The extent
of the kitchen gardens is about 12 acres. In the privy garden is a
grape house 70 feet in length, and 14 in breadth; the interior being
wholly occupied by one vine of the black Hamburgh kind, which was
planted in the year 1769, and has in a single year, produced 2,200
bunches of grapes, weighing, on an average, one pound each.
The grotesque forms of the gardens, and the mathematical taste in
which they are disposed, are advantageously seen in a bird's-eye view
as in the Engraving, which represents the tortuous beauty of the
parterres, and the pools, fountains, and statues with characteristic
accuracy. The formal avenues, radiating as it were, from the gardens
or centre, are likewise distinctly shown, as is also the canal formed
by Wolsey through the middle avenue. The intervening space, then a
parklike waste, is now planted with trees, and stretches away to the
village of Thames Ditton; and is bounded on the south by the Thames,
and on the north by the high road to Kingston.
The palace is open to the public, and besides its splendid apartments,
and numerous buildings, there is a valuable collection of pictures,
which are too celebrated to need enumeration.
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