| Description | This parterre with two carved pillars and six urns were built in the early 18th century from magnesian limestone. The parterre is rectangular in shape, approximately 70 metres x 35 metres, and is set in to the ground rising gradually away from the house. The longer side walls gently rake upwards to the further end, which contains a wide bow with a fountain in the centre. The side and end walls have a plinth and vermiculated raised panels, and the end wall has a coved niche in each of the straight outer sections, a rusticated pilaster at each end of the bow, a dragon’s mouth spout over a rocky cascade in the centre, and its coping carries six fluted urns with carved rams head handles. The inner end of each side wall is marked by a large heavily carved pillar, approximately one metre square and four metres high. Each pillar is composed of a pedestal with a vermiculated panel on each side, carrying a short pillar clasped between five fingered volutes, with a prominent moulded entablature crowned with a swan neck pediment. This was possibly built by John Wood of Bath, and is shown of the survey of gardens by Detmar Blow c.1907 as ‘sundial garden’. |