THE



203



Avicultural Magazine,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



Third Series .— Vol. V.—No. 7. —All rights reserved. MAY, 1914.



MY BIRDS AT BRINSOP COURT.


By Hubert D. Astley.


(Continued from 'page 194.)


Picture an ancient Manor House built for the most part of

grey stone, brought from a quarry in one of the wooded hills near

by, a house with gabled roofs and moss-grown stone tiles. Grey

walls that have been standing since the reign of Edward III., 1340.

A house added to or perhaps partly restored in the time of Queen

Elizabeth, with a remodelling to a small portion of it in that of

Queen Anne. One storey high, but covering a large square of

ground surrounded by the moat, and itself in turn surrounding a

court-yard, the latter paved, the paving stones interrupted by beds of

lavender and monthly roses. In the centre an oil stone font of the

15th Century, or maybe a stoop for holy water. Italian, and dis¬

covered in a carpenter’s yard in Italy.


Only on the west side ; that is where the house shows all

three episodes of its existence, Gothic, Elizabethan and good Queen

Anne; on that side there is a length of lawn, just wide enough to

give room to the great cedar planted by the poet Wordsworth, yet

not wide enough to keep it from spreading great branches of eternal

shade over the moat ; whose water encroaches very much closer to

the house, north, east and south ; within a few feet.


And it is not often, looking through the casement windows

towards any of the four aspects, that some ducks cannot be seen

outside. Walk on to the old stone bridge and w T histle. From the

east side some are sure to come, steaming vigorously round the



