Trentham Hall.-May 25. The road from Alton Towers, by Cheadle, is at first hilly and romantic, and afterwards rich and varied. The alterations and additions to the house at Trentham are far advanced, and they have had a magical effect on the place. The effect of the tower at one angle, in forming a centre to the general mass, carrying it off, as artists say, or, in artistical philosophy, communicating an axis of symmetry (see p. 233.), is most satisfactory. The central tower at Alton Towers is too small for the immense pile of buildings that surround it, having been built, no doubt, before it was contemplated to increase them to such an extent; but this at Trentham appears of the proper dimensions, unless, perhaps, it is not sufficiently high. The first or upper flower-garden is laid out in what the French call the English style, with beds of turf, and dug beds edged with box or gravel, and has an excellent effect, the whole forming a raised platform edged with stone. The lower or main garden has the leading walks formed and gravelled, and the slopes turfed; but, not being yet planted, it has rather a naked appearance. We were shown some Portugal laurels, which were training with clean stems and round heads, to imitate the orange trees of the Continent, as at Chatsworth, to be planted along the main walks at regular distances in stone boxes. If the Portugal laurels were budded standard high with the common laurel, the effect would be still more striking, as the light green of the leaves would render the allusion to the orange tree much more complete. Such imitations of orange trees are not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Paris, where the laurel is grafted standard high on the common cherry, which, however, being a deciduous plant, does not form so good a stock for an evergreen as the Portugal laurel would. The common laurel, to a general observer, is so very like the orange, that, some years ago, a foreign ambassador, who was going round the grounds at Claremont with the gardener, Mr. M'Intosh, took the laurel undergrowths there, with which the woods abound, for dwarf orange trees, and expressed his astonishment at seeing the orange thrive so well in England. For the two side walks at Trentham, we would introduce a border of arcades, cones, or pyramids, of clipped yew, box, or variegated holly. As these, however, are of slow growth, ivy trained on wire framework might be substituted; by which means the arcade might be completed in two seasons; as ivy 6 or 8 feet high may be purchased in pots in quantities, and as soon as it was planted it might be trained over the wire frames, so as to form arcades, pyramids, cones, candelabra, statues of the human figure or of animals, the second season after planting; that is, if the ivy were planted in April, 1841, the framework would be sufficiently covered to show the effect by July, 1842. In the mean time, the effect might be tried by putting up the wirework and tying shoots of ivy to it; as indeed might all other contemplated artificial forms. The situation, we understand from the gardener, is a good deal exposed to high winds; but these would not injure the ivy in the slightest degree, as it is one of the hardiest of plants. The common juniper, the red cedar, the arbor vitï¾µ, the furze, and the spruce fir, grow rapidly, and may be cut into any shapes. The spruce fir forms most beautiful arcades, hedges, and candelabra, at the Whim, near Edinburgh, engravings from which are given in vol. iv. of our Arboretum Britannicum, under the head of Abies excelsa. It would be a great improvement to the grounds at Trentham, if the whole of the water could be lowered 5 or 6 feet, as at present it has too much the appearance of an overflooded meadow. The islands are also too large, or, at least, too much in the middle. Were the water lowered, the banks might be enriched, in some places, with blocks of stone, to imitate the jutting out of rocks from the subsoil. It did not occur to us, when on the spot, to ask whether the channel of the river, which takes the water from the lake, could be deepened. If it could, even suppose it were necessary to extend the deepening over a distance of 2 or 3 miles, the improvement to the whole place, as it appears to us, would be very great indeed.
