There is nothing grander in the three kingdoms than Lord Waterford's seat, Curraghmore. Taken with the adjoining woods, the demesne contains five thousand acres. The special feature of this superb place is grandeur; "not that arising from the costly and laborious exertions of man, but rather the magnificence of Nature. The beauty of the situation consists in the lofty hills, rich vales and almost impenetrable woods, which deceive the eye and give the idea of boundless forests. The variety of the scenery is calculated to please in the highest degree, and to gratify every taste."
At Lyme Park, the splendid old seat of the Leghs in Cheshire, "a very remarkable custom," says Lysons, "of driving the red deer, which has not been practiced in any other park, either in England or abroad, was established about a century ago by an old park-keeper, who occupied that position for seventy years, dying at over one hundred years of age. It was his custom in May and June, when the animals' horns were tender, to go on horseback, with a rod in his hand, round the hills of this extensive park, and, having collected the deer, to drive them before him like a herd of common horned cattle, sometimes even opening a gate for them to pass through. When they came to a place before the hall called the Deer-Clod, they would stand in a collected body as long as the spectators thought fit; the young ones following their dams, and the old stags rising one against another and combating with their fore feet, not daring at this season of the year to make use of their horns. At the command of the keeper they would then move forward to a large piece of water and swim through the whole length of it, after which they were allowed to disperse."
Following the example of the abbots, many of the bishops formerly had deer-parks, and up to 1831 the bishop of Durham, a prince-palatine in his diocese, had a park at his country-seat, still his residence, Bishops-Auckland; but now the only prelate enjoying this distinction is the bishop of Winchester, at Farnham Castle, in Hampshire.
"There are some," says a writer in an early number of the Westminster Review, "who enclose immense possessions with walls and gates, and employ keepers with guns to guard every avenue to the vast solitudes by which they choose to be surrounded. Let such men pitch their tents in the deserts of Sahara or the wild prairies of America. What business have they here in the midst of a civilized community, linked together by chains of mutual obligation and dependence?" These observations apply to few private parks now-a-days. Permission to drive, ride or walk through them is rarely refused. Almost the only cases where there is much strictness in this respect are those of parks situated near a great watering place, such as Brighton or Tonbridge Wells. Thus, at the former, Lord Chichester's rule is that all persons on horseback or in carriages may pass through his ground, but foot-passengers are not allowed. The late Lord Abergavenny, a man of very shy and retiring disposition, was the least liberal park-owner in England. The gates of his superb demesne of Eridge very rarely revolved on their hinges; and this was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he did not reside there more than three months in the year. The story was told that at his accession to the property he had been more liberal, but that one day he was seated at luncheon alone when, suddenly looking up, he observed to his horror three proletarians flattening their noses against the window-pane, and gaping with exasperating interest at the august spectacle of a live lord at luncheon. To pull the bell and issue an order for the immediate removal of the intruders was, in the graphic language of the dime novel, the work of a moment; and from that hour the gates of Eridge were so rigorously sealed that it was often a matter of difficulty even for invited guests to obtain admittance.
It may seem very ill-natured sometimes to refuse admittance on easy terms to such places, and to act apparently in a sort of dog-in-the-manger spirit. But it should be borne in mind that the privilege when accorded has not unfrequently been abused, more especially by the "lower middle class" of the English people, whose manners are often very intrusive. Such persons will approach close to the house, peer into the windows of private apartments, or push in amongst the family and guests while engaged in croquet or other out-door amusements. Another common offence is leaving a disgusting débris lying about after a picnic in grounds which it costs the owners thousands of pounds yearly to keep in order. The sentiment from which such places are kept up is not that of vulgar display. They are hallowed by associations which are well depicted by the late Lord Lytton in an eloquent passage in Earnest Maltravers:
"It is a wild and weird scene, one of those noble English parks at midnight, with its rough forest-ground broken into dell and valley, its never-innovated and mossy grass overrun with fern, and its immemorial trees, that have looked upon the birth, and look yet upon the graves, of a hundred generations. Such spots are the last proud and melancholy trace of Norman knighthood and old romance left to the laughing landscapes of cultivated England. They always throw something of shadow and solemn gloom upon minds that feel their associations, like that which belongs to some ancient and holy edifice. They are the cathedral aisles of Nature, with their darkened vistas, and columned trunks, and arches of mighty foliage. But in ordinary times the gloom is pleasing, and more delightful than all the cheerful lawns and sunny slopes of the modern taste."
REGINALD WYNFORD.
Footnote 1: [(return)] [This was the famous Charlotte de la Trémouille, so admirably portrayed by Scott in Peveril of the Peak. Her direct male heirs terminated in her grandson, the tenth earl, and she is now represented in the female line by the duke of Atholl, who through her claims descent from the Greek emperors.]