CHAPTER TWELVE 



DOVECOTES NEAR 



LONDON 



Should the Londoner feel himself aggrieved 

 at the comparatively small number of dovecotes 

 mentioned as being easily accessible from town, 

 he is offered as consolation the following assur- 

 ance — that one of the very finest examples to 

 be seen in England stands awaiting him within 

 a railwayrunof half an hour. In describing one 

 or two dovecotes to be seen in Berkshire, Hert- 

 fordshire, and Kent, right of priority is justly 

 due to the splendid old building standing at 

 Ladye Place, a house in the parish of Hurley, 

 near Mar low. 



Its situation well becomes it, Hurley being 

 a placeof great antiquity. When the ninth cent- 

 ury was on the point of ending it was traversed 

 by the Danes upon their way from Essex into 

 Gloucestershire. Its manor, once possessed by 

 Edward the Confessor's master of the horse, 

 was later bestowed on a De Mandeville as a 

 reward for distinguished conduct at the Battle 

 of Hastings; and in 1086 De Mandeville and 

 his wife founded the priory of St. Mary as a 



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