Vanishing England

ay. We have still left to us Haddon and Wilton, Broughton, Penshurst, Hardwick, Welbeck, Bramshill, Longleat, and a host of others; but every year sees a diminution in their numb

res by Lely and Vandyke, miniatures of Cosway, old furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton, and the countless treasures which generations of cultured folk with ample wealth have accumulated, deeds, documents and old papers that throw valuable light on the manners and customs of our forefathers and on the histo

houses so surely and so well that they scarcely needed these modern appliances. They constructed them with a great square courty

for the wind

n it rainet

dition circa late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to i

through them. Their rooms, too, were panelled or hung with tapestry-famous things for making a room warm and cosy. We have plaster walls covered with an elegant wall-paper which has always a cold surface, hence the air in the room, h

ney. How many houses have been burnt down owing to that fatal beam! But our ancestors were content with a dog-grate and wood fires; they

Cornice on Panelling, th

s were wantonly destroyed about the years 1800-20, and new ones in the Italian or some other incongruous style erected in their place. Sometimes, as at Little Wittenham, you find the lone lorn terraces of the gardens of the house, but all else has disappeared. As Mr. Allan Fea says: "When an old landmark disappears, who does not feel a pang of regret at parting with something which linked us with t

scenes, for eve

orrows must I

of these chambers was found to contain, when the house was pulled down, a rough bed, candlestick, remains of food, and a breviary. A Roman Catholic school and presbytery now occupy its site. It is a melancholy sight to see the "Wilderness" behind the house, still adorned with busts and urns, and the gr

ers, who with

eaving an obs

ruggle any longer. The rain pours through the roof and down the insides of the walls. And the fa

se. The Close. S

picturesque, had one sad and deplorable experi

of the owners in Elizabethan times) left and the contents were dispersed. On a comfortless January morning, while rain and sleet descended in torrents to the accompaniment of a biting wind, I detrained at a small out-of-the-way station in --folk. A weather-beaten old man in a patched great-coat, with the oldest and sha

part an addition seemed to denote that the owner had acquired wealth about the time of the first James, and promptly directed it to the enlargement of his residence. In another a huge hall with classic brick frontage, dating from the commencement of the eighteenth century, spoke of an increase of affluence-probably due to agricultural prosperity-followed by the dignity of a peerage. The latest alterations appear to have been made during the Strawberry Hill epoch, when most of the mu

len fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their service some quarter of a century previous waited upon us at lunch with dignified ceremony. After lunch a tour of the house commenced. Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of the rooms were so bare that little could be said of them, but the Great Hall, an apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the more palatial Rainham, needs the pen of the author of Lammermoor to describe. It was a very large and lofty room in the pseudo-classic style, with a fine cornice, and hung round with family portraits so bleached with damp and neglect that they presented but dim and ghostly presentments of their originals. I do not think a fire could have been lit in this ghostly gallery for many years, a

o roast oxen at whole, huge spits and countless hooks, the last exhibiting but one dependent-the skin of the rabbit shot for lunch

by scores. What an opportunity for the genealogist with a history in view, but that opportunity I fear has passed for ever. The -- Hall estate was evidently mortgaged up to the hilt, and nothing intervened to prevent the dispersal of these treasures, which occurred some few months after my visit. Large though the building was, I learned that its size was once far greater, some two-thirds of the old building having been pulled down when the hall was constituted in its present form. Hard by on an adjoining estate a millionaire manufacturer (who owned several motor-cars)

truction. Such an one is the ancestral house of the Comptons,

-chimne

ckwork on an

t afford to repair it; happily the faithful steward of the estate, John Berrill, did not obey the order. He did his best to keep out the weather and to preserve the house, asserting that he was sure the family would return there some day. Most of the windows were bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old building within whose

, with occasional chequers of blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow local stone, the woodwork of the two gables carved and black with age, the stone slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the hand of time; the whole building has an indescribable charm. The architecture, too, is a

f these chimneys which form such

t Compton

e and England, under a crown, supported by the greyhound and griffin, and sided by the rose and the crown, probably in memory of Henry VIII's visit here."36 The Comptons ever basked in the smiles of royalty. Henry Compton, created baron, was the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and his son William succeeded in marrying the daughter of Sir John Spencer, richest of City merchants. All the world knows of his ingenious craft in carrying off the lady in a baker's basket, of his wife's disinheritance by the irate father, and of the subsequent reconciliation through the intervention of Queen Elizabeth at the ba

h, Brockhal

ttering picture of the old country squire, as of the parson. His untruths concerning the latter I have endeavoured to expose in another place.37 The manor-houses themselves declare the historian's strictures to be unfounded. Is it possible that men so ignorant and crude could have built for themselves residences bearing evidence of such good taste, so full of grace and charm, and surrounded by such rare blendings o

, Norton St. P

tury, makes some illuminating observations on the increasing preference shown in

ce farder distant fro their lodgings. Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde stone, as provision may best be made; but so magnificent and stately, as the basest house of a barren doth often match

young dayes there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish townes of the realme (the religious houses and mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some great personages [parsonages]), but each one made his fire against a reredosse

at noblemen and gentlemen of the Court were filled with the desire for extravagant display, and built such clumsy piles as Wollaton and Burghley House, importing French and German artisans to load them with bastard Italian Renaissance detail. Some of these vast structures are not very admirable with their distorted gables, their chaotic proportions, and their crazy imitations of classic orders. But the typical Elizabethan mansion, w

rowhurst Pl

hole surface of the house was covered with rough-cast, such as the quaint old house called Broughton Hall, near Market Drayton. Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, is an attractive example of the plastered house. The irregular roof-line, the gables, and the white-barred windows, and the contrast of the white walls with the rich green of the vines and s

n these houses, "in summer by reason of the heat, or in winter by reason of the cold." It was a sore burden to many a house-owner when Charles II imposed the iniquitous window-tax, and so heavily did this fall upon the owners of some Elizabethan houses that the poorer ones were driven to the necessity of walling up some of the windows which their a

ories of Anne Boleyn. Then there is the historic Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, haunted by the shades of Sir Philip, "Sacharissa," the ill-fated Algernon, and h

ords in window, Cro

s and additions. The part nearer the moat is, however, a little later than the gables further back. The dining-room is the contracted remains of the great hall of Crowhurst Place, the upper part of which was converted into a series of bedrooms in the eighteenth century. We give an illustration of a very fine hinge to a cupboard door in one of the bedrooms, a good example of the blacksmith's skill. It is noticeable that the points of the linen-fold in the panelling of the door are undercut and project sharply. We see the open framed floor with moulded beams. Later on the fashion changed, and the builders preferred to have square-shaped beams. We notice the fine old panelling, the elaborate mouldings, and the fixed bench running along one end of the chamber, of which we give an illustration. The design and wor

e, Crowhurst

sting-places and go out of the country, we should prefer them to go to America than to any other land. Our American cousins are our kindred; they know how to appreciate the treasures of the land that, in spite of many changes, is to them their mother-country. No nation in the world prizes a high lineage and a family tree more than the Americans, and it is my privilege to receive many inquiries from across the Atlantic for missing links in the family pedigree, and the jo

he Hall, Crowhur

s, and other weapons of warfare often are seen hanging on the walls of an ancestral hall. The buff coats of Cromwell's soldiers,

-head, Goud

ou can see specimens of armour. In churches also much armour has been stored. It was the custom to suspend over the tomb the principal arms of the de

death, his ob

d, nor hatchmen

e, nor forma

and stored in museums. Norwich Museum has some good specimens, of which we give some illustrations. There is a knight's basinet which belongs to the time of Henry V (circa 1415). We can compare this with the salads, which came into use shortly after this period, an example of which may be seen at the Porte d'Hal, Brussels. We also show a thirteenth-century sword, which was dredged up at Thorpe, and believed to have been lost in 1277, when Kin

(temp. Henry V)

th-century Sword

t example of fifteenth-century residence with its noble hall and minstrels' gallery, its solar, kitchens, corridors, and gardens. Moreover, it is now owned by those who love and respect antiquity and its architectural beauties, and is in every respect an old English mansion well preserved and tenderly cared for. Yet at one time it was almost doomed to destruction. Not many years ago it was the property of a man who knew

" Sword. Mr. Sey

, in the possession of E

st important features of the hall is the heraldic glass, commemorating eighteen worthies, which is of the same date as the house. The credit of identifying these worthies is due to Mr. Everard Green, Rouge Dragon, who in 1899 communicated the result of his researches to Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of Antiquaries. There are eighteen shi

and two in saltire, banded with a golden and tasselled ribbon, which badge some again assign to the family of Norreys and others to the Royal Wardrobe. If, however, the Norreys arms are correctly set forth in a compartment

Fer at Ock

, a not unpleasant way for light to come to us, as Mr. Everard Green pleasantly remarks. By means of heraldry Sir John Norreys recorded his friendships, thereby adding

emo

t tha

possible b

arms and crest of a member of the Mortimer family; Sir Richard Nanfan, of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire; Sir John Norreys with his arms quartered with those of Alice Merbury, of Yattendon, his first wife; Sir John Langford, who married Sir John Norreys's granddaughter; a member of the De la Beche family (?); John Purye, of Thatcham, Bray, and Cookham; Richard Bulstrode, of Upton, Buckinghamshire, Keeper of the Great Wardrobe to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and afterwards Comptroller of the Household to Edward IV. These are the worthies

. At any rate, it appears to date from about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is a very perfect example of the domestic architecture of that period. From the Daubeneys it passed successively to the Duke of Suffolk, the Crown, the Cliftons, the Phelips's, the Strodes; and one of this last family entertained the Duke of Monmouth there during his tour in the west in 1680. The house, which is E-shaped, with central porch and wings at each end, i

d gracefully adorned, and the detail of the mullioned windows with their arched heads, in every light, and their water-tables above, is admirable. The porch also has a fine Tudor arch, which might form the entrance to some college quadrangle, and there are rooms above and gables on either hand. The whole structure breathes the spirit of the Tudor age, before the classic spirit had exercised any marked influence upon our nation

structure across England and re-erecting it in a strange county. It has several times changed hands in recent years, and under these circumstances it is not surprising that but little has been done to ensure the preservation of what is indeed an architectural gem. But the walls are in excellent condit

possession of Sir Alfred Dry

the "maner of buylding and furniture of our Houses," wherein is recorded the costliness of the stores of plate and tapestry that were found in the dwellings of nobility and gentry a

or two thousand pounde at the leaste; wherby the value of this and the reast of their stuffe doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise in the houses of knightes, gentlemen, marchauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it is not geson to beholde generallye their great provision of tapestrie Turkye worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costly cupbords of plate woorth five or six hundred pounde, to be demed by estimation. Bu

ought shelter in a lone Welsh cottage. She admired and bought a rather curious jug. It turned out to be a somewhat rare and valuable ware, and a sketch of it has since been reproduced in the Connoisseur. I have myself discovered three Bartolozzi engravings in cottages in this

some holes that were just under the roof.... Pushing my hand in the wall ... I pulled out this carved horn, which

engraved or stamped on the silve

nd in the wall of an old house at Gl

o was quartered at Bridgwater. It was preserved by the family for more than a century, and given by Miss Mary Sparke, the great-granddaughter of the above William Sparke, in 1822 to a Mr. Stradling, who placed it in the museum. The spy-glass, which is of very primitive construction, is in four sections or tubes of bone covered with parchment. Relics of war and fighting are often stored in country houses. Thus at Swallowfield Park, the residence of Lady Russell, was found, when an old tree was grubbed up, so

tury Spy-glass

r-house in Norfolk. It is of English make, and was manufactured about the year 1350. It is embossed with t

ce Be in t

m

ir40 from

njust41 c

lagon. From an old M

Robinson Collection in 1879 by the nation, a

oak, inlaid with holly, dating from the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Its length is 5 ft. 2 in., its height 2 ft. 11 in. It is in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., of the manor-house, Warborough, in Oxfordshire. The staircases are often elaborately carved, which form a striking feature of many old houses. The old Aldermaston Court was burnt down, but fortunately the huge figures on the staircase were saved and appear again in the new Court, the residence of a dis

of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B. Heig

It is constructed on the same principle as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans. The brass tube was filled with water, which was allowed to run out slowly at the bottom. A cork floated at the top of the water in the tube, and as it

t away as soon as there was room made for them in the grave. They valued and prized the house that they had reared, or added to, or improved. Hence they loved to carve their names or their initials on the lintels of their doors or on the walls of their houses with the date. On the stone houses of the Cotswolds, in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, wherever good building stone abounds, you can see these inscriptions, initials usually those of husband and wife, which preserved the memorial of their names as long as the house remained in the family. Alas! too often the memorial conveys no mean

el Cromwell H

t, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones

und with a sword (temp. Charles II) in a

ury Water-clock,

ar or a newly painted piece of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties. The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have grown smoother and thicker, and the passing of the centuries has served but

Manor House, S