4 6 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



epochs, the one slightly before and the other very 

 soon after the dissolution of the monasteries. Part 

 evidently survives from the old Priory, and a very 

 considerable and striking part, too. Another part will 

 be set down as very good layman's work in brick of 

 the period when early Tudor Gothic had not yet fully 

 merged into its later Renascent phase ; but both are 

 so well united and so closely resemble each other that 



TO THE TITHE BARN. 



it will be matter for wonder how far one incorporated 

 the other. At the same time, it does not in the least 

 resemble Cleeve Abbey in Somersetshire, where is an 

 Abbey building in tolerable repair almost as the 

 monks left it when expelled. The churchmen's 

 work and the later laymen's work are quite distinct. 

 But there is a good deal, bridging over the gap, 

 which is as puzzling as it is beautiful. To give an 



example ot all three. By reference to the plates it 

 will be seen that the flint and stone gatehouse is as 

 splendid an example of its particular style as could be 

 found in England. The proportions are perfect, the 

 great doorway, flanked by the two smaller ones, being 

 of great dignity and imposing size. Outside it looks 

 over the village green, just as the original gatehouse 

 of Hampton Court did over the green at Hampton. 



It was built four centuries 

 ago, and the faces of its 

 flint walls are as hard as 

 adamant. In the fine groined 

 roof of the great doorway 

 the sculptor of 400 years 

 ago carved the legend of 

 the founding of the Abbey 

 800 years before that. So 

 that this house, the present 

 home of an English country 

 gentleman, all well cared 

 for and in good order, pre- 

 serves in concrete form the 

 history of 1,200 years, the 

 story being that of St. Osyth, 

 who was the daughter of a 

 Saxon king of Surrey, and 

 appears to have been a 

 young lady of strong will 

 and imagination, who, very 

 early in her career, took a 

 violent dislike to her fance, 

 Sighe, King of Essex, whose 

 reputation as a keen sports- 

 man failed to impress her. 

 At the wedding breakfast 

 news was brought that a 

 remarkably fine white stag 

 had been seen close by, 

 whereupon King Sighe, who 

 had, no doubt, been chaffed 

 by his bachelor friends about 

 giving up sport and settling 

 down to serious domestic 

 life, vowed that he would 

 have a shot at it, and, 

 remarking that he "would 

 not be long," left the whole 

 party, including the bride, 

 in a very unhandsome way, 

 and went off after the stag. 

 It proved a very dear stag 

 indeed, for the young lady 

 demanded to retire to her 

 room, ordered the carriage, 

 and reaching the nearest 

 nunnery took the veil, 

 sending back word to Sighe 

 H that on reflection she felt 

 ^HB^^HHI^^H that the only truly good 



life was to be found in 

 a convent. Sighe had no 



remedy, so he settled on his wife an estate of size 

 sufficient to maintain a creditable nunnery, and there 

 she lived till the Danes took it, and cut off her head. 

 The romance woven round her early days (when 

 she declared she had spent three days at the bottom of 

 a river) went on automatically, for the Saxon nuns 

 declared that she carried her own head to the door of 

 the church, knocked, and then fell dead. Wherefore 



