20 OLD LOUOHTON HALL. 



illumined for a moment by the lurid light of the conflagration in 

 which it vanished for ever. 



After his accession to the estate, Mr. Maitland took the house in 

 hand and carried out extensive alterations, both inside and out. 

 The illustration which accompanies this paper (taken from a water- 

 colour sketch at Golding's Hill, the home for many years of his 

 widow) is thought to represent the exterior as it was just before the 

 fire. The building presented, according to a contemporary account,"^^ 

 two frontages, each 162 feet long, with a depth of 65 feet, being of 

 what is called the Elizabethan style originally, and, from a date on 

 the leaden spouts, would seem to have been erected about the year 

 161 6. The front had been modernized, continues the writer, and 

 ornamented along the line of facade with pilasters, over which ran a 

 range of columns, both of the Doric order. Within, the recent 

 decorations were generally of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, richly 

 gilded at the capitals. Over ;^6,ooo had, it is said, been recently 

 spent on mere building operations, and fifty rooms were destroyed 

 or damaged. 



The fire seems to have had its origin in a beam in the library 

 chimney, and burst forth early on the morning of Sunday, December 

 xith, 1836. The butler, awakened by the library bell, which was 

 fortunately set ringing by the fall of some burning material on to the 

 wire attached to it, roused the household, and all were soon got out 

 of danger. But none too soon ; for " in a few seconds the whole 

 [west] wing was one body of fire." The subscription fire-engine 

 ("from Chigwell," says one account) and the neighbours were 

 quickly on the spot ready to help. The only supply of water, how- 

 ever, was from a pond 360 yards distant. Two servants rode off to 

 London, and by ten o'clock two other fire-engines, hurried down as 

 fast as four post-horses in each could drag them, were on the spot. 

 The west wing was then hopelessly burnt, and the energies of the 

 firemen were bent on the east one, containing the kitchen offices, 

 with rooms above them. Fears were at one time entertained for the 

 ancient church of S. Nicholas, in which, of course, no morning 

 service was held. Fortunately, however, there was no wind, and it 

 escaped damage. Some few things were dragged out of the house 

 on to the lawn and saved ; but the magnificent library of over 10,000 

 printed volumes and MSS., many rare, and some said to be unique, 

 was destroyed, together with a costly collection of pictures which, it 



21 "Essex Standard," December i6, 23, 30, 1836 ; "Essex Herald," December 13, 1836. 



