CRANFORD ROUND HOUSE 87 



anywhere near London. The rest have all been 

 demolished, but " once upon a time " no village could 

 have been considered complete without one, or with- 

 out the whipping-post and stocks which were generally 

 erected close at hand. Cranford, of course, being 

 situated in the midst of the alarums and excursions 

 caused by the highwaymen who infested the vicinity 

 and kept the inhabitants in a state of terror every 

 night, had a peculiarly urgent need for such a place, 

 and it is, perhaps, because those gentry were such 

 expert prison-breakers, that this example is more 

 than usually strong, the door being plated with iron, 

 and the small square window filled with sheet iron 

 pierced with small holes. 



Cranford Park, near by, was a seat of the Earls of 

 Berkeley, and is now the residence of Lord Fitz- 

 hardinge, who is de facto " Earl of Berkeley." But 

 the romantic scandals which arose from the fifth Earl 

 having eventually married a servant in his household, 

 after she had borne him several children, caused so 

 much litiiration about the succession to the title that, 

 althouojh one of his sons, the Hon. Thomas Moreton 

 Fitzhardinge-Berkeley, was declared by a decision 

 of the House of Lords to be legitimate, he never 

 assumed the title, for the reason that the barring of 

 his elder brother reflected upon his mother's good 

 name. The whole affair is exceedingly involved and 

 mysterious, and it is therefore quite in order that 

 Cranford House should have the reputation of being 

 haunted. 



The house is a large rambling pile in the midst of 

 the Park, overlooking the sullen ornamental waters 



