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West Dean Gardens and Lainston House Hotel, England MAY IN ENGLAND IS A TIME WHEN LILACS BLOOM in a sweet profusion of white, lavender , and purple. We drove across the Sussex Downs from the gardens of West Dean. On the other side of Winchester, we came to Lainston House, a substantial fiftybedroom brick mansion of the William and Mary era. Our room, “Delft,” so named because of its lovely blue and white ceramic tiles, overlooked the terrace and an infinity perspective that reached down a greensward to the light blue hills in the distance. That evening we dined on the terrace as evensong enchanted us with the sounds of doves cooing. An elegant repast began with vichyssoise, followed by halibut and lamb. A bottle of sparkling Italian Prosecco added to the luster of our evening. We had begun the day at the gardens of West Dean, an expansive landscape in the South Downs, part of the Edward James Foundation. The magnificent house is today a school of the arts. It was designed by James Wyatt (1746–1813) for the First Lord Selsey in 1804. The highlight of our visit included a walk along the great stone-and-flint pergola designed by Harold Peto. The pergola is draped in great profusions of honeysuckle, clematis, and lavender wisteria. At the center of this elegant walk is a charming reflection pool surrounded by hostas. The five-acre walled garden encloses a Victorian kitchen garden, with much of it in glass houses. We saw the historic development from sunken cold flats to greenhouses filled with espaliered pears, grapes, and figs. Our guide was Shirley Tasker, who had over seven years mastered the art of vegetable growing. She advised that tomatoes, like potatoes, could no longer be grown out of doors in England because of blight. Instead the huge beefsteak tomatoes were growing under glass where they were amply fertilized by horse manure. There was an abundance of fresh peas and beans, with cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kale grown under nets to protect their luscious fruit from pigeons. Rabbits were kept out by the huge wall of brick. Shirley advised that every third year they refreshed the soil, as they had done this year to keep the raspberries blooming. During the nineteenth century the produce of the garden was so prolific that it was sold at market in London. Today it provides a classic look at a manicured vegetable garden. We left West Dean Gardens and drove across the green fields of the South Downs. Luminous brilliant-yellow fields of rapeseed alternated with the dark of deep woods, as we drove along our way to Peterfield. It was indeed a day to be out and about in the sunshine and under the blue skies of England. Our destination, Lainston West Dean Gardens and Lainston House Hotel 95 House, greeted us at dusk. Lainston stands in a huge grove of old pink and white chestnut trees. Three hundred-year-old copper beech trees define the infinity vista. The place has its own vegetable gardens and also raises pork for delicious roasts, sausage, and bacon. Lainston is probably derived from “Leyne,” which means a “farm with a great field” and “Tun” which means an enclosure. Lainston is a sixty-five-acre tract with an ancient high brick-walled garden. The entire tract is unspoiled forest and paths. Our favorite path starts at a cedar barn near the house and goes through gardens down an avenue of massive lime trees planted in 1716. The walk offers superb views as it never strays far from the “infinity” vista of the dining terrace. In pre-Roman times the Lainston area had been settled by the Belgae, a sophisticated Celtic group who founded the earliest settlement at the site of today’s Winchester . From a.d. 85–410 the area became a Roman province. Venta Belgarum (Winchester) was rebuilt in the Roman grid pattern and securely walled. In the late 400s and 500s, a tall, fair Teutonic people migrated to the area from Germany; Cerdic, the leader of these Anglo-Saxon people, founded the kingship of Wessex in 510 and made Winchester its capitol. Queen Elizabeth II is directly descended from Cerdic. During the Dark Ages, the legendary King Arthur governed this area, although the Round Table in the great hall of the Winchester castle was commissioned in the 1500s by Henry VIII. In 802 Egbert of Wessex became supreme over other rulers and...

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