Raised level at Woburn Abbey

Such is the convenience derived in the country, from having the principal floor on a level with the ground, that I must highly commend the disposition of the summer apartments at Woburn, where the earth is raised to give a ready communication with the pleasure-ground, without descending a flight of steps. The intention was good, but the mode of execution has proved defective; and had the same idea been continued in the north and west fronts (as once proposed), it would have been fatal to the character of the house, without altering its situation; because it would have reduced it one story in height, a defect for which even the proposed raising of the attics could never have compensated.