Chapter VIII 



Pleasure-Grounds — Flower-Gardens — Greenhouse 

 and Conservatories — Various Modes of attaching 

 them to a House 



IN the execution of my profession, I have often ex- 

 perienced great difficulty and opposition in attempt- 

 ing to correct the false and mistaken taste for placing 

 a large house in a naked grass-field, without any appar- 

 ent line of separation betwixt the ground exposed 

 to cattle and the ground annexed to the house, which 

 I consider as peculiarly under the management of art. 

 This line of separation being admitted, advantage may 

 be easily taken to ornament the lawn with flowers and 

 shrubs, and to attach to the mansion that scene of 

 embellished neatness, usually called a pleasure-ground. 

 The quantity of this dressed ground was formerly very 

 considerable. The royal gardens of Versailles or those 

 of Kensington Palace, when filled with company, want 

 no other animation ; but a large extent of ground with- 

 out moving objects, however neatly kept, is but a mel- 

 ancholy scene. If solitude delight, we seek it rather 

 in the covert of a wood or the sequestered alcove of 

 a flower-garden than in the open lawn of an extensive 

 pleasure-ground. 



I have therefore frequently been the means of restor- 

 ing acres of useless garden to the deer or sheep, to which 

 they more properly belong. This is now carrying on 

 with admirable eff^ect at Bulstrode, where the gardens 

 of every kind are on a great scale, and where, from the 



