266 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



her husband, granted to them the Manor of Handley, 

 or Lyme Handley, in the forest. It would appear 

 that by this grant a stewardship was converted into a 

 possession, after the lapse of many years, and 

 Cheshire that "seed-plot of nobility " produced 

 no worthier or more ancient line than that of Legh, 

 which thus became seated on the limites or limes of 

 the Forest of Macclesfield. 



We see, therefore, how Lyme Hall comes to be 

 where it is, and to be named as it is, its original 

 having been a hunting or residential lodge on the 

 borders of the Royal forest. Sir Piers de Legh was 

 himself a prominent man in his time, who stoutly 

 stood for Richard II. against Bolingbroke, and, 

 apparently being in high command at Chester, was 

 captured and beheaded there in 1399, his head being 

 stuck on the principal gate of the city. He was 



Legh of the time, he awarded to the knight an 

 honourable addition to his arms, in the shape of 

 " an escucheon, a shield of augmentacon, sable, 

 replenished with mollets, silver, to be by the said 

 Piers and his posterity for ever hereafter borne, and 

 be used as a testimony of his ancestor's good deeds." 

 On the strength of which the knight forthwith 

 embellished the inscription to Perkyn a Legh in 

 Macclesfield Church with the words : " This Perkyn 

 serv'd King Edward the Third and the Black Prince, 

 his sonne, in all their warres in France, and was at 

 the battle of Cressie, and had Lyme given to him for 

 his services." 



This Sir Piers who received the honourable 

 augmentation to his arms was the builder of the 

 existing Lyme Hall the builder, that is, of some 

 important parts that remain built up and encased in 



CARVED STONE VASES, EAST TERRACE. 



afterwards buried in Macclesfield Church, where 

 could be read in stone, and now remains in brass, the 

 inscription : 



Here lyctli the bodie of Perkyn a Legh, 

 That for King Richard the death did die, 



Betrayed for rightevsnes. 

 And the bones of Sir 1'eers, his sonne, 

 That with Kin^ Hrnry the fift did wonnc 



In I'ark 



It has been credibly believed, on the authority 

 of Hollinshed, and Burke and other later writers, that 

 this Perkyn a Legh was the knight who captured the 

 chamberlain of France and saved the Black Prince's 

 banner ; but dates are difficult to reconcile, and good 

 evidence shows that it was in fact his father-in-law 

 that did these valiant deeds. Notwithstanding which, 

 when Flower, Norroy King-of-Arms, made his 

 visitation of Cheshire in i 575, staying at Lyme Hall, 

 and partaking of the rich hospitality of the Sir Piers 



the present classic structure. Following the trade of 

 arms like his fathers, he was knighted by Henry VIII., 

 and was successively Sheriff of Lancashire and 

 Cheshire, and afterwards Provost-Marshal of the same 

 counties. Sir Piers last named lived in a time when 

 all over England the rich were reconstructing the 

 houses that their sires had dwelt in, or, more often, 

 building new ones altogether. The "one fair hall " 

 of 1466, with its " high chamber " and its outhouses, 

 no longer sufficed, and a new structure arose more in 

 consonance with the manners and character of the 

 times. Already there was a park surrounded by 

 palings, enclosed from the forest and well stocked 

 with deer ; but this Sir Piers may have enlarged his 

 possessions, for he had licence to impark his lands. 



Of the exterior of his house we get some idea 

 from a carving on one of the original mantel-pieces 

 within, a house of great mullioned windows, of 



