KEEVIL MANOR, 



TROWBRIDGE. 



' \\V arc the quaint old manor houses of 

 Wiltshire which remain as a precious 

 heritage of that beautiful and varied 

 county. The castles of its feudal barons 

 !u\e, indeed, mostly disappeared, or are traced 

 only by the fragments which Time and changes of 

 manners have spared ; but of its mansions of the 

 fifteenth and later centuries there is very much to 

 say. Not anywhere else in Kngland do we find 

 houses of our ancestors more numerous and inter- 

 esting. Two causes have contributed to the survival 

 of these antique edifices in Wiltshire, while elsewhere 

 their comrades have more rapidly disappeared. In 

 the first place, the local stone is of very durable 

 character, and it was employed by men who built 

 well and solidly. Then the c.uises which have 

 resulted in changes in other parts of Kngland are 

 wanting in Wiltshire. There are no busy manu- 

 facturing centres with their thronging populations 

 and ceaseless necessities, and even the clothing trade, 





which cnce made the county prosperous, has departed 

 to enrich the Yorkshire-men, and, we may add, to 

 tlespoil of much of their beauty the valleys in which 

 they practise their craft. 



Thus it is that Keevil Manor, which stands 

 some five miles south of Melksham, and as many 

 cast of Trowbridge, is but one of a goodly brother- 

 hood. Some of its comrades have, indeed, fallen 

 upon evil times, and have been touched by the 

 influences of decay; but there are others, like itself, 

 which are now more jealously guarded than in any 

 previous period. It has been remarked that these old 

 Wiltshire houses are singular in being mostly 

 "ghostless," there being few stories whispered in 

 the evening dusk of the nightly visitants who flit 

 through the galleries or drag their chains in the 

 stairways of houses in the North and other parts of 

 Kngland. This cannot be due to any lack of imagina- 

 tion in the Wiltshiremen, for the pleasing fam\ 

 shown in their houses, and in their gardens, such 



car 



THE SOL'TII \\h.ST IOKM-.K. 



