By C. H. Talbot. 15 
which would be a very good subject for a judicious and conservative 
restoration. In the meantime, I commend it to the notice of artists 
and photographers. The Members of the Society should, I think, 
stop, and, at least, view the outside of it. The house is in the 
parish of Melksham, and, I believe, in the tithing of Woolmer, and 
is called “Woolmer” by some. The present occupier, I think, 
ealls it “ Bower Hill.” A reference to the old map by Dury and 
Andrews, 1773, seems to show that its old name was “ Bower 
House.” It was all built, at one date, in the time of Charles the 
First, and is very little altered. Over the principal door are the 
letters G MH above the date 1631, and I expect that investigation 
will show it to have been built by a member of the Hulbert family, 
for this reason. A bread charity was left to the parish of Lacock, 
by George Hulbert, of Covent Garden, which is a charge upon 
land at Woolmer, in the parish of Melksham. As however this 
appears to have been founded by will, in 1629, he could not 
himself be the builder of the house. The house is remarkable, in 
this part of the country, as being built of brick with stone dressings. 
_ It has a range of small gables, at the sides, and a similar range, at 
the front and back, has either been removed, or intended but never 
erected. Many of the original fireplaces remain, of got character, 
and all very similar. 
At Keevil we shall see a timber-built house of the fifteenth 
— eentury, which has been restored and added to. This is a case in 
a ~ = 
Se eee ud 
which I think that the restoration was a little too sweeping, and 
more so, I believe, than was the wish of the owner. The builder 
employed on the restoration, who also did the Porch House at 
Potterne, was a very good man for the work, and the only man I 
ever knew who restored wattle-and-dab properly. Lath-and-plaster 
is generally substituted for decayed wattle-and-dab, but does not 
_ stand anything like as well. The builder was animated by a desire 
to bring the place back to its original condition, and he removed a 
“stone window of the sixteenth century and a timber porch of the 
seventeenth century, which it might have been better to have 
retained. 
Twenty years ago, I first visited Mere, in South Wilts, and in a 
