The Cokes of Holkham 



AMONG "the stately homes of England," Holkham 

 House, in Norfolk, the seat of the present Earl of 

 Leicester, is, for a variety of reasons, one of the most 

 remarkable. John Blome, an enthusiastic East Anglian, 

 described it some seventy odd years ago as " one of the 

 most magnificent piles of architecture in this kingdom, 

 and perhaps in the whole world." Brewer, in his 

 " Beauties of England and Wales," if a little more 

 discriminating, is scarcely less emphatic in his praise. 

 " There may be houses," he writes, " larger and more 

 magnificent, and in some more uniformity and justness 

 of proportion may be visible ; but human genius could 

 not contrive anything in which convenience could be 

 more apparent than it is in this." 



The candid person who looks for the first time 

 upon the huge building with its 344 feet of frontage, 

 its great central block with the Corinthian portico 

 and its four wings branching off in mathematical uni- 

 formity, will probably pronounce it the reverse of 

 beautiful. But if he be privileged to examine the in- 

 terior he will most certainly admit that if externally 



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