By Sir Charles Hobhouse, Bart. 



97 



the Church the barrel-organ, which now (1881), however, stands 

 neglected and useless in the gallery. 



He also beautified and planted the house and grounds. He level- 

 led the slope in front into the present lawn. He placed the fountain 

 on its present site, and he laid out the French, now called the Italian 

 Garden. 



It was in laying out this garden that, as the -villagers say, "a 

 terrible sight " of human bones was carted away and buried in the 

 churchyard. It was no doubt, as the situation of two stone coffins, 

 lately unearthed, shows, .somewhere in this direction that the Priory 

 churchyard was situated, but from the great quantity of bones un- 

 covered, and from the way in which they were found heaped to- 

 gether, it was conjectured at the time that they were the remains, 

 not of ordinary churchyard burial, but of human bodies heaped 

 together, as after some great fight or pestilence. 



Mr. Wade Browne married first, Ann, daughter of the Rt. Hon. 

 Edward Pennefather,Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. She died in 1837, 

 and Mr. Browne married secondly, Selina Matilda Caroline, daughter 

 of Sir John Eardley Wilmot, of Berkswell Hall, Co. Warwick. 



On Mr. Wade Browne's death, in 1851, his widow continued to 

 live on in the house. She is now Mrs. Abbott, of Wrentham 

 Rectory, Wangford, Suffolk, and has been good enough to give me 

 many particulars of the place, of which I now make use. 



The slips (or cupboards as they now are) , in the older part of 

 house are supposed to have been servants' bed-rooms. They are 

 vile holes, and Mrs. Wade Browne worthily supplied their places by 

 building the upper bed-rooms over the east front. 



The pigeon house, by the side of the Monks' Walk, used to pro- 

 duce in former days a rent in kind of so many pigeons to the manor 

 house. This was, no doubt, a remnant of the old Columbaria of 

 the Priory. 



The sun-dial in the Italian Garden was erected in memory of a 

 younger brother of Mr. Wade Browne, who was killed in the CafFre 

 War. The inscription runs thus : — 



" Io vado et vengo ogni giorno 

 Ma tu andrai senza ritorno." 

 VOL. XX. — NO. LV1II. II 



