Lowther Castle is placed in a commanding situation, in a noble park, with an extensive prospect from the entrance front, but with no prospect at all, not even of the home grounds from the other. A great error, in our opinion, has been committed in not forming the entrance front on this unfavoured side; so that the first impressions of the grand distant prospect might have been obtained from the windows. Another lamentable fault is, that the whole building is too low, on which account it is totally deficient in dignity; and, though in the castle style of architecture, it has nothing of the air of a castle. At present all the beauties of the park are seen in approaching to the house, and the pleasure-ground contains only one feature, certainly well worth remembering, a grassy terrace, not connected with the house, but one of the finest things of the kind in Britain. The surface of the ground on the garden front is peculiarly unfortunate in sloping towards the house, instead of from it; and yet no pains have been taken to counteract this misfortune, by creating a perfect level, and, beyond, a natural-looking bank of lawn and trees. Something towards a level has been done, but not enough; and it is singular that the space cleared has not been ornamented with flower-beds. An ash tree and a thorn, however, neither of them possessing the least beauty, are left upon it, perched on conical heaps of earth; at once actual deformities, and standing monuments of the diseased feeling, as to trees, of whoever ordered them to be retained. There is a small flower-garden, in a hollow, shaded by high trees, where fine flowers can never grow; and a very bad kitchen-garden, a mile or more from the house. By great skill, however, good crops are produced in it, though the difficulties to be contended with are enough to break the heart of a gardener. To those who do not object to entering a house from the front which has the best view, Lowther Castle may still be made something of by reducing the lawn on the garden front to an apparently perfect level; that is, to a slope from the house of about one foot in a hundred; and then enriching it highly with flower-beds; the warts and their trees being removed, and the ground beyond the sunk fence properly varied. The elevation of the house might be raised by a real or a mock story. We are much gratified in being able to state that here, and at Eaton Hall, the chimney-tops are not disfigured by pots, as at Chatsworth.
