352 The Fif til-third General Meeting. 



Arundel, who could not be present. The next point on the 

 programme, HATCH HOUSE, ouoht to have been reciched in a very 

 short time, but unfortunately a wrong turning was taken, with the 

 result that the carriages were involved in the narrowest of lanes 

 with a breakneck ascent at one point, and tlie high road was only 

 again struck and HatchHouse reached after the expenditure of much 

 valuable time. Here, however, by the kindness of MR. AND MRS. 

 BENETT STANFORD, they found refreshments provided, which 

 enabled them to bear the thouglit of lunch unduly deferred with 

 a far more equal mind, and to enjoy the picturesque enclosed and 

 terraced garden in front of the house.^ 



From this point a further drive of about two miles took the 

 party to tlie Beckford Arms, Fontliill, where lunch, most generously 

 given by the Local Committee, was waiting for them. After 

 luncli Members made their way to FONTHILL HOUSE, where, 

 by the really extraordinary kindness of the owner MRS. ALFRED 

 MORRISON, they were allowed to wander where they pleased, 

 upstairs and downstairs, and to examine the treasures contained 

 in it absolutely at their leisure. It is probable that the 



' The following notes on Hatch House were distributed to Members as a 

 leaflet by Mrs. Benett Stanford : — " Of this property Hoare tells us, among 

 other things, that it was formerly rented by Hamo de Hacho from the Abbess 

 of Shaftesbury. It was undoubtedly property belonging to that Abbey before 

 the dissolution of the monasteries, which is shown by the fact that at the 

 bottom of the hill there are traces of fishponds. It was granted by Henry 

 VIII. on the dissolution of Shaftesbury Abbey to the Earl of Pembroke, who 

 in his turn sold it to Laurence Hyde, grandfather of the first Earl of Clarendon. 

 It remained in the Hyde family until about Queen Anne's reign, when it 

 was bought by the Benetts, of Pyt House, from the descendants of the Hyde 

 family. Local rumour says that the garden was erected by Anne Hyde, 

 daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, who married James, Duke of York. Its 

 Dutch appearance points to those days. The house was utterly and totally 

 destroyed by Cromwellian troops when attacking Wardour — only the cellar 

 window and one small upstair window showing the mullions that were 

 originally in all of them. The story is extant that in the yew hedge on the 

 west side of the house some of the Hyde Family are buried who died of the 

 Plague, and, curiously enough, when digging the hole for the telegraph post 

 now there we came across human leg bones. John Benett, of Pyt House, 

 pulled down the greater portion of the house about 1840, and used the 

 material for building farm houses." 



