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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