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HisToRric, GARDENS OF RE ÉLT A
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forecourt where the grass is very green and four symmetrical
holly trees give color and dignity. ‘There is ivy clustered against
the wall and foliage massed behind the house.
Below the court 1s a circle of green, with an ancient sundial,
and below and beyond, the many rolling acres in lawn and trees
where, in olden times, many deer were kept. The worn stone-steps
leading to the court have massive stone urns on pedestals at either
side. [he walk leads through the court to more stone-steps that
lead to the portico and hall. ‘These steps are guarded by bronze
dogs. The architecture of Mount Airy is not colonial at all, but
rather English, and one unique feature is that it is built entirely of
stone, native brown and grey sandstone. ‘Time has weathered and
softened it, and it is very lovely, surrounded by the beauties of
Virginia landscape.
At the back are five grassy terraces, the central one being a
perfect square of green. This was once used as a bowling green,
and one easily imagines the gay gallants of long ago, bowling
upon it, with might and main, and later going into the dining-room
to drink a mint-julep, from the “Old Bowl of Mount Airy,” which
is famous in poem and story.
These terraces are most unusual and end in a vista of flowers
and shrubbery, at the brink of the great hill, where one gets a
view of surpassing grandeur. Before you lie extended many miles
of farm and woodland—most of it still belonging to the estate.
There the Rappahannock River, three miles away, winds like a
blue ribbon, in the distance; and, on the farther side of the river,
the houses of the little colonial town of Tappahannock, in Essex
County, spread out upon its shores.
There was once a large, formal garden at Mount Airy.
There were parterres and hedges and, several feet below the green,
at the right, was the kitchen garden. But, in the sad days after
the war, things had to be changed, and the kitchen garden was
ploughed for wheat, the parterres lapsed into a lawn, in which
paths and ornaments are still seen. It has never been restored to
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