582 Notes on Country Seats and Gardens. 



the public road, but the grounds are extensive and extremely varied. A very 

 steep bank descends from the house, in the form of a beautiful lawn, varied, 

 first, by flower-beds, next by groups of rare trees and shrubs, then an ap- 

 parently dense mass of wood, beyond which is seen the windings of the 

 Thames, continually varied by shipping. Tiie Thames is sufficiently near to 

 give the idea of its belonging to the place, and forming its boundary, and the 

 bends of the river are seen lengthwise, rather than directly across. Such is 

 the view from the principal garden front. The other view looks on a level 

 lawn, varied by flowers, and terminating in fine old trees. A walk leads in 

 this direction to a shady but airy avenue, on a level, an admirable place for 

 recreation during the hottest weather of summer, and to a terrace walk which 

 forms the circuit of the place. The taste of the owner is advantageously 

 displayed on the lawn by the small size of the beds, circular or roundish, and 

 their disposition into groups or constellations, which, as may easily be con- 

 ceived, form a new combination with every change of the spectator. This is 

 by far the most effective way to display flowers on a lawn, whether on a large 

 scale or a small one. The little circles of flowers ought to be considered as 

 trees and shrubs, and distributed over the surface, exactly on the same prin- 

 ciple as trees are distributed over the surface of a park. The kitchen-garden 

 we found well cropped, and the whole place in good order. Strawberries 

 planted on a surface sloping to the south, at an angle of 45° ; the soil being 

 loamy, and the surface covered with flat tiles, ripen three weeks earlier than 

 on a flat surface. Fig trees and morello cherries against walls are found to 

 produce most fruit when only the main branches are laid in, and the small 

 fruit-bearing shoots of the past year allowed to stand out from the wall. The 

 paradise apple is here raised by cuttings, and the plants, treated like gooseberry 

 bushes, produce enormous quantities of fruit, which, though not fit for the 

 dessert, is useful for culinary purposes. Agapanthus umbellatus attains an 

 extraordinary size in pots, which the gardener, Mr. Cockburn, attributes to his 

 shifting the plants once a year, shaking off all the soil, removing the offsets, 

 and replacing the plants in light rich soil quite loose, neither firming it with 

 the hand nor by the pressure of water poured from a pot held as high as a 

 man can reach. Annual flower seeds, and also potatoes, salading, and other 

 articles, are raised on dung beds without sashes, mats being thrown over 

 them, supported by hoops, only when extraordinary cold nights are anticipated. 

 The Kew pine strawberry is here found to bear almost as well as Keen's 

 seedling. 



WoodlandSy Blackheatli ; J. Angerstein, Esq. — We looked at this place 

 with a melancholy interest, recollecting the extraordinary sensation which it 

 made in the horticultural world when we first saw it in the year 1803. 

 At that time David Stewart, Esq., Land Agent, and Landscape Gardener, 

 of Great Russel Street, was then head gardener, and so great was his repu- 

 tation, that in a biography of living characters which was published about 

 that time, and included notices of all the principal men of the day, it is said, 

 when speaking of the late J. J. Angerstein, that he was " fortunate in having 

 for his gardener Mr. David Stewart." We have noticed Mr. Stewart's high 

 talents as a landscape-gardener, in speaking of Bearwood, in our volume for 

 1833, p. 679. 



Charlton House, Sir Thomas M. Wilson, Bart., is a noble mansion in the 

 Elizabethan style, or rather perhaps in that of James L, as it contains more 

 of the Roman or Italian than the earlier Elizabethan, which partakes more 

 of the domestic Gothic. The house is undergoing some changes, which we 

 hope will not be carried so far as to influence the exterior appearance of the 

 general mass. Some additional ground has lately been acquired on the en- 

 trance front, and this having given an opportunity of making a new approach, 

 the great mistake was committed of forming it in the modern style, thus 

 counteracting, as far as possible, the first impression made by one of the 

 finest old houses in England. The garden front was formerly thickly em- 

 bosomed in yew trees, which have been headed down, but they would be 



