136 BREADSALL PRIORY. 



legal actions with respect to the damage done to crops by 

 pigeons; but the law on the subject seems to have been 

 uncertain. By a case in the law courts in 16 18 it was practi- 

 cally decided that anyone might build a dove-cote. References, 

 however, were then made to license by the King and to a 

 statute of Edward II. concerning dove-cotes erected without 

 licence, the exact meaning of which is not very clear. 



The subsequent additions to the house, as before mentioned, 

 have been very extensive. The oil painting of 1790 shows a 

 long projecting wing on the site of the present dining-room, 

 which, judging from its style, and from the fact that it is not 

 shown on the engraving published in 1791*, could not then 

 have long been built; and its erection must be attributed to 

 Andrew Greensmith, or possibly to Herbert Greensmith Beard, 

 to whom the property passed in 1788. A lean-to addition had 

 been made between the central bay and the south-east tower, 

 the foundations of which still exist, and a bay window had been 

 inserted in the place of the old entrance, besides additions at 

 the back of the house. The wing must have been removed by 

 Mr. Francis Morley, who erected in front of the Elizabethan 

 house the present " Gothic " building. 



The latest alterations embraced the partial removal of build- 

 ings which had been added at the west side of the house and 

 the erection of the present billiard-room wing, which has 

 added very greatly both to its internal comfort and external 

 appearance. 



Breadsall Priory is not without the usual tradition of a 

 subterranean passage. In this connection it may be interesting 

 to quote from a letter written a short time ago by the late 

 Miss A. E. Darwin : — 



" My father did attempt to find it (the passage); he dug a trench 

 all along the back of the house running parallel with the kitchen - 

 windows, hoping to come upon the roof of the passage from above, 

 and whilst doing this he came upon the foundations and sedilia 



* In a comprehensive work such as that in which this engraving appears 

 there often was a considerable interval between the date of the drawing and 

 the publication of the engraving from which it was copied. 



