Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/36

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xxxii
Introduction

speak more confidently. Yet even here reservations must be made. We must free ourselves, for instance, from the glamor of certain historical associations that date back only to the days when H. R. H. the Duke of Edinburgh, made Eastwell his home, when members of the royal family planted trees that still bear their names, when Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, drank tea on the balcony of the beautiful winter-garden. We must banish, too, from our mental picture of Ardelia's home most of the luxuries, perhaps most of the conveniences of the modern estate. The electric light plant and the gas plant must give way to candles. For the present elaborate system of water-works we must substitute Mr. Finch's "darling spring" whence water was brought to the house in a cart "driven by one of the underkeepers in a green coat with a hazelbough for a whip." For the modern splendor of equipment and service we must figure to ourselves very simple domestic arrangements. The completion of the house, the building in of wide glass windows, the plotting of gardens, the fair ordering of the trees, terraces, and lawns adjacent to the house were all improvements not accomplished till ten or twelve years after Ardelia's arrival at Eastwell.

But in spite of all the enlargements and modifications and improvements made from 1700 to 1900, there are yet large portions of the estate that must be today The Parkas they were when Ardelia first went to Eastwell. The following notes, taken, in substance, from the Eastwell Blue Book of the present day, give the very details urged in enthusiastic praise by earlier topographical writers:

Near the church of Boughton Aluph is the Pilgrim's Road, marked by yew trees supposed to have been planted by pilgrims on their way to Canterbury to show other pilgrims the way. Near Timber Gate Lodge is a grand avenue of beeches with large stretches of fern. In one place are twelve yew trees near together—wierd in shape, colossal in proportion, hoary in antiquity. If
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