Gardens
The extensive manicured gardens were laid out on the advice of the garden designer Sir Harry Veitch circa 1902 by Leopold de Rothschild as a wedding present to his wife. A sundial made entirely of topiary complete with Latin numerals proclaims in clipped yew: "Light and shade by turn, but love always".
Closest to the south front of the house are paved areas of gardens in the style of Gertrude Jekyll, and from these across large areas of lawn are the terraced gardens. The dominating feature of these individual gardens is the clipped hedges, topiary and flowering shrubs. The largest feature of the garden is the bronze fountain representing "Venus in her shell chariot attended by cherubs", by the American sculptor Thomas Waldo Story. Story was also responsible for the fountain in the Dutch flower garden. This garden, so named for its displays of tulips in spring, is approached by descending a flight of steps through a rock garden, complete with dripping grotto and artificial stalagmites. In the centre of the garden Story's tall fountain, crowned by Cupid supported by dolphins, is surrounded by a formal bedding scheme.
From the entrance front's adjacent garden of topiarised box and bay trees a long grassed avenue, enclosed by a tall beech hedge, leads to the lily pool. This pool, originally created for skating, is the heart of a Monet-style garden, complete with a thatched summerhouse also designed by George Devey.
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Famous quotes containing the word gardens:
“Have We not made the earth as a cradle
and the mountains as pegs?
And We created you in pairs,
and We appointed your sleep for a rest;
and We appointed night for a garment,
and We appointed day for a livelihood.
And We have built above you seven strong ones,
and We appointed a blazing lamp
and have sent down out of the rain-clouds water cascading
that We may bring forth thereby grain and plants,
and gardens luxuriant.”
—Qur’an, “The Tiding” 78:6-16, ed. Arthur J. Arberry (1955)
“These are the Gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
And fresh as the young earth, ere man had sinned—”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)