THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
357 
from it to the chapel, above a mile long, and 90 feet wide. The chapel is 
an elegant building, and very ornamental from several points of view. The 
kitchen-garden is quite in the old style, with grass walks, which have 
remained undisturbed for above a hundred and fifty years. The river 
Tyne has a fine effect from several parts of the grounds. 
The Gateshead Nursery , which we saw on our road back to Newcastle, 
was very clean, and contained some good specimens of plants. 
September 22 .—Ravensworth Castle , which was the first place we 
visited after quitting Newcastle, was one of the very finest places we saw 
during our whole tour. The castle has been lately rebuilt from the 
designs of one of his lordship’s sons, the Hon. Thomas Liddell; and it is 
in the very purest Gothic. Nothing can be more beautiful than the 
interior of the library, and the picture gallery; the latter of which is 
lighted by cusp windows in the roof. The same artistical feeling is shown 
in the grounds ; the flowers on the garden front are so arranged as to har¬ 
monise beautifully with the castle, and the planting is so contrived as to 
leave an uninterrupted view from the windows, without there being any 
appearance of an intentional opening. In the grounds the gardens are laid 
out with the same view: and throughout the whole place art has been 
called in to aid nature in the most able manner. I was particularly 
pleased with the winter walk, and the holly wood; two scenes, both 
displaying the greatest taste, though widely different from each other. 
The trees in the park were uncommonly fine, Lord Ravensworth being 
one of the very few landed proprietors of this country who has long 
practised, and perfectly understands the advantage of judicious and early 
thinning. In the course of our tour we had seen so many examples of the 
evil effects of neglecting thinning altogether, or at least of not practising 
it till too late, that I am happy in being able to record the name of one 
nobleman who has had the courage to cut down his trees at the exact time 
when it was most advantageous to do so. Among the other interesting 
trees at Ravensworth are some old cedars, growing in what was once the 
kitchen-garden ; which look as though a few seeds had been sown in a 
seed-bed, and the plants they produced left to take their chance. These 
cedars are evidently very old, and as even their position possesses a 
degree of interest, from the light it appears to throw on their origin, they 
are suffered to remain exactly in their original state. 
Lambton Castle is a modern building, placed in a very fine situation, with 
a noble terrace looking down on the river. The view from this terrace is 
magnificent. The house is good, but it contains nothing remarkable; 
and the kitchen-garden is decidedly bad, being placed in the very worst 
situation for such a garden in the whole domain. 
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VOL. I.—NO. XII. 
