THE COURT 341 



interstices, give birth and sustenance to a wealth of 

 flowers and ferns which almost hide it from view ; 

 the tiny linaria or toad-flax, with its long festoons, 

 the purple aubrietia, the cete^rach, the wall-rue, the 

 Scotch maiden-hair. Along the terrace, above the 

 steps and the wall, are large bushes of hydrangea, 

 which are sheltered from every wind that blows, 

 and which, laden as they are with blossom, during 

 three full months of the later summer, blend their 

 delicate pink with the greys and browns, the yellows 

 and russets of the surrounding masonry. There is 

 nothing which is grand or grandiose, staring or 

 stately, about the whole. It is simply restful and 

 homelike ; but the oriel projecting from the old hall, 

 with its lofty gable, its weather-cock with the date 

 1 66 1 still visible on it, its mullioned windows, its 

 delicate traceries, its graceful finials, half revealed 

 and half concealed by Virginian creeper, and topped 

 by eagles ready for their flight, its massive and deeply 

 chiselled coat of the Bingham arms, all in warm Ham 

 Hill masonry, is a very dream in stone, an ideal, 

 as it seems to me, of Tudor domestic architecture. 

 The roof is high pitched, and many gabled, with 

 huge stone tiles, the most fitting covering, I think, 

 for Mediaeval or Tudor, as thatch is for Jacobean 

 houses. Their weight and outward thrust is 



