Sansaw

Sansaw Hall featured a park and grounds around the house as early as 1786, but they were almost certainly designed when the house was built in 1773. Thomas Brocas was the gardener at Sansaw during this period, and his diary records that he was frequently in trouble with his masters. In February 1786 he had failed to fill the icehouse for a party that night, and in May the mistress of the house 'came through the garden and finding most of the green house plants dead by the frost spoke to me very sharply.'

The grounds were well established by 1851, when Sansaw's lawns and shrubberies were commended. The shrubberies lay principally in a belt north of the house, with the lawns flanking it to east and west. These plantings providing a setting for the main drive in from the south-east. Serpentine fishponds bounded the park to the west, and there was also an ice-house built before 1786. Later, between 1880 and 1902, a new approach with a lodge was constructed to the north of the Hall. In 1913, Sansaw was visited by The Gardener's Magazine, and commented on the Irish yews, beeches, a giant Sequoia, and a blue spruce as noteworthy specimen trees.