These immense buttresses on the meadow side come down to a walled terrace; their foundations doubtless far below the visible base. The terrace level is some twelve feet above the grassy space below. The grass then slopes easily away for a distance of a few hundred feet to the alluvial flat of the actual meadow-land.
Large fig-trees grow at the foot of the wall, rising a few feet above the parapet of the terrace, from which the fruit is conveniently gathered.
It is in the deep, well-sheltered bays between the feet of the giant buttresses that the most interesting of the modern flower gardening at Berkeley is done.
White Lilies grow like weeds in the rich red loam, and there are fine groups of many of the best hardy plants and shrubby things, gathered together and well placed by the late Georgina Lady Fitzhardinge, a true lover of good flowers and a woman of sound instinct and well-balanced taste respecting things beautiful both indoors and out.
The chief relic of the older gardening at Berkeley is the remains of the yew hedge that inclosed the bowling-green on three sides; the fourth side having for its boundary the high retaining wall that supports the entrance road beyond the outer gate. The yews, still clipped into bold rounded forms, may have formed a trim hedge in Tudor days, and the level space of turf, which is reached from the terrace by a flight of downward steps that passes under an arch of the old yews, lies cool and sheltered from the westering sun by the stout bulwark of their ancient shade.
The yew arch in the picture shows where the terrace level descends to the bowling-green. The great buttresses of the main castle wall are behind the spectator. A bowery Clematis is in full bloom over the steps
THE LOWER TERRACE, BERKELEY CASTLE
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
Mr. Albert Wright