GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



the Palace by way of a little passage and a small pointed archway 

 at the base of the Water Tower, one is confronted by the impressive 

 vision of this imposing entrance gate. It might very well be the 

 approach to some gigantic fortification of the Middle Ages, instead 

 of to the peaceful dwelling of the head of the English Church. 



The Great Hall, now known as " Juxon's Hall," is to our left, 

 and opposite to it is the long high wall separating the archiepis- 

 copal demesne from the public road. Intervening, there is a wide 

 stretch of green soft turf, and also a broad gravel walk, across 

 which the long shadows of the hawthorn, sumach, and other trees, 

 cast by the westering sun, travel with such rapidity that my 

 brush was well-nigh beaten in the breathless race to overtake them. 



The gateway itself is facing us : the span of its nearer and inner 

 arch is greater than that of the outer. Heavy gates and -the solid, 

 iron-studded, oaken postern before mentioned, shut out the high 

 road. Below the arch, and between the great flanking towers, 

 there is a vestibule of considerable size, which has a flagged floor 

 and a groined roof. On either side of it are the janitors' private 

 rooms and offices, and above it is a spacious chamber, with an 

 embattled roof, and a three-light perpendicular window. This 

 room was formerly used as a record, or muniment room, but the 

 precious archives and registers of the See of Canterbury, once kept 

 there, are now removed elsewhere. 



Abutting closely upon the Gatehouse so closely that the two 

 would appear to have drawn together for mutual comfort and 

 protection in this strange, new, twentieth century with which they 

 have so little in common is the ancient grey tower of St. Mary's, 

 the parish church of Lambeth. It owns a clock which has its 

 own independent computation of time, even bravely challenging 

 Big Ben itself, for it ventures to strike a quarter of a minute later 

 than its powerful rival.* Has it not the best of rights ? For 

 Lambeth Church Tower is of such venerable age that, compared 

 with it, the clock tower of Westminster is but of mushroom 

 growth a thing of yesterday. It forms an integral portion of 

 the picturesque, gatehouse-group of buildings, and is the only 

 remaining part of the second, possibly of the third, church erected 

 on the site, for one is mentioned in " Domesday Book," and there 



* The drawing of the gateway was already far advanced, when war was declared in August, 

 1914 since when Big Ben has been silent. 



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