Lathom Hoiise. 239 



tributary of the Douglas. Just outside the park there is 

 another, now called the Slate Brook, and of special 

 historical interest, being that one which in the records of 

 the memorable siege of Lathom House is called the 

 Golforden. 



Shortly after emerging from the wood, and crossing 

 the smooth greensward of the park where open to the 

 sunshine, the house itself comes in view, a noble mansion, 

 worthy alike of the domain and of the owner. That it 

 is not the original Lathom House the Lathom which 

 belongs not more to the history of Lancashire than to the 

 annals of English courage and to the biography of great- 

 souled women, scarcely needs saying. The original, the 

 magnificent building honoured by the visit of Henry VII. 

 and his queen, when the "singing women" walked in 

 front, which had no fewer than eighteen towers, in 

 addition to the lofty "eagle," and a fosse of eight yards 

 in width, received so much injury at the time of the siege 

 that on the removal of the family, shortly afterwards, to 

 Knowsley, it soon fell into a state of utter dilapidation. 

 Passing into the hands of the Bootle family, restoration 

 was found impracticable, and during the ten years follow- 

 ing 1724 the present building superseded the historic one. 

 Nothing in its style can be finer than the north front, 

 one hundred and fifty-six feet long, rising from a massive 

 rustic basement, with double flight of steps to the first 

 story, the lateral portions supported by Ionic columns. 

 The interior corresponds; the great hall being forty feet 

 square, with a height of thirty feet; the saloon ? of 



