8o Recollections of the Vine Hunt 



Britain in the reign of the Emperor Probus. The plant it- 

 self probably deteriorated, but the name took firm root, and 

 has flourished through nearly sixteen centuries. The spade 

 and pickaxe continually discover the foundations of buildings 

 in various directions, and probably of many different dates ; 

 but history knows nothing of the place before the reign of 

 Henry VIII., when the present house was built by Lord 

 Sandys, whose family had for some time previously possessed 

 the property, and occupied a smaller mansion on nearly the 

 same site. In spite of many changes effected in the edifice 

 in the course of the innovating eighteenth century, unmis- 

 takable marks of the Tudor style are still to be found in the 

 chapel and some other parts of the house. The fine stained 

 glass in the chapel is said to have been plundered from 

 a religious house in France, when Lord Sandys accompa- 

 nied Henry VIII. at the siege and capture of Boulogne in 

 1544. When Queen EHzabeth, late in her reign, visited the 

 Marquis of Winchester at Basing House, the French Am- 

 bassador and his suite were received at the Vine, for the 

 convenience of being near her Majesty. 



In 1654 the estate was purchased by Chaloner Chute, a 

 lawyer of eminence and of moderate politics, who was re- 

 tained in some of the state trials of those troubled times, and 

 at last died occupying the high office of Speaker of the 

 House of Commons in Richard Cromwell's brief parliament. 

 There is in the chapel a monument representing him in his 

 speaker's robes, recumbent on a high altar tomb, admirably 

 executed by a sculptor named Banks, who went afterwards to 

 Russia. This monument was erected in 1776 by Mr. John 

 Chute, the friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole, who 

 also made many alterations and designed many others, in 

 more questionable taste, both inside and outside the house. 



Since the year 1654, this estate has never been sold, but 

 transmitted, either by inheritance from father to son, or by 

 bequest to more distant relations, who have always borne the 

 name of Chute. 



