THE MILLBROOK RESERVE CHALLENGES OLD ENGLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19240, 29 November 1930, Page 8

THE MILLBROOK RESERVE CHALLENGES OLD ENGLAND .

Pen Pictures.

(By

Bernice Shackleton.)

Wherever the lover of nature goes he is perpetually in quest of perfection in a landscape, or a garden setting for a home. Such is the sentimental tradition of the soft beauty of England — Devon downs and lanes and Kentish gardens—that many think only England has the ideal. This conviction has taken hold so strongly in New Zealand that when spring opens her hand to pour beauty into some quiet spot we give England the praise. “ How truly English ” is Christchurch worship, but I have seen both, and think that there are places in Christchurch to rival, if not to surpass, those ideal English scenes the inward eye pays tribute to. The hot nor’-westers are the vandals of high summer, but while the late spring fragrance still lingers in secluded spots some may find these rarely vaunted places worth an evening’s pilgrimage.

In that little riverside walk along the old Millbrook Reserve from Carlton Mill Road to Helmore’s Road, the flame is dying in the early azalea bushes, but the later varieties fling arms of glowing loveliness in tender profusion to steal admiration from the arrogant rhododendrons. A Poem Written. And beneath black traceries of boughs on a green ceiling there is a poem written in flower names. The primroses are spent; but forget-me-nots and London Pride sprawl carelessly along a lilac-scented walk. The Moses-in-the-bullrushes opens a blue bloom in semi-hiding; the scattered gold-dust and tentative begonias frirge a shadowed pool, and on the city side of the rustic bridge flag irises wave delicately near to the lacy maples. Spiked lupins, ruddy geums and trailing clematis herald the coming summer in the sunnier part; but fittingly enough those true English garden glimpses that we look for are to be found where pilgrim oaks still shade the seeker. Sometimes I think the beauty lover is a thief, stealing loveliness where private hands have fenced and made it theirs, and yet so El El El El El El El El El El El El ID El ID ID ID ID ID ID El Ell

long as gardens have only gates—not doors —so long will passing footsteps loiter near them. . V Gateway Glimpses, Two gateways invite such stealing glances from this reserve. Beyond one a squarepaved pool where lilies grow is set quite formally in a bowery enclosure. An opening through a neat clipped fence shows a sweep of lawn up to a house that breathes old memories. This is a quiet, dignified view, cool and reassuring. The other is a single bold stroke of the gardener’s art. A straight walk between magnificent rhododendrons and azaleas, and far off flagged steps to a green square where a grey little statue looks perpetually towards the gateway. It is the full-stop to the finished sentence. On the other side of the Avon wisdom has left a pastorale untouehed. The philosophic angler casting his fly in these sequestered glades has the sheep for company, and as the day fades they become fleecy heaps in a green twilight. The yellow night-bee whirrs. The stars come out. But this place was made for rest, and no one hastens away from beauty.