84 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 8, 1859. 
formed a small mound, rising six inches above the surrounding 
level. On the top of this the plant was placed, still small, but 
having plenty of healthy roots. It grew rapidly, and in the 
autumn of 1857 it produced thirteen spikes; in 1858 thirty- 
five spikes ; and this year forty. 
The first year the spikes were not tall, and were weak in flowers; 
but the last two years they averaged four feet in height, and 
the bloom twenty-six inches. Each spring there is a space of 
eighteen inches broad, and two feet deep, dug out round the plant 
and filled in with Hazel loam, well-decomposed stable dung, and 
leaf mould. This is always sodded back so as to leave no raw 
surface to the soil. It frequently has a barrel of water to the 
roots, and three or four times during the summer and autumn it 
has a barrel of liquid manure. 
The foliage is extremely long and strong, and of a deep green, 
and droops gracefully all round, forming a very suitable base for 
the lovely plant. 
There were fourteen suckers taken off this year, with a view to 
propagation. Were it not for this, I have no doubt our flower- 
spikes -would have been more numerous. We find it very diffi¬ 
cult to get it to strike. 
I have the Phormium tenax and Tritoma Burchelli, treated 
the same way, and find them surpassingly healthy, large, and 
remarkably ornamental on grass.— Caekeg Cathol, Dublin. 
LAMPOET HALL. 
This substantial stone residence of Sir Charles Edmund 
Isham, Bart., is situated on elevated ground, in the village of 
Lamport, and distant less than a mile from the station of that 
name on the Northampton and Market Harborough Railway. 
The ground slopes rapidly to the station; but the small enclosed 
pleasure-grounds and the park immediately beyond are rather 
level. There is nothing in the position to make the ornamental 
grounds peculiarly attractive ; but there are several singularities 
in the arrangement and management that render them worthy 
of attraction, and in many cases of imitation. 
The accompanying diagram of straight lines, drawn from 
memory after a short visit, and that, unfortunately, during the 
absence of MivBurns, the indefatigable gardener, will enable our 
readers more easily to follow us and judge for themselves. 
7 
a 
i 
1. 1. Ground level of the garden front and end wing of the 
mansion. 
2. 2, 2. Walls of kitchen garden 12 ft. in height. A from end 
of greenhouse being 85 ft. long ; B 102 ft,; C 150 ft, ; D 300 ft. 
3. Handsome conservatory, 54 ft. by 42 ft., one end opaque ; 
height ot side walls, 2 ft. brick, and 9 ft. glass ; roof, triple ridge, 
sides, 3 ft, ; centre ridge 4 ft. in height. Fine healthy Camellias 
were at home in a bed in the centre. A broad stone path went all 
round, and a broad shelf around three sides was devoted to elegant 
flowering-plants in pots. 
4. Rockwork, 84 ft. by 40 ft.; highest part 25 ft. 
5. Flower garden in front of mansion. 
6. Ivy-covered wall, 12 ft. high, nearly in a line with wing of 
mansion, and about 120 ft. long, fronted with a massive bank of 
Rhododendrons. 
7. Grass bank, extending from Ivy-wall to X, opposite to where 
walls C and D meet, nearly 600 ft.; bank from 4 ft. to 5 ft. in 
height ; slope of bank 10 ft., broad promenade on the top. 
8. 8, 8. Dotted lines to represent centre of walks. Two of 
these, F and F, are continued through arched doorways, or gates, 
into the kitchen garden, F being terminated by a summer¬ 
house, and F by a range of hothouses. 
It will thus be seen, that the pleasure-grounds are bounded by 
the front and a wing' of the mansion, an Ivy-covered wall, a raised 
grass-bank or terrace, and the kitchen-garden walls. Now for 
the distinctive features. 
1. The first of these is the large and tastefully executed rockery. 
I had frequently heard, through friends, of the riches of this 
rockery, in plants, &c., and my imagination had revelled in a scene 
of romantic wildness, where the narrow overhanging defile, or 
cliasmy dingle, had afforded an opportunity for the artist’s skill 
in evoking ideas of the times when the old giants piled hill upon 
mountain, or just pitched from their large fists huge masses of 
stone from some far-off elevation, to enable U3 to note and com¬ 
pare the wondrous prowess of the past with the comparative 
weakness of the present. Such are some of the positions for a good 
artificial rockery. Judge, then, my surprise on obtaining the first 
view of the rockery from the conservatory, and in such nearness 
to an elegant mansion! Of all positions this, at first sight, 
seemed to be the strangest. Some would at once determine, without 
seeing it, that it w r ould be as much out of place in its position as 
a rough basket formed of tree-roots immediately in front- of a 
Grecian temple. Such arrangements as the latter are to be met 
with every day; and if the owners like them, why should we 
grumble because their taste may be different from our ow r n ? In 
front of a fine massive building, and there forming a centre to a 
pretty flower garden, was lately a huge hillock of roots of trees, 
stones, shells, &c., with plants of all kinds growing among them. 
In another place, and also in front of an elegant mansion, rough 
raised beds of roots were considered specimens of style as well as 
cultural skill. In a retired portion of the same grounds, roots, 
&c., were introduced with good effect. Notwithstanding its 
position, however, no such violent contrast is exhibited at Lam¬ 
port. Except from the conservatory and a bed-room window or 
two, from no part of the house or grounds do you see much of 
the rockery until you get inside it. The greatest height in 
points, and sweeping and swelling curves, is on the top of a 
straight wall on the lawn side, that wall running in a line with 
the end of the conservatory. That wall was screened with ever¬ 
greens ; but there being a want of neatness about them they were 
removed, and white variegated Ivy plants are now growing 
against it and will soon cover it. Studs and wire are also placed 
on the wall, so as to train a few Roses, Clematis, &c., thinly, to 
give a light, airy appearance to the Ivy. On the end next the 
flower garden, a wall some five feet in height is also placed, 
covered with Cotoneaster micropJiylla, and inside and above that 
wall, there are specimens of Yew and Arbor Vitae, thick enough 
to conceal the interior view. A space is left between this wall 
and the mansion for an entrance, and a pathway up to the con¬ 
servatory. With the exception of the culminating points, which 
will soon be draped with variegated Ivy, nothing of this rockery 
is seen from the grounds. 
Once inside you forget all about the position, in looking at its 
deep recesses, bold protrusions, mounds as if fallen from ruins, 
depressions as of the remains of partly filled moats, and all 
grouped and studded with next-to-endless varieties of rock and 
alpine plants. Nay, ere long, you almost instinctively begin to 
see some reasons w T hy it should be where it is. The conservatory 
forms, as it were, a second wing to the mansion; but it is placed 
at the end appropriated chiefly to the domestic offices. It is not 
likely, therefore, that there would be any access to it from the 
principal rooms, except by passing along the open garden front. 
The flower garden would thus be a rival to it; and it may have 
been desirable that the beauties of the conservatory should only 
be seen when reached. Again, the dairy, with a wide-based, high- 
peaked, domed roof, supported on pillars, and extending a con¬ 
siderable distance from the walls, has that roof thickly thatched 
with reeds, for securing coolness in summer. Other modes might 
have been adopted, as the thatch hardly harmonises with the 
other roofs ; but being there, and about the centre of the rockery, 
you feel there is a friendly neighbourness between the two. The 
third and most powerful reason could only be seen if the visitor 
had the good fortune to meet with the kind and courteous 
baronet. It is the delight of some men to look through a tele¬ 
scope to learn more of the great and magnificent. It pleases 
others, by means of the microscope, to note the mechanism and 
tha fitness for a destined purpose in the very minute. Sir Charles 
is evidently a great lover of the beautiful in flowers, as on the 
evening of our visit he was carefully collecting some, to give the 
