Gardens J or Small Country Houses. 



27 



CHAPTER IV.— WESTBROOK, GODALMING. 



Situation — Special Compartments — Careful Planting Sclieme — Winter Garden — Covered 



Seats — Floiver Border Facing North. 



WHEN an architect of ripe experience and keen sensibility plans a house and 

 garden for his own liome, one may look for something more than usually 

 interesting, and in Westbrook one is not disappointed. The house, built 

 by Mr. Thackeray Turner of the hard local sandstone, stands on a plateau of high 

 ground to the west of Godalming ; the deep 

 \'alley of the river Wey is to the north and 

 the valley of a tributary stream a little way 

 to the south. The upper trees of a steep 

 hanger on the northern side rise protectingi}', 

 and on all the outskirts there are also trees, 

 with here and there a distant view between 

 their masses. 



The garden fronts are nearly south and 

 west. On the south side a low wall encloses 

 a paved space |with beds and border of 

 flowers, an eastward flight of steps leading 

 down to further flower-borders. Straight 

 in front is a wide, quiet lawn, bounded 

 on the right by a long paved path shaded 

 by pleached limes. 



The garden to the west of the house 

 abounds in charming surprises. Its various 

 subdivisions are linked together in a simple 

 general design. Each section shows soiue 

 distinct way of making a garden picture, 

 and each entices onwards to the next by 

 the charm of mystery and the stimulus of 

 pleasant anticipation of something stfll better 

 to follow. The main design has a walling 

 of yew hedges, now, after a growth of 

 thirteen years, approaching maturity. Within 

 their several compartments are a small sunk 

 garden of summer flowers, a rose garden 

 and one for late autumn. Between these, 

 crossing and forming in both directions the 

 axis of the design, are twelve-foot-wide grass 

 paths with flower-borders on either hand ; 

 the bright blossom showing finely against 



the background of dark yew. Turning ^j^ 32.— the pleached lime w.^lk, erom 

 southward at the intersection of the two the study window, view point " b" on 

 grassy ways, a double arch of yew comes in general plan (fig. 33). 



