ST. OSYTH'S PRIORY, 



ESSEX. 



CHARAC I 1 K and individuality add interest 

 to houses, as they do to those who dwell 

 in them. But the houses have this advan- 

 tage over their owners, and over the 

 human world in general, that, if not brought to a 

 violent end, they live almost for ever, and represent 

 at last not one life, but many lives, and merge one 

 character in another, or become representatives of 

 several. Sometimes a house of ancient and dis- 

 tinguished habitation is so mutilated and lopped at 

 the first change of ownership that, like a fine character 

 marred, or a tree broken by the tempest, it never 

 PBCOveii. Others have been so fortunate as to have 

 passed from one line of owners to another who kept 

 all that was flood, and went on to add more in the 

 bat spirit and feeling of their own age. If still more 

 fortunate, the buildings remain in hands wealthy 

 enough to maintain them, and with sufficient good 

 taste and feeling not to attempt further cmbefiish- 

 ment. Then we see places which for intrinsic 

 beauty and abiding sentiment can scarcely be matched, 



and St. Osyth's Priory is one of them. Houses like 

 this do not go on growing like an industrial settle 

 ment, or even, to t.ike .1 metaphor from the inorganic 

 work!, like .1 iryst.il in the rooks. They usually 

 represent at most the work of two or three great 

 builders at times of national prosperity, or when 

 some <>ne of" the "estates " of the realm, smh as the 

 Church, or the Crown, or the Crown Officers, like 

 the Chanccllor,the Chief Justice or the Treasurer, made 

 great fortunes from the fees of their great olfues. 

 Confiscations of Church property also sometimes led 

 to fine building, though tar more often the purchasers 

 pulled down and did not ireate. The splendid old 

 pile of St. Osyth's owes some of its parts to more 

 than one of the conditions noted. The delighted 

 visitor --who is allowed by the courtesy of the present 

 owner to see his beautiful old house on any weekday 

 in the year, excepting only (ixxl Friday and Christ- 

 mas Day, on the payment of a small fee, which goes 

 to repair the church will notice at once that it 

 consists mainly of the work of two but little separated 



7MO PERIODS Of ARCHITECTURE 



