194 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



floral beauty, 

 and beyond it 

 are level lawns 

 and radiant beds 

 of flowers. The 

 trees also, with- 

 out being of 

 great size, are 

 beautiful in form 

 and disposition. 

 Ivy has taken 

 kind'y to the 

 structure itself, 

 perhaps even 

 with too tena- 

 cious a grasp. 

 But the pictures 

 are a sufficient 

 recognition o f 

 the fine garden 

 character that 

 springs from the 

 features alluded 

 to the ancient 

 moat, the sylvan 

 beauty, and the 

 place. 



We may now turn to the history of this stately Suffolk 

 abode. The Saxon thane who had been in possession before 

 the Conquest gave place to the followers of William, and Sir 

 William de Valence, who doubtless belonged to the family of 

 the great Earls of Pembroke, owned it. He was killed in 

 France in 1296, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Other 

 possessors followed, and at length, by the marriage of Dame 

 Catherine Mylde with Sir Thomas Clopton, Kentwell came to 

 a family whose members held it long, and to whom the erection 

 of the present house is due. The Cloptons had been settled 

 in Suffolk long before they acquired Kentwell, and their 

 memorials may be seen in many churches thereabout. 



It would appear that during the troublous times of the 

 Wars of the Roses, the family residence was at a place called 



THE EAST FRONT 



level lawns that are spread about ths 



the Pond Wood, 

 lying about 

 three-quarters of 

 a mile from the 

 present edifice. 

 At a later date 

 a dwelling-house 

 was built upon 

 the present site, 

 of which some 

 part appears to 

 remain in the 

 existing edifice, 

 which dates from 

 the middle of the 

 sixteenth cen- 

 tury . It is 

 referred to in a 

 will, dated 1560, 

 by Dame Eliza- 

 beth Clopton, as 

 " my new man- 

 sion house of 

 Kentwell Hall." 

 The descendants 



of Sir Thomas Clopton continued to live at Kentwell until 

 the death of Sir William of that name, who, by his wife Anne, 

 daughter of Sir Thomas Barnardiston, left a daughter and 

 heiress, Anne, who married the famous Sir Simonds D'Hwes, 

 the antiquary, whose autobiography gives such a striking 

 picture of his times. The heiress was at that time of the 

 mature age of fourteen, and the marriage took place at 

 Blackfriars Church in October, 1626, in which year D'Evves 

 was knighted. He always maintained a romantic affection for 

 his wife, and his later years appear to have been lonely. He 

 threw in his lot with the Parliame t in the Civil War, and died 

 at his father's house, Stow Langtoft Hall, Suffolk, in 1650. 

 Sir Simonds appears to have made little use of Kentwell, and it 

 passed with his only surviving child, Cecilia, to Sir Thomas 

 Darcy, Bart., who married her. Subsequently it was sold to 

 Sir John Robinson, Prothonotary of the Common Pleas in the 



THE WEST END OF THE MOAT. 



