TAPPINGTON 235 



find an ancient farmhouse, standing in a meadow 

 skirting the road to Folkestone, a mile from the place 

 where it branches from the Dover Road. An ancient 

 farmhouse, its roof bent and bowed ^\'ith age, and the 

 greater part of it shrouded in ivy, from which Tudor 

 chimneys peep picturesquely. In the meadow are 

 traces of walls and an old well which before the greater 

 part of Tappington Manor-house was destroyed stood 

 in a quadrangle formed by the great range of buildings. 

 Within the farmhouse there remains much that is 

 quaint and interesting. The chief feature is a grand 

 oak staircase of Elizabethan or Jacobean period, with 

 the merchant's mark of that " Thomas Marsh of 

 Marston," familiar to readers of that fine legend The 

 Leech of Folkestone, carved on the newel. On the 

 whitewashed walls, crossed here and there by beams 

 of black oak, hang portraits of half-real, half -legendary 

 Ingoldsbys, and on the staircase landing, outside the 

 bedroom of the " bad Sir Giles," are still shown 

 bloodstains, relics of an extraordinary fratricide that 

 was committed here while the war between Charles 

 and the Parliament was raging. 



It is quite remarkable that while Barham clothed 

 Tappington with many a picturesque legend and 

 detail of his own invention, he never alluded to the 

 genuine tragedy. The secret staircase, the " bad 

 Sir Giles," " Mrs. Botherby," and many another 

 picturesque but fictitious character or incident are 

 introduced, and perhaps the visitor may feel somewhat 

 disappointed at not finding the turrets, the hall, or 

 the moat described so fully in the Legends ; but the 

 story of the fratricide is genuine enough for the most 

 sober and conscientious historian. It seems that 

 when all England was divided between the partisans 

 of Charles and his Parliament, Tappington Manor- 

 house was inhabited by two brothers, descendants of 

 the Thomas Marsh whose mark is on the staircase. 

 They had taken different sides in the great struggle 

 then going on, and had quarrelled so bitterly that 



