xlvi. OSMINGTON MEETING. 



The only business before the meeting was the election of the 

 five candidates proposed at the last meeting and the nomination 

 of nine candidates for membership. At the balloting the new 

 portable ballot box given by the late Hon. Secretary a great 

 convenience was used for the first time. 



The party then took their places in the brakes and drove to 



WARMWELL HOUSE, 



which, by the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. J. Howard Thomas, was 

 opened to the Club. The members, after examining the 

 architecture of the house and its interesting contents, which 

 included some fine Jacobean panelling, sat down to a refreshing 

 repast of strawberries and cream which had been most kindly 

 and considerately provided by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. Here 

 Mr. MILES BARNES read some short notes on the house. 



There seems no reason for questioning Hutchins' surmise that this house was 

 probably built by Sir George Trenchard, the style corresponding with his time, 

 but that it incorporates portions of an earlier mansion, as on the north side are 

 several windows of the Perpendicular period. These Perpendicular additions 

 were probably made to an earlier house late in the loth century by John 

 Newburgh after the death of Robert Morgan, when the Morgan claim upon a 

 portion of the house ceased. 



The mansion house of many an ancient manor seems to have stood on 

 the same site for centuries, though it underwent many changes in the 

 course of the time. If the walls of this house were carefully examined, 

 some evidence might be forthcoming of a 13th century or even Norman 

 chamber, or hall, which was often the nucleus to which the later building was 

 attached. At any rate, the ancient manor house seems to have existed up to 

 1450, if this is the manor which belonged to Robert Morgan, and which 

 was purchased from him by John Newburgh in that year, for he stipulated 

 that his private chamber at the east end of the hall should be reserved to him for 

 life, with a stable for his horses and two loads of fire fuel every year, and that he 

 should occupy them when he pleased, which shows that the manor house of the 

 ancient Norman or Saxon plan was still in occupation at that late date ; the 

 group consisting of a hall, separate private chambers built about it, with stables 

 and other offices, and, of course, a chapel and kitchen though these are not 

 mentioned and presumably a wall to protect the whole, with a gateway in it. 

 How much longer this primitive arrangement continued in use I am not at 

 present able to say, but the change took place within the next 100 years, which 

 converted the group of detached buildings, the primitive mansion, into the single 



