CHAP, in.] REMINISCENCES OF SEDBURY 15 



furniture, good and interesting pictures, old china, and a 

 splendid library, afforded also ample space for its inmates to 

 follow their various hobbies, and many were the arts and 

 crafts practised there at various times. The carpenter's 

 bench, the lathe, wood-carving, electro-typing, modelling 

 and casting for models each had their turn, and in all this 

 strenuous play Eleanor had her full share. Society played 

 a very secondary part in life at Sedbury ; calls were 

 exchanged with county neighbours at due intervals, and 

 there was some intimacy with Copleston, Bishop of Llandaff, 

 the Bathursts of Lydney Park, and the Horts of Hardwicke. 

 But though Mr. Ormerod attended to his duties as magis- 

 trate, and went duly to meetings of the bench at Chepstow, 

 he was quite without sympathy for field sports and the 

 pursuits of his brother magistrates. He was absorbed in 

 his own studies, and something of a recluse by nature. 



[Miss Ormerod has herself written of the elaborateness of 

 the arrangements and the great formality which were asso- 

 ciated with the regular county dinner party, the chief 

 method of entertainment at Sedbury sixty years ago. She 

 referred to the anxieties experienced lest the coach should 

 not arrive in time with the indispensables including fish 

 "the distance of Sedbury from London involving twenty- 

 four hours or more of transmission in weather favourable 

 or otherwise." Miss Ormerod continues : 



" One very important matter in the far gone past times in the 

 arrangement of the dinner table, was the removal of the great 

 cloth and of two cloths laid, one at each side, just wide 

 enough to occupy the uncovered space before the guests, and 

 long enough to reach from one end of the table to the other. 

 The removal required a deal of care and dexterity, and I do 

 not think it was practised at many other houses in our 

 neighbourhood. When the table was to be cleared for dessert 

 of course everything was removed, including the great table- 

 cloth itself one of the handsomest of the family posses- 

 sions, and of considerable length when there were the usual 

 number of about eighteen or twenty guests. The operation 

 was performed as follows : The butler placed himself at 

 the end of each strip successively, and a few of the house ser- 

 vants or of those who came with guests along each side. The 

 butler drew the slips in turn and the servants took care there 

 should be no hitch in the passage of the cloths, and so each 

 was nicely gathered up. 



" But the removal of the great tablecloth which was the 



