House & Garden 
THE GARDEN OF “ASHFORD,” 
AT BELLE HAVEN, CONNECTICUT. 
Designed by Wilson Eyre , Jr. 
I N the August number of House and 
Garden it was shown how clearly the house 
at “Ashford ” and its garden were united 
by important axes to the stable and its en¬ 
closures, how all of these were so located 
upon a boundary-line of the property that 
the greatest unbroken area was retained of 
A WALK OF AN UPPER TERRACE 
the wooded lawn. As this beautiful slope 
is commanded from the southern porticos of 
the house so the garden is commanded from 
the gate or Archway of the Stable Court. At 
the brink of the level ground where the 
buildings stand this opening overlooks the 
whole garden from the head of the main 
path. Directly below it the gently sloping 
terraces fall away to the lowest part of the 
property—its eastern boundary—where A 
Wall Treatment breaks the monotony of a 
long horizontal line and gives an appropriate 
ending to the view. 
Hie character of the land at “Ashford ” 
made a condition which has frequently con¬ 
fronted the garden builder the world over : 
that of a hillside which has to be formed 
into levels by retaining-walls. It would 
have been an easy matter to divide the gar¬ 
den space into parts of equal width, but 
such a gridiron arrangement would have 
been far from pleasing. How much better 
FROM AN ARBOUR 
we find the units of the garden—the spaces 
between its walks—as they are actually 
made, of well-proportioned rectangles, their 
axes changing from lengthwise with the 
whole garden and then across it. The walls 
are kept low so as not to intrude themselves 
in the aspect of the hillside. Slanting the 
ground of the terraces slightly, and then 
bringing their edges abruptly down to the 
top of the wall gives the effect of but slight 
interruption to the green of the grass or 
J 9 
