Littlecot Park. The 

 story is related at length in the Beauties of England and Wales; 

 and the room in which the tragical scene took place is said to be 

 still in existence. 



(To be continued.') 



Art. II. Notices of some Country Seats in the North-Eastern Counties 

 of England. By G. W. 



(Continued from p. 122.) 



White Hill, near Chester le Street, is the seat of John Cook- 

 son, Esq., who succeeded to the estates on the demise of his 

 father, Isaac Cookson, Esq., in 1832. That liberal patron of 

 gardening lived for more than half a century at this delightful 

 place; and to him it is indebted for the many great improve- 

 ments that were made in it under the management of his inde- 

 fatigable gardener, Mr. Crossling. The road, for half a mile 

 from Chester le Street to the end of the approach, is one of the 

 most picturesque imaginable : it winds up a valley, occasionally 



