There is a steward's house here, and near it a group of labourers' cottages, which afford a fine example of what may be called the better, and best, in Gothic architecture. The first is very good, but it is tame, without boldness and freedom, and without having the characteristics of the Tudor style fully developed. The labourers' cottages are singularly bold, picturesque, and free in their general effect, and all their details, such as chimney shafts, mouldings, mullions, doors, &c., developed to perfection. The gardens round these cottages are beautifully kept; those in front are full of flowers, and flowering shrubs, and those behind are large and well stocked with vegetables. The occupiers are men employed in the grounds at Wilton. The steward's house is surrounded by a piece of pleasure ground, enclosed with a wire fence, in imitation of the fence of wood, or hazel rods, shown in fig. 622. Encyclopï¾µdia of Gardening, 2d edition. The adoption of such a form in wire we maintain to be in bad taste, for the following reasons. Either a fence ought to be architectural, and avowed as a component part of the landscape, or it ought to be incidental, and rendered as inconspicuous as possible consistently with its use as a barrier. Now a wire fence can never be rendered architectural, because there can be no architecture without considerable bulk or dimensions. To be inconspicuous it ought to have consisted simply of horizontal lines, supported by a few perpendicular lines, or of perpendicular lines, supported by a few horizontal ones. Here, however, as in the figure above referred to, the wires cross each other like network; and, as if these were not enough, they are bent round at top, so as to render them still more conspicuous to the eye than if they presented network without a border. The best description of wire fence, whether for parks or pleasure grounds, is that in which strong iron uprights, shaped like swords, are inserted in the ground in masonry, so firmly as not to require bases; the breadth of the blade of the sword, being across the direction of the line of fence, and its hilt in the ground. Connect these swords by horizontal wires, not all of one size, but with the slightest wire at top, and increasing in size towards the ground. If hares are to be excluded, smaller-sized wires near the ground must be introduced between the large ones. This we consider as forming the most inconspicuous, effective, and durable of iron fences.
