r88 THE BATH ROAD 



been used as a market-place ; the architectural cha- 

 racter of the houses liuins: it is due to the fires 

 that devastated the town in 1653, 1679, and 1690, 

 burnino^ down the older houses, and causing the town 

 to be almost wholly rebuilt. Those were the days of 

 the Renaissance, and before the dwelling-house became 

 frankly unornamental and merely a brick or stone 

 box for people to live in, with window and door holes 

 from which they could look or issue forth. 



Thanks, then, to these fires, Marlborough is to-day 

 a town of architectural delights, while the older 

 portion of the College is fully as interesting, having 

 been built on the site of the old Castle from desio-ns 

 by Inigo Jones or his son-in-law, Webb. It is thus 

 a noble view along the High Street : the shops, which 

 are interspersed among the private houses, beiug here 

 and there fronted with covered ways, forming dry 

 walks in wet weather ; an arcaded Market House 

 and Town Hall at the eastern end, and a church 

 closino* the view in each direction. 



Marlborough College is at the western end of this 

 street, occupying the fine mansion built by Francis, 

 Lord Seymour, in time to entertain Charles the 

 Second, who with his Queen, his brother, and a 

 crowded suite halted here on his way to the West, in 

 one of his Royal progresses. It became the residence 

 of that Earl of Hertford whose Countess had a 

 gushing affection for those tame poets of the eigh- 

 teenth century whose blank verse was so soothing to 

 the senses and so absolutely restful to the mind — 

 requiring little mental exercise to write, and none at 

 all to read. My Lady held quite a poetic court, of 



