t 150 ] 



IGHTHAM MOTE, 



KENT - 



TriE SEAT OF 



Mr. T. Colyer-Fergusson. 



GARDENS 

 OLD-&NEW 



NGLAND would be poor 

 indeed if it had no such 

 places as Ightham Mote. 

 In this ancient courtyard, with those dear old gables looking 

 down, we have the very type of the houses of former times. 

 We may go to grander places, where the clang of the mailed 

 heel seems yet to echo in stately halls, to more sumptuous 

 chambers, where courtly dames might have seemed, perhaps, 

 more at home ; but in few other places cm we find so notable 

 an example of the houses in which the mediaeval gentlemen 

 dwelt. It belongs to the days when the times were troubled, 

 and when the knight or squire foun.l it comfortable to live in 

 a house whence, securely through a lo.'phole, the cloth-yard 

 shaft might wing its way, and where it was well sometimes to 

 parley from the gate-tower with the stranger across the moat. 

 There was protection in such houses from the sudden raid, 

 and, at a pinch, with the drawbridge up and the portcullis 

 down, they might even stand a siege. But such measures 

 were only for the turbulent or the unwelcome ; for the friend 

 or the honest stranger the gate was opened wide, and there 



was English hospitality behind 

 the iron-bound oaken door. 

 The sun was caught in the court- 

 yard, and was kindly to plant and flower, and such growths 

 as the century knew garlanded gable and chimney, while 

 beyond the bridge the garden lay, all sweet with summer 

 blooms, a gay domain of beauty that many were glad to 

 explore. 



Ightham lies in a hollow in a very beautiful part of Kent. 

 The stream running down from the hill supplies its enclosing 

 moat. A pleasant stroll of some four miles from pretty 

 Sevenoaks, through the famous park of Knole, thence along an 

 elevated ridge and by copses and hedgerows, brings the 

 visitor to the point where he looks down upon another world, 

 gazing out upon the tower and gables of ancient Ightham, 

 romantic and beautiful in the valley. Nothing more picturesque 

 can be imagined, whether we look at the quaint old house, 

 with its grey tower and courtyards, its high gables an.l 

 red-tiled roofs, or turn attention to the luxuriant gardens that 

 add so much to the charm. Here we shall endeavour to du 



Cofyrighl. 



A CORNER OF I HE QUADRANGLE. 



"Coun/ry Lift." 



