XXVI PEOCEEDINGS, 



it was pointed out. It is known as "Bacon's Mount," and it 

 is said that it was one of his favourite places for reading and 

 meditation. It appears to be a tumulus, and by its proximity 

 to the reservoirs may have led to the idea that they indicated 

 the site of a camp. 



Re-entering the park, the valley was crossed nearly on the line 

 in which the water-pipe was carried, and the ruins of the old house 

 were inspected. Only portions of the walls of the back part 

 remain, with the entrance to the house, which was reached through 

 a courtyard, but the extent of the quadrangle in front can still be 

 traced by the different colour of the grass and a slight ridge here 

 and there. A little distance to the left are the remains of a statue 

 of Henry YIII. Were it not known that these are the ruins of a 

 house in which occasionally resided England's greatest philosopher, 

 and in which his father twice entertained Queen Elizabeth, it might 

 be wondered why they are so securely fenced in and so carefully 

 preserved, for they are of no great antiquity, being scarcely more 

 than three centuries old, and they possess no architectural features 

 worthy of note. 



Just beyond these ruins, on the left, was seen Oak Wood, which 

 is of interest as being the wood which Bacon was advised to have 

 cut down in order to raise money, when he replied that " He would 

 not be stripped of his feathers." 



After endeavouring, with no certain success, to find the site 

 of the house which Geoffrey de Gorham built about the year 1128, 

 and which was demolished before 1400, the park was left, and the 

 members were very kindly received and entertained at tea at 

 Maynes by Mr. and Mrs. Purrott. 



Near the house, and running through part of the garden in one 

 direction and into the park in the opposite direction, is a dyke, 

 named on the 6-inch Ordnance Map " Devil's Ditch." It is nearly 

 in a line with Beech Bottom on the west and Graemes Dyke on the 

 east, and the Director suggested that they might all be portions 

 of the same earthwork, which was probably a defensive tribal 

 boundary (see also p. xxiv). 



A few of the members then crossed the fields to the Pond-yards, 

 which Francis Bacon turned into " a place of pleasure," building 

 near them a house (" Vcrulam House") in which to live in the 

 summer, when the water-supply to old Gorhambury House failed, 

 and, on an island in the middle pond, a banqueting-house. 



The site of Verulam House could not be traced, but the position 

 of it may be approximately determined from the following account 

 in Aubrey's ' Lives of Eminent Men ' : — 



" From the leads [on the top of the house] was a lovely prospect to the ponds, 

 which were opposite to the east side of the house, and were on the other side 

 of the stately walke of trees that leads to Gorhambery House ; and also over that 

 long walke of trees whose topps afford a most pleasant variegated verdure, 

 resembling the works in Irish stitch. . . . P'rom hence to Gorhambery 

 is about a little mile, the way easily ascending, hardly as acclive as a desk : from 

 hence to Gorhambery in a straite line leade three parallell walkes ; in the middle- 

 most three coaches may passe abreast : in the wing- walkes two. They consist 



