Arno's Grove; Mrs. Walker. -The house is a fine square brick building, with stone facings, in a commanding situation, with a considerable breadth of lawn in front, bordered by massive woods, over which, in the centre, is seen a varied distance. Two rooms were added to the house by Sir Robert Taylor, which are interesting, as showing the taste in interior architecture prevalent in his day. The entrance hall is very large for the size of the house; it contains a fine oak staircase, and the walls and ceiling are covered with a painting in excellent preservation, bearing the name and date of "Landscroon, 1723." The walk through the grounds proceeds right and left from the front of the house, and, in making a circuit of the park, borders, in the lower part of the grounds, a considerable reach of the New River. The mode in which this walk is conducted clearly shows that the place was laid out in the time of Brown. We have first, near the house, the walk of a considerable breadth proceeding through groups chiefly of foreign trees and shrubs, separated from the park by a sunk fence; next, the walk becoming narrower, enters into a thick wood, where no fence is seen; afterwards it emerges from this wood, about a third of the breadth which it is at the house, and skirts the margin of a boundary plantation, separated from the park only by a low hedge; then it touches on the canal or river; and, half the circuit being now gone through, the walk passes through the other half much in the same manner, gradually widening as it approaches the house. As episodes, or by-scenes, to this last half of the walk, there are the kitchen-garden, conservatories, a walled flower-garden, and various scenes connected with them; and to the other half there is a large flower-garden enclosed by a shrubbery, with a rockwork, basin, fountain, &c. In the artificial plantations near the house, there are many old finely grown exotic trees; and among these a greater number of Quercus palustris than we have seen anywhere else. A number of these trees are from 60 ft. to 80 ft. in height, with trunks from 18 in. to 3 ft. in diameter. We have noticed in the Arboretum Britannicum, and it cannot, we think, be too often repeated, that this is by far the hardiest and the handsomest of the American oaks, and that it also grows far faster than any other species or variety. There are three fine specimens of it in the Hackney Arboretum, under the names of Q. palustris, Q. montana, and Q. Banisteri, much higher than all the other American oaks there. Had there been only one specimen of this tree, our character of it might have been doubted; but there being three standing among the most complete collection of American oaks in England, what we state cannot be controverted. Before these trees were denuded of their side branches, they were of surpassing gracefulness and beauty, notwithstanding the smoky atmosphere in which they grow. There are fine trees of Q. palustris at Syon, one of which is figured in our Arboretum, and also at Strathfieldsaye; and there is a most beautiful young one in the arboretum at Woking. So little is the tree known, that two years ago Messrs. Loddiges threw away nearly a cart-load of them; and, some years before that, some waggon-loads were taken up and burned in the Leyton Nursery. (See Arb. Brit., vol. iii. p. 1888.) Is it to be wondered at that nurserymen should cease to propagate many kinds of foreign trees and shrubs, when they meet with no better encouragement than this ? [Wikipedia: Arnos Grove is an area in the south west corner of the London Borough of Enfield, England. Until the 1930s Arnos Grove was largely undeveloped and rural, and not considered to be an area. Instead, it was considered to be part of Southgate.]
