24 CHARLES II. IN DORSET. 



I stayed a night recently at Trent Manor, and through the 

 courtesy of my friend, who had lately taken the house, I was 

 enabled to go all over it. It has certainly been much altered 

 since Mr. Hughes wrote, and the restoration and extensive 

 additions to the building have robbed it, to my mind, of a great 

 deal of interest from an antiquarian point of view. The garden 

 wall at the back has been rebuilt and thrown back ; the pent- 

 house too is gone ; but the small apartment in the projecting 

 wing which formed the King's hiding-place is still there, though I 

 saw no signs of a ladder or roosting hens. There is still Lady 

 Anne Wyndham's bedchamber, externally 9t least restored, and 

 no longer over the kitchen, but the dining-room, into which the 

 kitchen has been converted. The huge fireplace, though moder- 

 nised, is there ; whilst it is not difficult to see that a good deal of 

 the panelling and beams that still keep their place in Lady Anne's 

 room (of which Ainsforth gives a fairly trustworthy engraving in 

 his novel) are not 17th century work, to say the least. The 

 King's quarters is the only part not restored, and no doubt 

 designedly so, and, seen from the back, present still an interesting 

 and antiquated appearance, whilst the front of the house has been 

 considerably enlarged in restoration. 



The quaint and beautiful little church immediately adjoining, 

 wherein lie the monuments of the Wyndham family and its 

 alliances, is well worthy of a visit. 



With regard to the old inn at Charmouth, Mr. Hughes remarks 

 (in 1830) : " It is still in existence, bearing marks of undoubted 

 antiquity, and, though no longer an inn, is not likely to have 

 been substituted by village tradition for the right place." He 

 obtained some further information from a lady correspondent, who 

 says : " The chimney at the east end of the house is immensely 

 wide, and projects some feet into the upper room, causing a little 

 recess, or very confined apartment, in which is a small window. 

 This place is called the ' King's hiding-hole' by the people of the 

 house, though a place that looks into the street is not very likely 

 to have been used as a place of concealment." This part of the 



