294 On the Old Forch-IIouse at PoUerne. 



actual condition as it appeared two years ago. As regards its oc- 

 cupation during the years of its decline, it has suffered almost more 

 than the wonted vicissitudes of old houses, and has indeed been put 

 to strange uses ; for it seems to have served successively as a brewery, 

 as a bakehouse, as a barrack, as a public-house (bearing the sign of 

 the " Pack-horse ■'■') ; and finally, and only too fatally to many portions 

 of it, it was divided into four or five tenements. To fit it for these 

 several uses, and especially for its last unfortunate occupation as the 

 abode of several families, it was deemed necessary to make many 

 disastrous alterations. Thus the fine old porch, which has given its 

 name to the house, was stopped up in front, and opened at the sides : 

 two new doors were made and opened to the street : at the back two 

 new doors were made opening into the hall : windows w^ere blocked 

 up with wattle and plaster : others were opened : three or four stair- 

 cases were made : small rooms were made less by means of thin 

 partitions : fire-places were constructed where none had previously 

 existed : and ceilings everywhere hid the fine open roofs, and the 

 oak joists, on which the original flooring rested. One huge chimney, 

 having two flues in it, and of about two hundred years' standing, 

 took up a great part of the hall, and in great degree spoilt its pro- 

 portions. While more recently the pendants from the roof with 

 tracery were ruthlessly cut away to make head room for the upper 

 floor : indeed one of the workmen, now engaged in the restoration, 

 who lived in these rooms tor several years, acknowledges that he 

 assisted in cutting away the grand old pendants and tracfry, which 

 he says reached down to within two or three feet of the upper floor, 

 so that they must have lost % feet 6 inches or 3 feet in length by the 

 operation. 



Notwithstanding however all these destructive alterations, and 

 that considerable injuries were done, under the plea of restoration, 

 the structure itself happily remains, and pretty much the same in 

 general aspect as it was several centuries ago. 



Let me now pass on to mention shortly how the work of restoration 

 has been conducted, and what has been done. In the first place it 

 was felt that where a single mistake might be fatal, and one false 

 move, through lack of the required care and caution, might ruin 



