Wednesday, July 28th. 9 
made a point of stating that there was no evidence whatever that 
there was anything underhand about the purchase, and that Mr. 
Shering was probably at least as honest a man as his master, the 
Duke. Before proceeding to inspect the inside Mr. W. H. Bety 
gave a short account of the history and architecture of the house— 
the latter principally of the 17th century, the fine front door 
being of this date; though Mr. Tatnor gave his reasons for 
believing that the gable over the door is earlier than the rest 
of the house. In the interior there are several fireplaces of 
interest, one of which, in a bedroom, of Gothic design very rudely 
wrought, though it looks of earlier date and is so stated to be by 
Mr. Wilkinson (Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. v., p. 338), was thought by 
- those qualified to judge to be more likely to be a poor copy of 
Gothic work by the later masons, and to really belong to the house 
itself. On three of the bedroom doors very fine and interesting 
iron locks remain, some of them apparently of 16th century design. 
So interesting, indeed, were these and other details of the charming 
old house, that it was with difficulty that several Members were 
induced to leave the attics at all and re-enter the carriages in 
obedience to the blasts of the Secretary’s horn. 
The next stop was at Beamacre, where Mr. W. H. Brett 
again acted as guide to the two charming old manor-houses, only 
divided by a single field—each complete in itself—the one, of the 
15th century, which belonged to the Daniels, the other, of the 17th 
century, which owes its origin to the Selfes, who, on acquiring the 
Pe ee ee See eee 
. ? 
property, had the excellent taste to leave their predecessors’ house 
untouched and unadded to, and to build another house for them- 
selves in the fashion of their time close by. There can be few 
places where two houses of the smaller manor kind, with two 
hundred years between them, exist as these do side by side still. 
The older house retains its hall, with the 15th century roof, 
practically intact, though now divided into two stories ; whilst the 
new Jacobean dwelling, though one of its wings has been re-built, 
_ retains in an absolutely uninjured condition a singularly beautiful 
pannelled room, with remarkably fine stone chimneypiece—lately 
most carefully cleaned and freed from paint and whitewash by the 
