$otcs on some 0m Rouses of Ccrfcg. 



By George Bailey. 



N these days of rapid change, when everything seems 

 to be giving place to something else, and when what 

 has been a well-known thing to generations past is 

 almost suddenly removed from the view, to be altogether lost to 

 that which will succeed, some Notes on Old Houses may have 

 interest to not a few. 



The very term " old houses " has to most people a meaning 

 far beyond the name ; for are they not old homes ? and is not 

 many a tale of sorrow, joy, love— and although the reflection is 

 not a pleasant one, yet it must be said, and of crime — attached 

 to them ? Those old walls could reveal to us many a grim 

 skeleton ; and while we admit the necessity that these fabrics 

 must give place to others, better adapted perhaps to the require- 

 ments of the times in which we live, yet, just as we regret the 

 wholesale destruction of old churches, castles, and halls, because 

 of the interest which belongs to them as containing in themselves 

 histories of the manners and customs, the political and religious 

 life of our ancestors, lost to us in so many instances by wanton 

 destruction — so we feel that these old homes have much in 

 common with those more pretentious buildings, the loss of which 

 to the architect, the antiquary, the artist, and the man of letters, 

 is so great and irreparable. 



Of picturesque old houses in Derby, a very great number have 

 already been removed, and, it may be said, the days of those 

 remaining are numbered. A few more years will see the last of 

 them ; and it would be no difficult task to prove, that, whatever 



