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The path continues southwards, round
the Big Lake, before turning eastwards again to return to the house. Various
diversions add to the interest of the woodland through which the path
now passes, by means of a series of broad avenues.
These are flanked by tall Lombardy poplars, fast-growing, short-lived
species, chosen to replace the elms that, stricken by disease, have had
to be felled in recent years.
In time, slower growing trees will
replace the woodland canopy, edged by fastigiate beech and oak, wild cherry
and Acer capillipes.
The avenues are interrupted by sheltered roundels: one has a fine marble
vase containing the ashes of the 2nd Lord Faringdon; a second is encircled
by variegated holly; a third, known as the Citrus Bowl, consists of a
delightful sunken circle, with an Italian wellhead at its centre, flanked
by orange trees, grown in pots to allow their removal in winter. Last
of all comes the circular Swinging Garden, a place of fun after the preceding
formality, where grown-ups are tempted to revisit their childhood by swinging
gently on the chain-suspended garden seats placed around the perimeter
of this sunny circle.
Arriving back at the Theatre Pavilion, to the east of the house, there
are fine vistas back down through the goose-foot of tree-lined avenues
and garden enclosures laid out by the 2nd Lord Faringdon in the 1930s.
The Swinging Garden.
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