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HisToRic GARDENS OF VIRGINIA
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as the office, where the business of the plantation, which was worked
in three shifts by a large force of hands under three overseers, was
usually transacted.
The mansion contains twenty-fve rooms, three of which—the
front drawing-room, the center drawing-room and the library—
constitute a suite of rooms which in point of design, finish and
space would compare favorably, if not more than favorably, with
any similar suite in any of the conspicuous homes of the Virginia
past. Lhe library, which is a truly beautiful Gothic room, is
furnished with a fine collection of standard books, mainly pur¬
chased by Charles Bruce in London in or about the year 1848.
One of the most attractive features of the house is its vestibule,
with a floor of black and white marble, and supplied with niches
filled with classic figures.
The grounds and flower gardens are about eight acres in area
and were laid out by a Mr. Kirk, a Scotch landscape gardener, at or
about the time the residence was built. Under his supervision, the
grounds were adorned with many varieties of trees, native and
exotic, such as the ash, the beech, the deodar, the cedar of Lebanon,
and other species of domestic and foreign trees too numerous to
mention. Scattered among these are clumps of shrubbery. As the
original plantings have succumbed to the ravages of time, they have
been renewed with the same painstaking care that marked their
origin.
Equal skill and good judgment were shown by Mr. Kirk in his
scheme of grass plots, roadways and walks, which are fully worthy .
of the extensive space over which they are spread. The flower
garden is broken up by a system of judiciously designed grass
walks into many beds of varied shapes. In form, it 1s semi-circular,
and environing the semi-circle is a dense background of noble oaks
and other forest trees. In this garden a perpetual succession of
roses of different varieties has always been maintained throughout
the summer months, to say nothing of many kinds of flowers. In
few, if in any, of the old gardens of Virginia can be found such
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