ES ee 
—< + ny y Ea ie me ta 
By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 27 
in some respects of the same style as the present house, with this known 
exception, viz., that the uppermost story consisted of a row of gables, 
such as are seen on some parts of the present house on the inner 
side facing the courts. But there is no mention of any general 
designer, or of any person whom we of the present day should call 
an architect. In the letters alluded to Sir John gives his own orders 
for everything, with incessant counter-orders and fresh instructions. 
Among other alterations to the old priory, there is “ a room to be 
built over the old chapel,” and a“ New Lodging of many bed- 
rooms,” to have “gables” with figures of animals on the points, 
to be worked “by John Chapman,” a local workman, who, when 
he has finished at Longleat, is sent for to be employed for similar 
carving of animals at Lacock Abbey, then Sir William Sharington’s. 
In 1547 a Charles Williams, who had travelled over Italy, writes to 
offer his services in supplying internal decorations, “‘ after the Italian 
fashion.” In 1554 ‘another “ New Lodging” is commenced, in 
which a person is employed for decoration, whose name is not given : 
but there are two letters from Sir William Cavendish and his wife 
(Bess Hardwick) to Sir John, requesting the use of this “ cunning 
playsterer,” who, they hear, “had made “ dyverse pendants and 
other pretty things, and had flowered the hall at Longleat,” to do 
like work for them at Hardwick. This was o/d Hardwick House, 
now a ruin, but on the walls of it are still to be seen large florid 
decorations in plaster-work, which, no doubt, are the very work of 
this man. Presently, in 1559, follows a third and expensive piece of 
* New Building,” the origina] contract for which with one Wilham 
Spicer, of Nunney (in Co. Somerset, a few miles from Longleat), 
still exists: and in this it is distinctly stated that the work is to be 
executed “according to a plan agreed upon between Sir John 
Thynne and himself.” In this are named “ chimnies of columns 
17ft. high” (such as are on the present house): and large windows 
of many lights, “all of the forefront to be of like moulding as the 
great window is of, that is now there.” The dimensions of that 
pattern great window, with the number of transoms, mullions, &c., 
are precisely given, and they correspond almost to an inch with 
the actual large windows now at Longleat. <Architraves, friezes, 
