From The Warminster Official Guide And Souvenir 1928 (penned by Victor Strode Manley):
Heaven’s Gate is not easily found without enquiry. Approaching through the third gate on the right after turning out of the Frome Road, a seductive emerald path leads through an avenue of gorgeous rhododendrons o’ertopped with lordly trees. Soon a superb prospect is unveiled. Deep down in the dell, as though delicately chiselled from a block of ivory, stands Longleat House –
“Where sloping hills around enclose,
Where many a beech and brown oak grows,
By Nature’s beauties taught to please.”
So entrancing is this woody theatre with the antlered deer roaming over the greensward and the hills beyond melting into blue oblivion, it seems a fantasy. Hallowed by inspiring memories of Bishop Ken released from the Tower of London to find shelter at Longleat, his hymns written here (3 and 23) re-echo around:-
“Teach me to live that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed.”
Silver firs like natural spires rise to 150 feet amid many rare trees imported from other countries.