2 4 
BRIDGE END GARDENS, SAFFRON WALDEN. 
PLATE 37*. 
|HE little Dutch garden, illustrated on this Plate, was laid out about sixty years ago, 
and is an interesting example of the formal style, since it shows that the older 
tradition was never entirely obliterated in country places during the days when the 
landscape garden had become so popular as to have spread well-nigh all over 
England. As shown on the Plate, it has little walks bordered with box-edging, 
and a fountain and pond in the centre, while close by is a summer-house with a 
rather elaborate doorway and scroll pediment. These gardens are now the property 
of the Right Hon. Lewis Fry, who has generously thrown them open to the public as a pleasure ground. 
An old garden, not however one of any great pretension, formerly occupied part of the ground, and 
at one time was attached to a neighbouring house, though not actually adjoining it. The gardens occupy 
an irregular piece of ground, partly surrounded by meadow land. On the north east is a small circular 
maze set in a shrubbery with a pleached alley adjoining, on one side of which is an oblong kitchen 
garden. There is also a circular rose garden and lawn, with here and there a stone vase or sundial 
or statue dotted about which are all of good detail. A well-proportioned open balustrade separates the 
garden from the meadows. 
ARLEY HALL, CHESHIRE. 
PLATES 38, 39. 
IOR upwards of four centuries Arley Hall has been the residence of the Warburton 
family. A quadrangular house of wood and plaster, built by Piers Warburton, 
lUfH f° rm erly occupied the site of the present hall, and in 1746 this house was cased in 
■A brick and otherwise altered. Omerod, in his “ History of Cheshire ” (1819), describes 
the house as forming a quadrangle enclosing a courtyard laid out with parterres 
of flowers. In 1834 this building was demolished and the present house com¬ 
menced ; the works were carried on at intervals until 1849. Old maps show that 
there was a garden attached to the old hall, but the present garden was laid out when the house was 
rebuilt in the Jacobean style. On the north side is a chapel built in 1845, from the design of Anthony 
Salvin, and enlarged in 1856-1857 by G. E. Street. To the west of the house, by the stables, is an old 
barn supposed to date from the time of Henry VII. 
The general appearance of the surrounding country is flat, though Arley lies on high ground ; the 
land slopes away on the south-eastern side of the Hall towards a large piece of water and extensive 
plantations. A drive through the park leads to the forecourt on the south front of the hall, in which is 
a leaden figure of the kneeling slave. From the forecourt a gate leads to the flower garden, an oblong 
space about 300 feet by 200, enclosed within an open balustraded wall, and with a fountain pond 
in the centre. Beyond the flower garden, on the north, is the archery ground. 
A broad walk, 200 yards long, skirted on one side by a “ha-ha,” leads from the forecourt to the 
