OLD LOUGHTON HALL. 19 



More than two centuries afterwards, an anonymous writer^" 

 described the Hall as an Elizabethan pile of considerable beauty, 

 the front and ceiling of the inner hall and a stone staircase being by 

 Inigo Jones. It is not improbable that Inigo Jones was employed 

 to design the interior alterations ; for not only must he have been 

 well known to Sir Robert and the Lady Mary as the deviser of the 

 machinery and decorations of the costly masques in which they 

 themselves, as courtiers, doubtless often played a part,^' but he was 

 also the particular /r^'//^/- of their kinsman, the third Earl of Pem- 

 broke. Whether he had anything to do with the exterior seems 

 more doubtful, as it is generally spoken of as being Elizabethan in 

 character; and a writer in 1770 said of it ^* (in accordance with the 

 taste of the time, half apologetically) that Loughton Hall, "though 

 it is not a regular, is a large, handsome building." 



Erom the beginning of the seventeenth down to the middle of 

 the nineteenth century we get but one peep into Loughton Hall, 

 and that is through the windows of the High Court of Chancery.'^ 

 On the death of John Wroth, in 170I, a dispute arose between his 

 widow and the children of his two former wives. This resulted in 

 the filing of long "Bills" and "Answers," through which it is a 

 weariness to wade. John Wroth, the son, refers in his statement 

 to certain goods in the Hall, which he, now resident there, had 

 bought from the complainant, his stepmother, and her co-executors. 

 The value of the whole amounted to ;^547 5s. 2d., and, among 

 others, the following items occur : Goods in the King's chamber, 

 ;^34 ; in the dining-room, ^lo ; in the drawing-room above, ^6 ; 

 in the drawing-room below, ^30 ; in the great parlour, jC^\2 \ and — 

 irons in the hall, 6s. The garden, cellars, buttery, and press-room 

 are also named. 



It is needless to trace here the descent of the manor, which 

 remained in the possession of the Wroth family until 1738, 

 when, on the death of Elizabeth, the childless widow of John 

 Wroth, it passed, under his will,-" to her great-nephew, ^^'illiam 

 Henry, fourth Earl of Rochford. It was sold by him in 1745 ; and, 

 thenceforward passing by will, it became, in 1825, the property of 

 William Whitaker Maitland, of Woodford Hall. Soon after this the 

 old manor-house once more emerges from its obscurity — an obscurity 



16 " Lewis' Topographical Dictionary," 1S44. 



17 Nichols, op. cit., i., 479. 



18 " History of Essex," by a Gentleman, vol. iii. 



ig Chanc. Proc. b. 1714 : Hamilton, 645 -Wroth Z'. Wroth. 

 20 P.C.C. ; gi, Tenison : proved by the widow, April 28, 1718. 



C 2 



