August 27, 1904. 
The Gardening World 
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! ______ 
Views and Reviews. 
Aldenham House, Elstree. 
-—o—- 
Within twelve miles of London, and easily 
reached by the Midland Railway, is Alden- 
bam House, Elstree, the beautiful seat of 
Lord Aldenham. The country is beautifully 
undulated in this neighbourhood, but being- 
heavy Land is mostly utilised for daily fann¬ 
ing, while the landscape is varied by woods 
and hedges of tall trees. Those in the 
neighbourhood of Aldenham House itself are 
veiy numerous and scattered oyer ai consider¬ 
able area of ground in park-like formation 
and partly hiding the mansion, of which 
glimpses are obtained from _ various points 
as it nestles amongst its own tall ancestral 
trees. As must have been the fashion a. 
century or two* ago, the land has been largely 
planted with a variety of tab growing trees 
of which the English Elm is the most numer¬ 
ous and most conspicuous. Oaks, Ashes, 
Sycamores, Willows, and other deciduous 
kinds are also scattered over the domain. 
A small stream runs through the grounds, 
■and that has been utilised for the formation 
of a lake at some distance from .the house. 
Near the mansion itself the ground seems to 
be traversed by a small stream, crossed by 
stone bridges, but this water is entirely arti¬ 
ficial, yet. nevertheless is maintained in a 
clear and clean condition, so that the most 
has been made of it for making some very 
beautiful pieces of ornamental waiter, fully 
utilised for the cultivation of various water 
plants. Altogether, we understand that the 
ornamental part of the estate covers 270 
acres. A few Conifers have been planted 
amongst the trees generally, but they are 
comparatively recent, except in the imme¬ 
diate m ghbourhood of the house, where 
there are some more aged specimens, but the 
idea isi entertained that Conifers do not suc¬ 
ceed very well here. 
The ornamental part of the estate and the 
gardens have practically been made within 
the last twenty years, and even during the 
past decade extensive additions and improve- 
ments have been made', and so large a collec¬ 
tion of trees and shrubs a.nd plants of a great 
variety has been got together that a day is 
all too short for their inspection in detail and 
profit to those who are really interested in 
this class of plants. We saw so many sub¬ 
jects in the grounds 'that it would be im¬ 
possible in the space at o.ur command to> do 
justice to a tithe of them, so that on this 
occasion at least it will be necessary for us to 
devote our attention chiefly to the ornamen¬ 
tal trees and shrubs. 
Practically the gardens 'and grounds may 
be regarded as a, botanic garden, though the 
space devoted to these ornamental -subjects 
is not over-extensive, oonsideriho- the num- 
bers that have got to be accommodated and 
are continually being added to owing to the 
keen interest taken in them by the Hon. 
Vicary Gibbs, the second son of Lord Alden¬ 
ham. Within the last half dozen years he 
has been responsible for numerous additions 
in the collection, and, being still very enthu¬ 
siastic, he keeps adding to it. So keenly 
interested is he in trees and shrubs of all 
kinds that he knows every one of them and 
where they have been planted, and keeps in 
constant contact with them in order to see. 
how they progress. Even on the stubborn 
soil of this estate he has had many of them 
planted in the open that wei have been ac¬ 
customed to see either upon a wall or else 
in a greenhouse; some of them, flowering 
and fruiting without any protection what¬ 
ever”, we have seen in the temperate house at 
Kew, and had been led to the ■erroneous con¬ 
clusion that they required the protection of 
glass in order to ensure them growing suffi¬ 
ciently strong to flower or fruit. 
On entering the grounds in the precincts 
of the garden proper, we crossed two bridges 
built of stone and utilised on the parapets 
for the cultivation of various rock plants, 
which serve'to give the bridges a rustic cha¬ 
racter. This pathway leads us immediately 
into the more thickly planted parts of the 
grounds, where ulsoi are several sheets of 
ornamental water utilised for Hie planting of 
aquatics round the margins. Various fine 
effects are also produced on the mounds 
rising from the water edge by the planting of 
shrubs with coloured barks, -that produce 
highly interesting and ornamental effects 
throughout the remainder of the year after 
the fall of the leaf. Concerning the plants 
on the unargins of these ponds we shall deal 
more fully on a future occasion, when we 
hope to be able to give some illustrations of 
the same. 
The choicest, and more interesting subjects, 
and especially those of which there are only 
one or two specimens, are planted in very 
large beds or clumps upon the grass in the 
neighbourhood of the kitchen garden, but, 
as a matter of course, quite hidden, from is 
by the rich canopy of trees that has been 
