Wednesday, July 2Sth. 



9 



made a point of stating that there was no evidence whatever that 

 there was anything underhand abont the purchase, and that Mr. 

 Shering was probably at least as honest a man as his master, the 

 Puke. Before proceeding to inspect the inside Mr. W. H. Bell 

 gave a short account of the history and architecture of the house — 

 the latter principally of the 17th century, the fine front door 

 being of this date; though Mr. Talbot gave his reasons for 

 believing that the gable over the door is earlier than the rest 

 of the house. In the interior there are several fireplaces of 

 interest, one of which, in a bedroom, of Grothic design very rudely 

 wrought, though it looks of earlier date and is so stated to be by 

 Mr. Wilkinson {Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. v., p. 338), was thought by 

 those qualified to judge to be more likely to be a poor coj3y of 

 Grothic work by the later masons, and to really belong to the house 

 itself. On three of the bedroom doors very fine and interesting 

 iron locks remain, some of them apparently of 16th century design. 

 So interesting, indeed, were these and other details of the charming 

 old house, that it was with difficulty that several Members were 

 induced to leave the attics at all and re-enter the carriages in 

 obedience to the blasts of the Secretary's horn. 



The next stop was at Beanacre, where Mr. W. H. Bell 

 again acted as guide to the two charming old manor-houses, only 

 divided by a single field — each complete in itself — the one, of the 

 loth century, which belonged to the Daniels, the other, of the 17th 

 century, which owes its origin to the Selfes, who, on acquiring the 

 property, had the excellent taste to leave their predecessors' house 

 untouched and unadded to, and to build another house for them- 

 selves in the fashion of their time close by. There can be few 

 places where two houses of the smaller manor kind, with two 

 hundred years between them, exist as these do side by side still. 

 The older house retains its hall, with the 15th century roof, 

 practically intact, though now divided into two stories ; whilst the 

 new Jacobean dwelling, though one of its wings has been re-built, 

 retains in an absolutely uninjured condition a singularly beautiful 

 pannelled room, with remarkably fine stone chimiieypiece — lately 

 most carefully cleaned and freed from paint and whitewash by the 



