14. ~—- Restoration and the Preservation of Ancient Buildings. 
he thought heavy, and so had them ! carved into flowers like dahlias. 
I think that, whether the original design was entirely satisfactory 
to the eye or not, it lost in value by the alteration. 
The present owner, my host on the present occasion, prefers that 
his house should be called “The Hall.” The Hall family, no 
doubt, derived their name from a formerly existing hall, in 
Bradford, which may very probably have stood on the same spot, 
but is there any evidence that the present house was ever, until the 
present time, called the Hall? ‘The interest of the building is, 
however, independent of its name. 
There is an interesting house, of the fifteenth century, in the 
short street called the Shambles, which, I am happy to see, still 
remains uninjured. It has formerly had small projecting oriels. 
To the best of my recollection, I once saw a house at Keevil, a little 
out of the village, retaining such an oriel of the fifteenth century. 
I have not heard that the hand of any restorer has, as yet, touched 
Westwood, which we are to see to-morrow, where the Church has 
a very fine late tower, which I suppose may be of the time of Henry 
the Eighth, and where I remember a beautiful wooden ceiling, at 
the end of one of the aisles, apparently of the same date. The 
manor-house also is very interesting and contains some curious 
plaster work. 
Our excursion, on Thursday next, must take us past a very in- 
teresting old house, close to the road from Melksham to Seend, 
1 Mr. John Moulton called my attention, by letter, since the meeting, to an 
apparent inaccuracy in my reference to this fireplace, which is the one in the 
dining-room, viz., that I was reported as having said that alZ the bosses were 
altered by the late Mr. Moulton into dahlias. It was not my intention to be so 
understood, and it will be seen that such a report must have gone beyond what 
I said. Mr. Moulton added that one of the bosses only is intended as a dahlia, 
the others being roses of the orthodox design, and that his father told him that 
the introduction of the dahlia was by way of a joke in order to puzzle architects 
and others. That agrees with my recollection of what the late Mr. Moulton told 
me, the point being, I believe, that the dahlia was not introduced into England 
until a later date than that of the building of the house. I was writing simply 
from my recollection of a conversation, at one short interview, years ago. My 
impression was that one or more of the bosses, but certainly not all, had been 
carved into dahlias. What flowers the others had been carved into I did not 
recollect. 
