GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
the bank to which it is parallel, by a narrow strip of water, the 
main stream running on its farther side. The banks are muddy. 
when the water is low; but at exceptionally high tides—coinciding 
with a season of rain and storm, the basement kitchens of Walpole 
House are sometimes flooded. They are large, rambling, and 
picturesque kitchens. Not far from the garden-door is a curious. 
fixture. It is a spacious barred cage—the bars far apart—suggestive 
of an exaggerated hen-coop—and traditionally said to have been 
used as a place of detention for refractory pupils in the days when. 
Walpole House was a boys’ school. The story is not improbable, 
since apparently there is no other purpose to which such a cage. 
could have been put, and since children were often treated with 
much sternness a hundred years ago. If indeed so used in 
Dr. Turner’s time, the fear of incarcération on a_bread-and- 
water diet, may have inspired young Thackeray’s attempt to run 
away. 
The restoration and improvements in the place made chiefly 
by the late Sir Herbert and Lady Tree, who resided there for 
many years—have been carefully carried out, and happily for 
Chiswick, which should be proud of the old mansion—are con- 
gruous, and in correct taste. 
It is by no means clear how Walpole House came by its name. 
Probably some member of the Walpole family may have possessed 
it for a time. One of these, the Hon. Thomas Walpole, son of 
Horatio, Lord Walpole, lies buried in Chiswick Church, and Orford 
House, and Strawberry House, the latter next door to Walpole 
House, are significant of some connection with the master of 
Strawberry Hill. The house wherein the frail Barbara ended 
her wasted days, has had a chequered history, and one a little 
difficuit to trace. I think it must have been subsequent to Dr. 
Turner’s retirement from school-mastering, that it became for a 
time a boarding-house at which Daniel O’Connell, the Irish “‘ libera- 
tor,’ stayed. Forty-eight years ago, and possibly during some 
years later, it was again a boys’ school, kept by a Mr. John Watson 
Allen. But public day schools began to come into fashion, and 
with these he probably found it difficult to compete. But before 
he gave up the attempt to do so he did yeoman’s service to all 
lovers of the picturesque, for I understand it was he who suggested 
to Sir John Thornycroft the purchase of the place with its. 
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