80 



The Forty-first General Meeting. 



delightful old garden opposite the vicarage, the breaks took the 

 party on to CHILTON, where the Church was visited, Mr. Doran 

 Webb calling attention specially to the charming little J acohean 

 screen, and mentioning a statement he had heard to the effect that 

 there were formerly three pre-Eeformation chalices here which had 

 been melted up to form part of the present modern set of communion 

 vessels. It cannot be said, however, that the evidence of this 

 atrocity having been committed appeared at all conclusive. 



The next item on the programme was luncheon in the schoolroom,, 

 to which fifty Members sat down. Then some of the party walked 

 across the meadows and others drove to LITTLECOTE HOUSE. 

 This was really the chief attraction of the Meeting. It is a place' 

 known to everyone by name, whilst comparatively few have had an 

 opportunity of visiting it. Here again the Society was fortunate 

 in having Mr. Doran Webb as its cicerone, for probably no one 

 else knows as much of the place and its owners as he does, and his 

 method of imparting his knowledge to his hearers was both profitable 

 and pleasant. Inter alia he declared that he had not the slightest 

 belief in the traditional story of Wild Darrell and Judge Popham, 

 attributing the whole accusation to the malevolence of the first 

 Earl of Pembroke, who was by no means scrupulous as to the 

 weapons he used when anything was to be got by their use. The 

 fine hall, with its old oak shuffle-board table in the centre; its 

 armour and its buff coats — the latter said to be the most complete 

 set in existence — which saw service on the Parliamentary side in the 

 Civil War ; its thumbstocks, and Judge Popham's chair — to 

 mention only a few of the objects of interest — was first inspected, 

 and here Mr. Doran Webb gave the party a short account of the 

 history of the place and its possessors. 



By kind permission of the owner — Mr. Popham — and the present 

 occupier — Mr. Baring — the rest of the house was then seen — the 

 long gallery — the curious chapel — the dining room, with its 

 Grainsboroughs and Romneys — the bedroom of the Darrell legend — 

 and the singular little room with its walls covered with the quaintest 

 of Dutch paintings, the exact purport of which it is not easy to 

 make out. Among many other objects of interest the needlework 



