510 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTUEB AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[ December 28, 1871. 



The mansion is partly built in the Grecian, partly in the 

 Italian style of architectiire, and is situated on the side of rising 

 ground, that ascends towards the hack and descends to a lake in 

 front, -which is said to have heen formed by damming hack a 

 riTulet which flowed in the hottom of the valley. This lake is 

 upwards of a mQe in length, and the irregularity of its outline, 

 its hroad expanse of water, and its accompaniments of trees and 

 shruhs, comhine to make it one of the great features of the place. 

 It has been supposed that the lake as well as much of the plant- 

 ing of the park was the work of the celebrated " Capability 

 Brown," who formed lakes at Blenheim and other places in a 

 similar manner. The principal front of the mansion faces the 

 south, and comprises the main portion of the building, with the 

 Grecian portico ; whOst extending westward is a wing 100 yards 

 long in the Italian style, containing the library, orangery, and 

 offices. A view of the south front of the mansion, taken from the 

 paik is given in the accompanying engraving. 



In front of the west wing just noticed are the terrace gardenF, 

 These extend the whole length of the west wing, and are on 

 two levels, the upper terrace being 8 feet higher than the lower 

 one, and divided from it by a wall surmounted by open work in 

 dressed freestone, with vases at the top, which are filled withi 

 Geraniums and other plants in summer. The width of this, 

 terrace is about 60 feet, and it is laid out in geometrical beds,, 

 grouped very effectively round two marble fountaias, one to- 

 wards each end of the terrace. Each bed has a dressed-stone- 

 edging 4 inches high and 3 inches wide, next there is a 3- inch, 

 space which is filled with white spar in summer, and then a low 

 Box-edging clipped square at top. Cypresses and Irish Yews, 

 kept in a strictly upright form are planted at intervals suitable, 

 to the design, which, though far from being so complicated as. 

 many others, and much more elegant, could not be adequately 

 described without an engraving. We now come to the lower 

 terrace, to which we descend by a broad walk and flight o£ 



Bowood— South Front and West Wing. 



This fills up the space between the tipper terrace and 

 the park, the two terraces being equal in width to the depth of 

 the main body of the building from the line of the west wing. 

 On each side of the walk leading down to this terrace is a bronze 

 stag. The upper terrace, it is believed, was formed in 1810 or 

 1811, and the lower one in 1851, when Mr. Spencer was the 

 gardener. This is separated from the park by a low freestone 

 balustraded wall, covered with Ivy and surmounted with vases ; 

 and at the west end is an architectural waU with a flight of 

 steps leading down to the garden, and dense masses of Laurus- 

 tinus, Phillyreas, and other shrubs closely cut-in, on each side 

 of a fountain. The retaining wall is likewise surmounted by 

 vases, and is of a bold architectural design, furnished, we 

 believe, by Mr. Kennedy, of Glasgow. This garden forms one of 

 the most beautitul features of Bowood ; even in winter with the 

 beds empty and with nothing but its upright Cypresses, its dark 

 Irish Yews, its close-shaven green turf, its architectural sur- 

 roundings, and its background of massive trees, it has a noble 

 and impressive appearance, but how much more attractive must 

 it be when the beds are all aglow with the liveliest colours ! 

 This terrace, like the upper one, dotted, as we have already said, 

 with Cypresses and Yews, was laid out by Mr. Spencer, and the 

 beds set in turf and a framework of bright-coloured gravel are 

 extremely neat. A good idea of the general appearance of this 

 portion of the garden wiU be obtained from the accompanying 

 engraving, but the outlines of the beds would require, and well 

 deserve, a separate representation, and to give a just conception 



of their effect in summer the aid of the colourist would also b* 

 necessary. 



In front of the east wing of the house is a croquet ground and 

 a small flower garden in Box with a raised bed, in the centre of 

 which are three boys supporting a terra-cotta basket of fruit. 

 Bound these is a 5-feet bed surrounded by a low Ivy- covered 

 wall, with scroll beds representing the Prince of Wales's feathers. 



After all it is in the extensive pleasure grounds and the still 

 more extensive park that we must look for the chief beauties of 

 Bowood. It is not in gay parterres, not in acres of bedding 

 plants, not in miles of ribbon-borders, in thousands of Gera- 

 niums, in hundreds of Verbenas, and in multitudes of the other 

 flowers which furnish the materials of what is called "bedding- 

 out " — not in all these that Bowood claims its high position 

 among the seats of our English nobility. Its undulating sur- 

 face, its wood, its water — these are its charms. Here soft-green 

 turf, there a rough tangle ; here the Pines of America, there the 

 Oak, and the Beech, and the Fir, the trees of our native land. 

 And then there are long glades affording glimpses of the far-off 

 hills, and steep banks densely clothed with grey lichen-covered 

 wood-growth, with lofty trees springing from the midst. Again, 

 we say, it is in these that the beauty of Bowood consists. 



But while thus descanting on what Nature and the hand of 

 the planter have done — and the skUl of the planter has done 

 much — we have forgotten to notice one of the main featmres of 

 the place, the waterfall at the head of the lake. One might weU. 

 suppose this to be a work of Nature, so well is the deception, 



