12 BRADSHAW HALL AND THE BRADSHAWES. 



on the ground flour. This letter marks the spot where we have 

 excavated, or, in the case of the withdrawing room, where the 

 floor is boarded, bored, to a depth of five or six feet in search 

 of the old cellars of Bradshaw, which, as will be proved from 

 the inventory of their contents, given by Mr. Bowles on p. 68, 

 certainly existed in the seventeenth century, but we failed to 

 discover them. Under the floor of the dining hall, however, 

 which has evidently been flagged at a later date than the rest 

 of the building, the ground is composed of loose material, and 

 this suggests that the cellars may have been here, but since 

 filled in and flagged over. Elsewhere we found pieces of a 

 deeiily-moulded cornice, which perhaps came from the dining 

 hall. 



Had the Bradshawe family but continued to reside at the old 

 Hall it would have been preserved to us as the fine building 

 which, for its size, it undoubtedly was, and might have been 

 to-day one of the choicest examples of Elizabethan architecture* 

 in the county, and, to those who know Derbyshire thoroughly, 

 this is praise indeed. 



One fact about Bradshaw is almost unique. From the days 

 of Henry III., when the lands were reclaimed from the forest, 

 until to-day, Bradshaw has never been sold out of the family or 

 forfeited, but has passed down by descent alone to its present 

 owner, Mr. C. E. Bradshaw Bowles, as heir to the founder of 

 its ancient Hall. 



* I have explained that this type of architecture was continued in Derby- 

 shire after the death of Queen Ehzabeth. 



