H ouse and Garden 
turbed, especially as the views on each side 
are sufficiently capable of yielding beauty ; 
and when seen from the end rooms of the 
house the avenue will act as a foreground 
to either landscape. 
Most of the large trees at Hanslope stand 
in avenues; yet their pleasant shade forbids 
the cutting down of many of them, merely 
because the false taste of former times 
has planted them in rows, at least till those 
plantations which are now made shall better 
replace the shelter which the avenues in 
some measure afford. Our figures 19 and 20 
give an idea of breaking the avenue to the 
north, which is not to be done by merely tak¬ 
ing away certain trees, but also by planting a 
thicket before the trunks of those at a distance, 
as we may be thus induced to forget that they 
stand in rows. The addition of a few single 
trees, guarded by cradles, though often used 
as an expedient to break a row, never pro¬ 
duces the desired effect. The original lines 
are forever visible. 
Besides the character which the style and 
size of the house will confer on a place, 
there is a natural character of country which 
must influence the site and disposition 
of a house; and though, in the country, 
there is not the same occasion, as in towns, 
for placing offices underground, or for set¬ 
ting the principal apartments on a basement 
storey, as it is far more desirable to walk 
from the house on the same level with the 
ground, yet there are situations which require 
to be raised above the natural surface. This 
is the case at Welbeck, where the park not 
only abounds with 
bold and conspic¬ 
uous inequalities, 
but in many 
places there are 
almost impercep¬ 
tible swellings in 
the ground which 
art would in vain 
attempt to rem¬ 
edy, on account of 
their vast breadth. 
They are evident 
defects whenever 
they appear to cut 
across the stems 
of trees and hide 
only half their trunks; for, if the whole 
trunk were perfectly hid by such a swell, 
the injury would be less, because the imagi¬ 
nation is always ready to sink the valley and 
raise the hill, if not checked in its efforts by 
some actual standard of measurement. In 
such cases the best expedient is to view the 
ground from a gentle eminence that the eye 
may look over and, of course, lose these 
trifling inequalities. 
1'he family apartments are to the south, 
the principal suite of rooms to the east, and 
the hall and some rooms of less importance 
to the west; when, therefore, the eating room 
and kitchen offices shall be removed to the 
north, it is impossible to make a better dis¬ 
position of the whole, with regard to aspect. 
I shall therefore proceed to the fourth gen¬ 
eral head proposed for consideration, viz., 
the shape of the ground near the house; and 
as the improvement at Welbeck originally 
suggested by his grace the Duke of Port¬ 
land has, I confess, far exceeded even my 
own expectations, I shall take the liberty of 
drawing some general conclusions on the 
subject from the success of this bold experi¬ 
ment. At the time I had the honor to de¬ 
liver my former opinion my idea of raising 
the ground near the house was confined to 
the west front alone ; and, till it had been 
exemplified and executed, few could compre¬ 
hend the seeming paradox of burying the 
bottom of the house as the means of ele¬ 
vating the whole structure, or, as it was very 
wittily expressed, “moulding up the roots 
of the venerable pile, that it might shoot 
up in fresh tow¬ 
ers from its top.” 
All natural 
shapes of ground 
must necessarily 
fall under one of 
these descrip¬ 
tions, viz., con¬ 
vex, concave, 
plane, or inclined 
plane, as repre¬ 
sented in the 
accompanying 
sections, figure 
21. I will sup¬ 
pose it granted 
that, except in 
225 
