APRIL. 
101 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY’S NEW GARDENS. 
For three days the members of the Horticultural Society—which 
begins to be very much the same as saying the London public—have 
been admitted to see the new gardens at South Kensington, and very 
beautiful they have found them. These Gardens are included within 
the quadrangle composed by the Kensington Road on the north—where 
was originally Gore House, belonging to the Countess of Blessington— 
the new Cromwell Road to the south—^Prince Albert’s Road on the 
west—and, at the east, Exhibition Road. The whole of the space 
within this quadrilateral is not occupied by the Plorticultural Society— 
a portion of land on the north being left unoccupied, with a frontage 
towards the Kensington Road, while on the south, several hundred feet 
in depth, and the entire width from east to west, with a section at the 
south-west angle, is devoted to the International Exhibition of 1862. 
To this the Gardens, with their waters, vast plats of level turfing and 
innumerable flowers, will be a delightful and appropriate adjunct. 
The whole space occupied by the Horticultural Society is about 1200 
by 800 feet, the longest measurement being from north to south. In 
the same direction, the gradient of the land, or its natural slope, is 
about thirty feet incline, that being the difference between the levels o.f 
the Cromwell and the Kensington Roads. This affords an ample fall 
for the water, and, most conveniently, the introduction of a series of 
slopes, turfed terraces, and grassy banks, which, with the shallow 
flights of steps employed at intervals, will add greatly to the variety of 
the aspect presented by the whole. The soil is a well-drained gravel. 
We will introduce the reader as he may enter those Gardens on the 
4th of June next, with, we hope. Her Majesty, for that is the day 
which the Committee, accustomed to do great things in extraordinary 
circumstances, have announced for the opening. The entrance is to the 
south-east, from Exhibition Road, within 100 yards of the South 
Kensington Museum. We pass through the narrow belt of exterior 
garden, that is to be tastefully laid out for the benefit of the public in 
general. The front of the entrance-building is as yet but a plain piece 
of brick-work; but it is to assume architectural proportions and 
pretensions when the other works are completed. Between piers which 
are closed by shutters, or may be made open by sinking them com¬ 
pletely out of sight, w’'e may go into the vestibule, an elegantly-designed 
hall, lighted from the roof by a flat skylight, oblong in form, decorated 
with pilasters and mirrors, and kept very simple in colour and pure in 
design. Traversing this, we cross a corridor, and, by a flight of steps, 
come upon the level of the garden itself at the centre walk of the ante- 
garden, which occupies the entire width and about three hundred feet 
of the length of the grounds: to the right and left are to be pedestals 
with statues, a gravel path thirty feet wide in front, which is, some 
day, we believe, to have in the centre a large octagonal tank filled with 
water, wherein are to be placed various Nymphsese and water plants of 
the like description ; a statue will probably stand in the middle of this, 
upon a circular pedestal. Here the main central walk, which traverses 
the grounds from north to south, ascending from one level to the other, 
