ill ITON-IN I hi l >>KI -i 





trie from >ir Harry's high-floWR faiu:es. H:s M 

 was to -the K ..:, whatever devious paths his father 

 and brother might tread. He lived <>n his Durham 

 laruls at I v - A ton, married a Durham heiress 



and brought up a family, his son Lionel being husl>aiul 

 >t Catherine Fletcher of Hutton-in- the- Forest, 

 which estate their descendants still hold. 



The hall of Hutton is a noble house, well set 

 among woodland and rare gardens. Of" the home of 

 the Huttons of that ilk remains a peel-tower of the 

 Cumin-Hand fashion. Writing in ih-i, Sir Daniel 

 Fleming of Rydal could recall days when Hutton 

 Was a strong place, with a high tower, well moated 

 about, a drawbridge spanning the moat. " \ 

 good defence against the Scottish inroads," says 

 Sir Daniel ; hut when Sir Richard Fletcher 

 bought Hutton, Scotland had ceased to be an enemy's 

 land, therefore he filled the moat and set to 

 work to make a neighbourly home of his newly- 

 bought fortress, which, nevertheless, still shows .1 

 row of warlike battlements over the trees. " A 

 spacious gallery " is described by Sir Daniel as the 

 work of the Cavalier who fell on Rowton Moor. Sir 

 George Fletcher added a classic block in the fore- 

 court, the design being traditionally attributed to 

 Inigo Jones. Sir Henry the monk did little for the 

 house, although he may have had a care for the 

 garden. His observant guest, Bishop Nicolson, 

 noted that the house in Queen Anne's reign was 

 overrun with rats, which ate Sir Henry's beds and 

 hangings ; but the gardens were in good condition, 

 new plants from the Indies being nourished there 

 with plantations of (ir, beech, elm and lime. The 



garden features of gate piers and stairway, of 

 statues and vases, are all in perfect .mord with the 



if the later of the Fletchers, and with the i! 

 block of the house, but are less m harmony with the 

 somewhat conspicuously modern (iothic character 

 impressed upon the mam structure by Anthony 

 Nilvin, who in iX'u completed a "restoration" 

 beyun thirty five sears earlier. Vet the general 

 etFeit of the great house, standing al*ive an I yet 

 embosomed in fine grounds, is almost too beautiful 

 to leave any scope for the critic's dissecting knife. 

 The hilly site has been well taken advantage of 

 there is reason for terraic- ami steps, there is 

 sufficient and yet not overpowering formalism of 

 stone and topiary work, of straight path and 

 perpendicular walling ; for these soon nive w.i\ ! 

 natural slopes and to free growing trees, which may 

 well be the splendid survivors of Sir Henry the 

 monk's plantations. On one hand they encompass 

 and shelter the garden, and on the other, 

 where the open outlix>k is preserved, they rise in 

 glorious masses to the woody heights of the middle 

 distance of a Cumberland landscape, which still may 

 remind us ot forest days and ancient sport. Near 

 the site of the ol.l farm buildings was but I tfely 

 discovered the octagonal tower ot the manorial do\e 

 cote which should wait upon a house of this rank. 

 Foul and neglected, parted into two stores s .is .1 

 kennel, and abandoned at that, it h.is now been 

 cleansed and set in order, so that, should hawking 

 be once again a sport followed at Hutton i* 

 th' Forest, the lord's hawks will not want tor 

 their meat. 



/ (S/ A.\/AM.W A GATES J-KOM IOLK7 ) .1 HI). 





