334 THE OLD MANOR HOUSE 



quality of its old manor houses. Many, or indeed 

 most of these, have, in the lapse of years, fallen into 

 woful disrepair, or have been turned into farm- 

 houses, disfigured by the cheap and ugly out- 

 buildings, roofed with slate or corrugated iron, 

 which have sprung up around them in an age 

 which, if it was in a hurry to be rich, had little 

 eye or soul for beauty. But such is not the case 

 with Cranborne Manor House, for instance, with 

 Wolfeton, with Warmwell, with Bloxworth, with 

 Athelhampton, and perhaps half a dozen others ; 

 nor, what concerns this chapter more, is it the 

 case with Bingham's Melcombe. 



For more than six centuries, Bingham's Melcombe 

 has belonged to one family, the Binghams, who, with 

 few intermissions, have continuously resided in it. 

 It has, indeed, received additions from time to time, 

 but each has been in fair keeping with what went 

 before it and with the whole. Its first beginnings 

 go back, it is believed, to the reign of the first and 

 noblest of the Edwards, and what it had grown to be 

 by the time of King Edward VI., that it is, sub- 

 stantially, in the time of his remote descendant, 

 King Edward VII. Everything about it is old- 

 world. The peace of centuries seems to be brood- 

 ing over it. They have passed over it, with their 



