LAMBETH PALACE 



brickwork of Cardinal Morton's Gateway, once red, but now 

 under certain effects of light wearing a true mulberry bloom, has 

 but gained fresh charm in the process of growing old. The same 

 rich but subdued colouring may be seen in the more ancient 

 portions of Hampton Court, and also in the quaint quadrangle 

 and porch of the Bishop of London's Palace at Fulham. 



What can have been the secret of that art in brick-making 

 possessed by those fifteenth- century builders ? a secret that seems 

 to have been entirely lost, for the squares and streets of Georgian 

 and Victorian London betray no sign of its possession ; they are 

 dingy, and grimy, and brown ; whereas Morton's Gatehouse, in 

 spite of equal exposure to London's atmospheric conditions, and 

 its vastly greater antiquity, has only become mellowed into 

 greater beauty in the passage of four centuries and more. 



Solid though it be, when approached from Lambeth Bridge it 

 wears an aspect of curious unreality. One could easily conceive 

 its strength to be make-believe, and itself a bit of stage architec- 

 ture ; for it seems to stand, without foundation, on the bit of 

 roadway in front of it much as a painted scene might do. But 

 whether real or not, it is an anachronism seeming to belong, as 

 indeed it does belong, to another and old-time world ; it wears an 

 air of total detachment from the present. Nor have I found that 

 a more intimate acquaintance with the venerable Gatehouse 

 .destroys or even modifies this first impression. While one is 

 standing at the postern, waiting for it to open, and seeing nothing 

 of the rest of the Palace, the gateway appears a derelict survival 

 of the past, stranded there in mediaeval grandeur. But when at 

 last one is within the precincts, this impression vanishes. 



Once upon a time, not so very long ago, Lambeth Palace was 

 separated only by a leafy " Bishops' Walk " from the Thames, 

 which flowed within a stone's throw of it. At the present day a 

 broad roadway and the Albert Embankment intervene ; thus its 

 environment is the spirit of modernity visualized ; and yet it 

 stands, a precious relic of England in the olden time, curiously out 

 of keeping with the constant passing of the London County Council 

 trams, and the ceaseless traffic by land and by water. 



From within, the best view of the Gatehouse is to be obtained 

 from the opposite side of the courtyard on a fine summer's day. 

 Then, if one return from visiting the gardens on the north side of 



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