Notes on Spj/e Park and Eromham, 



321 



his diary, 1 "Went back to Cadenham, and on the 19th to Sir Ed. 

 Baynton's at Spie Park, a place capable of being made a noble seate ; 

 but the humourous old Knight has built a long single house of 2 

 low stories ou the precipice of an incomparable prospect, and landing 

 on a bowling greene in the park. The house is like a long barne, 

 and has not a window on the prospect side/' Dingley's drawing 

 shows the house with a partially sunk story — a principal story or first 

 floor which had largish windows and in which was the main entrance 

 up a few steps — a second floor with a range of lower windows exten- 

 ding-, as in the floor below, along the whole front — and above this 

 second floor, two gables with windows in them on the left of the 

 view, and four dormer windows in the roof. 



This agrees well with Evelyn's description. We have the " long 

 single house 33 — that is, I presume, a simple rectangle in plan without 

 wings; "of 2 low stories" — that is to say, he reckons the two 

 principal floors only, omitting the sunk story and the attic story ; 

 u landing on a bowling greene in the park 33 — The view shows this 

 bowling green with the bowls lying on it, rectangular, and enclosed 

 hy a wall which joined the house at its north-east corner where there 

 appears to have been a doorway through the wall. The principal 

 entrance to the green from the park was an arched doorway, appar- 

 ently of the seventeenth century, nearly opposite the door of the 

 house, surmounted probably by the shield of Baynton impaling 

 Thynne which Dingley has placed above the sketch. 2 



On the right of the view the enclosing wall returns, running 

 parallel to the west end of the house, and terminating near the 

 slope ot the hill with a pavilion or summer-house of which I believe 

 traces lately remained. On the left of the view appears part of the 

 old stables which still remain. 



Evelyn says that though ec on the precipice of an incomparable 

 prospect, .... the house is like a long barne, and has not a 

 window on the prospect side/'' This is characteristic also of the old 



1 Edition of 1871, p. 232. 



2 This Sir Edward Baynton, whom Evelyn visited, married Stuarta, daughter 

 of Sir Thomas Thynne. 



2 d 2 



