IN a picturesque, but little-known district in Queen’s County, Ireland, lies Abbey Leix, the residence of Lord de Vesci. It is a land of vigorous tree-growth and general richness of vegetation. Hedge-rows show an abundance of well-grown ash timber, and the park is full of fine oaks, a thing that is rare in Ireland, and that makes it more like English parkland of the best character. This impression is accentuated in spring-time when the oaks are carpeted with the blue of wild Hyacinths, and when the broad woodland rides are also rivers of the same Blue-bells.
In this favoured land the common Laurel is a beautiful tree, thirty feet high; the mildness of the winter climate allowing it to grow unchecked. Only those who have seen it in tree form in the best climates of our islands, or in Southern Europe, know the true nature of the Laurel’s growth, or the poetry and mystery of its moods and aspects. The long grey limbs shoot upward and bend and arch in a manner almost fantastic. Sometimes a stem will incline downwards and run along the ground, followed by another. In the evening half-light they might be giant silver-scaled serpents, writhing and twisting and then springing aloft and becoming lost to sight in the dim masses of the crowning foliage. Seen thus one can hardly reconcile its identity with that of the poor, tamed, often-clipped bush of every garden. The Laurel is so docile, so easily coerced to the making of a quickly-grown hedge or useful screen, that its better qualities as an unmutilated tree in a mild district are usually lost sight of.
The house at Abbey Leix is a stone building of classical design of the middle of the eighteenth century. On the northern front is the entrance forecourt; on the southern, the garden. Here, next the house, is a wide terrace, bounded on the outer side by the parapet of a retaining wall, and next the building, by a running guilloche of box-edged beds filled with low-growing plants. The terrace has a semi-circular ending, near the eastern wall of the house, formed of an evergreen hedge, with a wooden seat following the same line, and a sundial at the radial point. At the other end, the terrace ends in a flight of downward steps leading to large green spaces, with fine trees and flowering shrubs, and eventually to the walled gardens. Straight across the terrace from the house is the parterre, whose centre ornament is an unusually well-proportioned fountain of the same date as the house. It is circular in plan, with a wide lower basin and two graduated superimposed tazzas. From this, four cross-paths radiate; the quarters are filled mainly with half-hardy flowers such as Gladiolus; the design being accentuated at several points by the upright growing Florence Court Yews. The parterre is inclosed by a low wall, backed by a clipped evergreen hedge; on the wall stand at intervals graceful stone figures of amorini, identical in character with those shown in the picture of Phlox and Daisy, and apparently designed by the same hand.
ABBEY-LEIX
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
SIR JAMES WHITEHEAD, BART.
The steps at the western end of the terrace are wide and handsome, and are also ornamented with sculptured amorini. The path leads onward, at first directly forward, but a little later in a curved line through a region of lawn and stream, with trees and groups of flowering shrubs. Here and there, on the grass by itself, is one of the free-growing Roses, rightly left without any support, and showing the natural fountain-like growth that so well displays the beauty of many of the Roses of the old Ayrshire class and of some of the more modern ramblers. The path passes one end of an avenue of large trees, and, after a while, turning to the left, reaches the kitchen gardens, consisting of several walled inclosures. One of these, of which one wall is occupied by vineries, has been made into a flower garden, where hardy flowers, grandly grown, are in the wide borders next the wall. A portion of such borders, in an adjoining compartment of the garden, forms the subject of the picture.
The inner space is divided into two squares, one having as a centre a rustic summer-house almost hidden by climbing plants; from this radiating grass paths pass between beds of flowers. The outer borders in the next walled compartment are ten feet wide, and are finely filled with all the best summer plants, perennial, annual and biennial. The fine pale yellow Anthemis tinctoria is here grown in the way this good plant deserves, and its many companions, Hollyhocks, Delphiniums, Japan Anemones, Phloxes and Lavender; annual Chrysanthemums, Gladiolus, Carnations, Tritomas, and all such good things, are cleverly and worthily used, and, with the graceful arches of free Roses and white Everlasting Pea, make delightful garden pictures in all directions.
The garden of Abbey Leix is one of those places that so pleasantly shows the well-directed intention of one who is in close sympathy with garden beauty; for everywhere it reflects the fine horticultural taste and knowledge of Lady de Vesci, who made the garden what it is.
