The garden contains upwards of two acres, with a gravel-walk under the windows. A Gothic porch has been added, the bow-windows being surmounted with the same kind of parapet as the house, somewhat more ornamental. It lies to the morning sun; the road to the house, on the north, enters through a large arch. The garden is on a slope, commanding views of the surrounding country, with the tower of Calne in front, the woods of Bowood on the right, and the mansion and woods of Walter Heneage, Esq. Towards the south. The view to the south-east is terminated by the last chalky cliffs of the Marlborough downs, extending to within a few miles of Swindon. In the garden, a winding path from the gravel-walk, in front of the house, leads to a small piece of water, originally a square pond.
This walk, as it approaches the water, leads into a darker shade, and descending some steps, placed to give a picturesque appearance to the bank, you enter a kind of cave, with a dripping rill, which falls into the water below, whose bank is broken by thorns, and hazels, and poplars, among darker shrubs. Here an urn appears with the following inscription:—"M.S. Henrici Bowles, qui ad Calpen, febre ibi exitiali grassante, publicè missus, ipse miserrimè periit—1804. Fratri posuit."—Passing round the water, you come to an arched walk of hazels, which leads to the green in front of the house, where, dipping a small slope, the path passes near an old and ivied elm. As this seat looks on the magnificent line of Bowood park and plantations, the obvious thought could not be well avoided:
"When in thy sight another's vast domain
Spreads its dark sweep of woods, dost thou complain?
Nay! rather thank the God who placed thy state
Above the lowly, but beneath the great;
And still his name with gratitude revere,
Who bless'd the sabbath of thy leisure here."
The walk leads round a plantation of shrubs, to the bottom of the lawn, from whence is seen a fountain, between a laurel arch; and through a dark passage a gray sun-dial appears among beds of flowers, opposite the fountain.
The sun-dial, a small, antique, twisted column, gray with age, was probably the dial of the abbot of Malmesbury, and counted his hours when at the adjoining lodge; for it was taken from the garden of the farm-house, which had originally been the summer retirement of this mitred lord. It has the appearance of being monastic, but a more ornate capital has been added, the plate on which bears the date of 1688. I must again venture to give the appropriate inscription:—