REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1904 141 



grounds by the new carriage-road which leads through a 

 well-wooded park, stocked with a fine herd of fallow deer, 

 and following the South bank of the river Aln terminates 

 in a fine terrace in front of the mansion-house. In former 

 days the drive lay along the North side of the river, as is 

 shown by the turf-covered road which crosses it at the 

 "Lady's Bridge," figured by Bewick in a well-known woodcut. 

 The modern building, which dates from 1720, forms a stately 

 quadrangular block of warm-coloured freestone, built on an 

 artificial terrace on the North bank of the river, and surrounded 

 by tastefully laid out gardens and shrubberies. In proof of 

 the salubrity of the climate, special note was taken of a 

 plant of Mahonia (Berheris aqui/olium), which had been 

 trained upon the front wall, and whose clusters of fruit of a 

 remarkable size and bloom formed a very beautiful decoration. 

 A sheet of water on the West side of the house is edged 

 with a splendid growth of Great Reed-Mace (Ti/pha lati/olia), 

 Purple Loosestrife ( Lythrum salicaria), Meadow-Sweet (Sjnrfva 

 ulmaria), Great flowering Dock (Rumex Hydrolajmthum), and 

 Great Hairy Willow-herb (Ejnlohium hirsutum), among which 

 many water-fowl might be seen darting to and fro in search 

 of food. The flower garden has always been remarkable for 

 its profusion of bloom, and the shrubberies for the care 

 bestowed upon them by the overseer, Mr Joseph Oliver, one 

 of our members, and a genuine type of a sterling Northumbrian, 

 as well as by his assistants. They abound not only in fine 

 specimens of modern flowers — the Sweet Peas being trained 

 to a height of twelve feet — but in good examples of old- 

 fashioned herbaceous plants, without which no garden is ever 

 complete. Conspicuous on the terrace were beds entirely filled 

 with Lithrum, whose rich pyramidal spikes contrasted well 

 with neighbouring plots of Marguerites, the massing of single 

 colours being a noteworthy feature of the gardener's art. A 

 fine Arborvitoe on the lawn is shaped after the pattern of a 

 peacock, a relic of the topiary work of an earlier generation. 

 It was with regret that the members learned that many 

 of the finest trees of the park, including a splendid Silver 

 Fir which had reached the height of one hundred and 

 twenty four feet, had succumbed to the gale of Saturday, 

 December 29th 1894. Among curiosities in the garden 



