THE KING'S HOUSE 107 



accommodation, and two hideous excrescences 

 were built out on to the fine old facade of the 

 house on the north side, with bow windows, copied 

 one would think from the Early Victorian villas 

 of Surbiton. That the extra space had been 

 made a necessity is true. It was provided up to 

 about the extent of accommodation found on a fair- 

 sized yacht, and no more ; but, irrespective of the 

 badness of the design, the perpetrator of the 

 outrage on the old building ought to have been 

 publicly gibbeted in front of it. The remainder 

 of the house was panelled, as to all the principal 

 living rooms, in the large-sized panels of deal 

 which came in about the later Stuart period. 

 Even here the despoilers of 1851 could not leave 

 well alone. They decided that panelling of any 

 kind was unsuited to a drawing or principal living 

 room. Therefore they covered over with rough 

 planking the walls of the drawing-room, but 

 luckily left the panelling behind it, not very 

 much injured. Over this planking was stretched 

 canvas, whereon was pasted a wall-paper of quite 

 remarkable hideousness. 



A very handsome carved wooden mantelpiece, 

 typical of the date of the building had been in 

 this room. It was removed, and a plain white 

 marble slab, with two uprights, placed in its stead. 

 Luckily the canvas stretched over the walls was 



