1 82 THE BATH ROAD 



For the rest, Littlecote is a veritable storehouse of 

 art and antiquities. The collection of ancient armour 

 in the Great Hall is one of the finest in England. 

 Here, too, is Chief Justice Popham's chair, and the 

 thumbstocks which lie used as a means of extracting 

 confessions from petty offenders with whom persuasion 

 of the merely moral kind Had failed. Then there is 

 the painting of Mr. Popham's horse, " Wild Dayrell," 

 which won the Derby in 1855, and many interesting 

 objects besides. First in point of interest, however, 

 is the Haunted Chamber, which is even now said to 

 resound with groans and imprecations ; and is still 

 very much in the same condition as in Darell's day, 

 although, to be sure, the fatefid ante-room is now 

 divided from it. Darell's Tree, an ancient elm, 

 patched and chained together, is still to be seen on 

 the south side of the house, carefully tended ; the 

 le2:end runnino- that Littlecote will flourish so Ions; as 

 its hoary trunk holds together. 



XXXI 



But to return to the road, which presently comes 

 to the charmino- villaoe of Froxfield, with its wide 

 villao-e o;reen and great red- brick barracks of alms- 

 houses, founded in 1686 by Sarah, Duchess of 

 Somerset, for fifty clergymen's widows, and perched 

 up on a bank above the right-hand side of the 

 highway. 



Thence, nearly all the way into Marlborough, seven 

 miles ahead, the road lies through Savernake Forest 



