A HISTORY OF SURREY 



miles off, and an hundred years back. The old 

 furniture is so magnificently ancient, dreary, and 

 decayed, that at every step one's spirits sink, and all 

 my passion for antiquity could not keep them up. 

 Every minute I expected to see ghosts sweeping by, 

 ghosts I would not give sixpence to see, Lauderdales, 

 Tollemaches, Maitlands.' Horace Walpole clearly 

 preferred the sham antiquity of Strawberry Hill to 

 the genuine antique. The situation of the house is 

 low-lying ; the house stands some way back from the 

 river bank, from which it is screened by a row of 

 elms and other trees. 



The original building, erected by Sir Thomas 

 Vavasour in 1610, was of an H-shaped plan, the main 

 portion being about 65 ft. long by 21 ft. broad, and 

 each wing about 74 ft. by 1 7 ft. The house remained 

 practically unchanged until it came into the possession 



The bays on the north ends of the two old wings 

 are obviously of a later date, apparently 18th-century 

 work. The building underwent a complete restora- 

 tion in 1887 ; the arches to the porticoes in the two 

 inner angles on the north side have been completely 

 renewed. 



The building is of three stories with basement and 

 attics, and is built of red brick throughout with stone 

 or cement dressings. The oldest portion has narrow 

 bricks laid in English bond (alternate courses of 

 headers and stretchers), and so also has the large stair- 

 hall, which is built with unusually thin walls ; in 

 these parts the dressings and string-courses are of 

 stone. The windows on the ground floor (north 

 face) have moulded jambs, mullions, and transoms, and 

 are of two lights with rectangular lead glazing ; the 

 first-floor windows were like them, but have lost their 



HAM HOUSE : NORTH FRONT 



of the Countess of Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale, 

 who enlarged it considerably and re-arranged the rooms. 

 The first addition appears to have been the erection 

 of the projecting stair-hall in the east wing with the 

 insertion of the carved staircase. The windows in 

 this stair-hall, and the whole outward appearance of 

 it (excepting the rusticated stone quoins at the angles), 

 tally with the style of the original building. After this 

 a great increase was made by the filling in of the space 

 between the wings on the south side, and by the 

 erection of smaller wings against the east and west 

 ends with a frontage to the south. The length of 

 the east face of the south-east wing was ruled by the 

 pre-existing stair-hall, but the south-west wing was 

 made larger to include a secondary stair-hall. The 

 date of this work is uncertain, but it was probably 

 finished by 1680. 



mullions below the transom ; the second-floor win- 

 dows are for the most part perfect, like those in the 

 ground story. The main entrance is in the middle 

 of this face ; it is flanked by grey marble pillars on 

 square pedestals relieved with oval bosses in strap-work 

 panels, and with Tuscan capitals enriched with egg- 

 and-dart ornament, supporting an entablature with a 

 frieze of triglyphs and lozenges, and a moulded 

 cornice. The doorway proper has a round arch 

 decorated with rosettes alternating with a nail-head 

 ornament ; in the crown of the arch is a keystone and 

 ogee-shaped bracket. The spandrels are filled in with 

 ornament in low relief inclosing shields, that in the 

 east spandrel has the Tollemache crest of a winged 

 demi-horse, the other has the arms of Tollemache 

 quartering Murray ; the spandrels are surrounded by 

 a band with rose and nail-head ornament. The wood 



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