Three terraced lawns can be seen from the foot of the Tower, each a few steps below the last, and all on a gentle slope as the ground falls away towards the distant river. In the centre of the first lawn there is a sundial where four paths meet, flagstones set wide in the grass around the raised pillar. The dial itself is of slate, carved with the familiar Roman numerals, and two lines of poetry curving to meet each other around the half-circle: Glory be to God for dappled things ~ All things counter, original, spare and strange. At the foot of the bottom lawn there is a low drystone wall, half-visible through the bushes that border the grass here and mark the boundary of each lawn in a long sweeping curve that is edged with flowers in summer and drifting leaves as the winter begins to fall. The steps that lead from one lawn to the next are warm in the sunlight, with tiny star-flowered plants creeping between the stones.

Away to one side the bushes grow taller and give way at last to a tiny wood of rowan, hazel and birch. Beyond the wood, concealed from view, is the stile that leads over the wall and down onto the path over the meadows, and so to the river-bank at last. It is here, in the shelter of the slender trees, that the first spring flowers show every year — snowdrops, crocus, then daffodils, narcissus and harebells through the wood. Further back, against the side of the tower, grows a leaning laburnum tree. In high summer the heavy fall of its flowers — and, later, of the long grey seeds — almost seem to pull the branches down to the ground.

Beyond the lawns to the right is the pool where the dragonflies dance in the lazy sun and the frogs sit beneath the sheltering leaves on the edge, or hide in the water crocodile-fashion, only eyes and noses showing. On the bank beyond the water, primroses still grow.

The path leads round again and back to the entrance of the Tower, shadowed by tall shrubs whose clipped shapes have almost grown out. Here the Tower faces close onto the street, and there is a high wall and gateway through which only a glimpse can be caught of the stones of the road and another wall beyond. On the far side of the entrance there is no path. The trunk of a great creeper can be seen growing against the wall. In the summer it bears great cascades of lilac-coloured flowers, and over the years its upper branches have reached almost to the second-storey windows above.