THE GROVE, HIGHGATE 
occasions on which he fled to the garden; there is a tradition 
current on the spot, that his favourite haunt was a certain bosky 
walk between the right-hand wall, and the evergreen oak shown 
in my drawing. 
The gardens behind the Grove houses vie with each other in 
charm. They have in common the great beauty of their situation, 
and some of the larger ones—No. 3 is not among these—wander 
down the slopes of the valley which the houses overlook : in the 
days when land was not at a premium, and labour was cheap, 
when everything near London grew easily and well—they probably 
lost themselves on the hillside till they met a neighbouring garden 
and accepted a boundary wall. Dr. Gillman’s garden at the 
present day does not continue over the crest of the hill—if it ever 
did so, it was no doubt simply as a kitchen-garden. In any case, 
the existing garden—the picture of which was taken at the moment 
in late afternoon when the sinking sun sent sharp shadows from 
behind me—was probably, then as now, a flower-garden only. It 
is a long, comparatively narrow strip, set between two high brick 
walls. That to the left was not built yesterday: I should say 
that a portion of it is older than the house itself—the house that, 
once red-brick like its neighbours, was faced with stucco in the 
time of Dr. Gillman’s successor. It was probably he who raised 
the entire top story to the level of Coleridge’s study window, 
which Dr. Gillman, in order to give his friend and patient un- 
disturbed quiet and a perfect view—had had lifted higher than 
the rest. In an engraving in “ The Gillmans of Highgate,”’ it is 
shown standing tower-like by itself. In my illustration it is the 
top window to the extreme right of the picture. But this was 
not the only change made after Dr. Gillman’s death; the stone 
steps leading to the garden from the drawing-room, were removed 
from the centre of the verandah to their present position at the 
extreme left of it. They are of a venerable age—the feet of many 
distinguished literary men have trodden and worn them down— 
and for twenty summers Coleridge must have used them daily, 
supporting his hesitating steps by the iron railing. As for the 
garden itself, as it is to-day, I can only say that of all the gardens, 
little and large, that I have drawn—that of No. 3, the Grove, 
Highgate, though almost the smallest, is the sunniest and most 
flowery. There is scarcely an inch of soil between the roots of the 
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