By the Rev. Canon J. K Jackson, F.S.A. 27 



in some respects of the same style as the present house,with this known 

 exception, viz., that the uppermost story consisted of a row of gables, 

 such as are seen on some parts of the present house on the inner 

 side facing the courts. But there is no mention of any general 

 designer, or of any person whom we of the present day should call 

 an architect. In the letters alluded to Sir John gives his own orders 

 for everything, with incessant counter-orders and fresh instructions. 

 Among other alterations to the old priory, there is " a room to be 

 built over the old chapel/' and a " New Lodging of many bed- 

 rooms/' to have " gables " with figures of animals on the points, 

 to be worked "by John Chapman/' a local workman, who, when 

 he has finished at Longleat, is sent for to be employed for similar 

 carving of animals at Lacock Abbey, then Sir William Sharington's. 

 In 1547 a Charles Williams, who had travelled over Italy, writes to 

 offer his services in supplying internal decorations, " after the Italian 

 fashion." In 1554 another "New Lodging" is commenced, in 

 which a person is employed for decoration, whose name is not given : 

 but there are two letters from Sir William Cavendish and his wife 

 (Bess Hardwick) to Sir John, requesting the use of this " cunning 

 plays terer," who, they hear, " had made " dy verse pendants and 

 other pretty things, and had flowered the hall at Longleat/' to do 

 like work for them at Hardwick. This was old Hardwick House, 

 now a ruin, but on the walls of it are still to be seen large florid 

 decorations in plaster-work, which, no doubt, are the very work of 

 this man. Presently, in 1559, follows a third and expensive piece of 

 " New Building," the original contract for which with one William 

 Spicer, of Nunney (in Co. Somerset, a few miles from Longleat), 

 still exists : and in this it is distinctly stated that the work is to be 

 executed " according to a plan agreed upon between Sir J ohn 

 Thynne and himself." In this are named " chimnies of columns 

 17ft. high " (such as are on the present house) : and large windows 

 of many lights, " all of the forefront to be of like moulding as the 

 great window is of, that is now there." The dimensions of that 

 pattern great window, with the number of transoms, mullions, &c, 

 are precisely given, and they correspond almost to an inch with 

 the actual large windows now at Longleat. Architraves, friezes, 



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