LITTLE HUCKLOW : ITS CUSTOMS AND OLD HOUSES. 6 1 



Structures have been destroyed to be replaced by something 

 more in accordance with modem taste ; indeed, I have been 

 advised by utilitarian people to knock down the stairs and put 

 a front door there ! In very many old houses the stair is, in 

 fact, enclosed in a case with a door at the bottom, which you 

 might think led into a cupboard, and sometimes a door at the 

 top. Here and there this door has degenerated into a mere 

 wicket or piece of lattice-work. 



Such doors can only have been intended as a protection against 

 intrusion, or against cold draughts. In this house at Little 

 Hucklow there is an oak door, painted black on the outside, 

 at the foot of the stair. It has a wooden latch and a wooden 

 hasp, and you raise the latch by putting your finger through 

 a hole in the door. The turret is lighted by a small latticed 

 window, headed by a semi-circular arch. The window is 

 splayed inwardly, and is glazed by old bottle-green glass, so 

 that if you sleep next the "spere," and the moonlight comes 

 through the open stair-door upon your face, you may fancy that 

 you are l\ing in an old church, so quaint and weird is the 

 scene. 



The steps radiate from a newel, which, like the doorway of 

 the staircase, is 6 ft. high. Ascending eight steps and keeping 

 to the right you find yourself at the door, 5 ft. 3 in. high, 

 of the east chamber, here called the house chamber, into 

 which you enter by another step. The eighth step is made 

 broad enough to form a small landing in front of the door 

 of this room, and from this landing you ascend two other steps 

 to another small landing in front of the door of the west 

 chamber, into which you enter by another step, making the 

 floor of the west chamber i ft. 3 in. higher than that of the 

 east chamber. The last-named landing is guarded by an 

 oak framework, now whitewashed, and it is very interesting 

 lo notice that this rude contrivance is the original or simplest 

 form of the rails, often elaborately decorated, which guard 

 nur modern stairs and landings. There is only just room to turn 

 round on a landing 2 ft. in length an<l i ft. 7 in. in breadth. 



