66 MARCH 



the lofty larches, towering over the entrance, as out 

 of place, for there were no larches in England in the 

 days of the Cavaliers. The deer park has not varied 

 from the limits set out in the royal licence to enclose 

 it, granted in 1360. It is true that the original 

 building, a pele tower of the ordinary border type, 

 dating, as its arched doorways bear witness, from 

 the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, has been 

 largely added to. The Bellinghames, lords of this 

 manor during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 

 were a wealthy family one Sir James, knighted by 

 James I. on his first progress through the northern 

 counties, spent liberally on Elizabethan architects, 

 to whom we owe the spacious hall, the drawing- 

 room with its noble mantelpiece of carved oak, the 

 quaint library with still richer oak carving, and the 

 numerous bedrooms above, which to wander among 

 is occupation for a long rainy afternoon. There 

 prevailed in those days a practice, much to be com- 

 mended to modern builders (unless they are ashamed 

 of their work), of carving in each room the initials 

 of him who caused it to be built or decorated, with 

 the date. Thus the mantelpieces in all these rooms 

 are inscribed with different years from 1586 to 161 7, 

 while heralds and genealogists delight in collating 



