Tidworth. 471 



The house at Tidworth is situated in a bottom, with little 

 pretensions to architectural style ; but it is substantially built, and 

 contains a good suite of apartments, large, lofty, and well lighted, 

 and plainly, but comfortably, finished and furnished. The 

 bedrooms are numerous, and, with the dressing-rooms, are also 

 lofty and properly lighted and ventilated; and they are finished 

 in a style perfectly consistent with that of the principal rooms. 

 The furniture harmonises with the finishing; but, though both 

 are plain, it must not be thought that the effect produced is 

 meagre ; for the doors of the public rooms are of mahogany, and 

 the windows of plate glass. We examined the kitchen, fitted 

 up by Ward of London; the contrivance for supplying all the 

 bedrooms with hot water from the back of the kitchen fire, by 

 Stothert of Bath ; the bath room ; the arrangements for watering 

 the flower-garden and extinguishing fires, by Bramah; and the 

 game, meat, and vegetable larders, fitted up with slate; all of 

 which we found excellent. On the whole, this house is the most 

 complete and comfortable which we have met with since we left 

 London ; it is spacious, and yet habitable ; and everywhere sub- 

 stantially good, without the slightest appearance of glitter or 

 gaudiness. One peculiarity in it, and in all the other buildings 

 at Tidworth, is the use of Welsh slate, wherever it can be 

 brought in. All the bedroom, and many of the sitting-room 

 chimneypieces and hearths are formed of it; it is used for paving 

 the passages and courtyards ; for forming cisterns, troughs, 

 mangers, and orange-tree boxes ; for kitchen tables and side- 

 boards ; for a large mortar for culinary purposes ; for tables and 

 shelves in the dairy and larder ; and for a variety of similar uses. 



There is a handsome architectural conservatory, designed by 

 Mr. Page of Southampton, joined to the house; but on the 

 lawn, which is too much limited by the boundary fence, there 

 are a number of flower-beds put down at random, without any 

 obvious leading principle. The grounds on one side of the bot- 

 tom in which the house stands rise steeply, and are planted in 

 the style of a park terminating in massive woods ; on the other 

 side they rise, and are laid out as pleasure-ground, so contrived 

 as to conceal the kitchen-garden, stables, and dog-kennels. 

 There is a fine vista from the window of the study up this last 

 steep slope ; terminating in a small temple, with an intervening 

 fountain, which constitutes the finest scene in the pleasure- 

 ground. On the top of the hill is a well of great depth, from 

 which the water is raised by means of a steam-engine of four- 

 horse power, to a reservoir, from which the whole place is sup- 

 plied. One pipe surrounds the house; and has, at different 

 distances, branches to which leathern hose can be attached, by 

 which water can be conveyed to the distance of 150 ft., either 

 for the purpose of extinguishing fire in the house, or watering 



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