XXvl REPORT. 
Melbourne, united with that of Chellaston, at £45 per annum, from which the 
Bishop had to pay 31s. 4d. to the Prior and Convent of Breedon (on the Hill). 
About 1629, the Right Honourable Sir John Coke, Knight (a younger 
member of the very ancient family of the Cokes of Trusley, in Derbyshire), 
being then one of the two Principal Secretaries of State, became lessee of the 
Rectory of Melbourne under the Bishop of Carlisle. The leasehold interest 
continued in his descendants till 1704, when, by agreement with the then 
Bishop of Carlisle, confirmed by Act of Parliament, the leasehold was 
converted into a fee-simple tenure in favour of his great-grandson, the Right 
Honourable Thomas Coke, M.P. for Derby, Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Anne 
and King George I. (1707—1727.) The property passed by the marriage of 
the daughter of Mr. Coke with Sir Matthew Lamb, Bart., to the descendants 
of that marriage, afterwards Viscounts Melbourne; and more recently by the 
marriage of the Honourable Emily Lamb with the 5th Earl Cowyer, to the 
present (7th) Earl Cowper, K.G, 
The Vicarage House, rebuilt about 1840, stands between the Church and 
the Great Pool—south-eastward from the former. 
The patronage of the Vicarage was vested in the Bishops of Carlisle till 
183—, when it was transferred to the Bishops of Lichfield. 
HALL AND GARDENS. 
The northern wall of the Hall is of the date 1629, having been rebuilt 
when the Rectory House of the Bishops of Carlisle was re-modelled, pur- 
suant to directions (still extant) in the writing of Sir John Coke, upon his 
becoming the lessee as before-mentioned. 
The eastern front (towards the Gardens) was built by Mr. Vice-Chamber- 
lain Coke about 1722, from a design (it is supposed) of Mr. Gibbs, the 
well-known architect, who was engaged about that time in works at All 
Saints’ Church, in Derby. 
The Gardens were formed by Mr. Vice-Chamberlain Coke. The ‘‘ Long 
Arbour ” (yew) is of earlier date. 
The Grotto, covering a mineral spring, has on a marble tablet the follow- 
ing lines by the Honourable George Lamb, viz. :— 
‘Rest, weary stranger, in this shady cave, 
And taste, if languid, of the mineral wave: 
There’s virtue in the draught, for Health, that flies 
From crowded cities and their smoky skies, 
Here lends her power to every glade and hill, 
Strength to the breeze and medicine to the rill.” 
The sculptured urn (in lead) in the southern part of the Gardens (called the 
Four Seasons) was a gift from Queen Anne to her Vice-Chamberlain. 
The alleys of lime trees radiating from the urn give views of ‘‘ Melbourne 
