LYME HALL, 

 CHESHIRE. 



IT is always interesting, in studying our Knglish 

 houses and their gardens, to discover, it" we can, 

 how they came to be where ami what they are. 

 How, tor cv.unple, does it happen that in th.it 

 distriu of" ancient barrenness and untamed trackless 

 wildness, the Forest of Macolcstidd, wherein once 

 the wild boar and the fallow deer had their hidden 

 haunts ; on these great hills which boldly front, 

 across the tortuous ( >oyt, the dim edges of the High 

 Peak, where, from the broken and shattered crest, 

 the Titanic conflict went on, whereof the rocky 

 missiles still lie far-stretched on the S!OJH-S below 

 how comes it that here the sombre front of 

 I yme Hall rises half ensconced in a hollow of the 

 Cheshire hill ? 



The house which st<xxl on the site of the 

 present I .yme Hall is spoken of in a rental of 1466 

 as " one fair hall, with a high chamber, kitchen, bake- 

 house and brewhouse, a granary, stable, and bailiff's 

 house also, and a fair park surrounded by palings, and 



divers fields and hays of the value of IO/. ye.irly." 

 Here had once dwelt, as we infer, the steward or 

 ranker ot MacclcsficlJ 1-orest. In the days <>f tin- 

 third Kdward there was living a valiant Cheshire 

 knight, one Sir Thomas Danyers, who was with thv 

 King in l-'rance, who took prisoner the Count de 

 Tankerville, grand chamberlain of the l-rench throne, 

 and who, at Crciy, saved or rescued the standard ot 

 the Black Prince, l-or this good service the Prime 

 granted to the knight the sum ot 4<Ds. a year out of 

 the Manor of 1-rodsham, with the promise that he 

 should afterwards have land to the value of /.2O 

 yearly. But the knight died about 1^52, ami the 

 Black Prince in June, i ;, ~'>, the promise remaining 

 unfulfilled. Sir Piers de I-egh, sometimes tailed 

 Perkyn a I.egh, married in or about the year nKH 

 the widowed daughter of this Sir Thomas Danyers, 

 who, if these dates be correct, must have been an 

 infant when her father died ; and Richard II., in 

 reward for her father's services, and also of those ot 



/.I.I/A //.//./. 



