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 medieval 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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