Wardouf Castle. 505 



ruins of the ancient castle, is fine and highly interesting. The 

 ruins exhibit a mixture of Gothic and Grecian, the latter pro- 

 bably being added in the time of Elizabeth. Many of the old 

 yews and hollies, which were formerly, it is said, cut into the 

 forms of soldiers on guard, still remain. Near the castle is a 

 banqueting room, most nobly kept up for the use of the public^ 

 who have free admission to the grounds at all times, and who 

 here find a large well furnished room in which to take their re- 

 freshments, and a person to wait upon them. There is a smaller 

 room, with a dining table, for the accommodation of any party 

 who may wish to dine by themselves, and in the large room are 

 numerous small tables, chairs, and sofas, in the manner of the 

 rural coffee houses of France and Germany. Both rooms are 

 very appropriately ornamented with pi'ints of all the principal 

 old castles in England. There are also panels of looking- 

 glasses, and two fire places. The attendant lives, and has her 

 kitchen, in the floor below. Near the ruins is an extensive piece 

 of grotto scenery, put up by the same individual who executed 

 the grotto at Fonthill and that at Oatlands. His name was 

 Josiah Lane, and he was a native of the adjoining parish of Tis- 

 bury, in the workhouse of which he died last year, at a great age ! 

 He was perfectly ignorant, but certainly had a genius for this 

 kind of construction. He used to do all the work with his own 

 hands, and be paid at the rate of about two guineas a week; but, 

 like other money-getting men with ill regulated minds, he never 

 thought of making provision for age. Another good feature in 

 the grounds of Wardour Castle is the American garden, which 

 contains some good old specimens, especially of arbor vitae, red 

 cedar, tulip trees, and white spruce, and a hemlock spruce 40 ft. 

 high, the trunk of which is 3 ft. across at the surface of the 

 ground. There are some very large rhododendrons and azaleas, 

 and some of the newer varieties of them, and of other American 

 trees and shrubs, are being added from time to time. The 

 shrubbery walk, which leads to the American ground, contains 

 some fine specimens of platanus, Turkey evergreens, and Luc- 

 combe oaks, cedars, Portugal laurels, &c. ; and here, and in a 

 part of the American ground, a number of species of pines and 

 firs are introduced. They are numbered with cast-iron numbers, 

 which we regret, because, by putting the names to them at length, 

 they would be read by the hundreds of persons who come every 

 year to see this place; and thus a knowledge and taste for such 

 trees might be spread throughout the country. There is nothing 

 that we dislike more about a gentleman's seat, than to see the 

 same forms of hothouses, and the same modes of numbering 

 plants adopted, which are common in nurseries, excepting always 

 the kitchen-garden, in which they are appropriate. The kitchen- 

 garden here is divided into compartments by beautiful grass 



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