By W. W. Ravenhill, Esq. 



43 



Tn these clays, too, Sir Baptist Hickes, first Viscount Campden, 

 built the noble mansion, a small fragment of which, and its curious 

 entrance lodges, are yet standing-, the latter hard by the Church. 1 



He had purchased the estate soon after 1608, and twenty years 

 later was created Viscount Campden by King Charles I. His 

 liberality and public spirit are still apparent, from the market 

 house which he erected in the middle of the one long straight street 

 of the town, and from his restoration of the parish Church, and also 

 from the handsome almshouses with which, in 1612, he linked the 

 Church and manor house to the street. 



A very fine canopied marble monument with recumbent figures 

 of himself and Lady Campden, erected in the transept of the Church, 

 records their virtues. 3 He died, set. 7 8, 1 8th October, 1629, and having 

 no son was succeeded in his honours and estates by his eldest daughter, 

 Juliana, and her husband, Edward, Baron Noel of Ridlington, 

 afterwards created Viscount Campden, who are commemorated in 

 the same chapel by one of the most striking monuments in this 

 country, of which I shall have somewhat to say presently. The 

 second Lord Campden died at Oxford, 6th March, 1643, whilst 



Endymion Porter, Esq., a native of Gloucestershire (a name, too, known in Wilts), a servant of 

 James I., a person of most generous spirit, did to encourage Dover give him some of the said King's 

 old clothes, with a hat feather and ruff purposely to grace him, and consequently the solemnity. 

 Dover was constantly there well mounted and accoutred, and chief director of these games, 

 frequented by the nobility and gentry who came sixty miles to see them, till the rascally rebellion 

 by the Presbyterians, which gave a stop to these proceedings, and spoiled all that was generous 

 and ingenuous elsewhere." 

 In Somerville's Chace Hobbinol or Rural Games have for their scene Dover's Hill, 



1 " From an accurate plan and elevation," sa\s Bigland of this fine house, still 

 extant, it appears to have been an edifice in the boldest style of that day. It 

 consisted of four fronts, the principal towards the garden ; upon the grand terrace, 

 at the east angle, was a lateral projection of some feet, with spacious bow windows; 

 in the centre a portico with a series of columns, of the five orders, as in the 

 schools of Oxford ; and an open corridor. The parapet was finished with pediments, 

 of a capricious taste ; and the chimnies were twisted pillars, with Corinthian 

 capitals ; a very capacious dome (or lantern) issued from the roof, which was 

 regularly illuminated, for the direction of travellers, during the night. This 

 immense building was enriched with friezes and entablatures, most profusely sculp- 

 tured ; it is reported to have occupied, with its offices, a site of eight acres, and 

 to have been erected at the expense of £29,000."— Bigland' s " Gloucestershire." 



2 Of him the epitaph says " that he was born in London, and by the blessing 

 of God on his ingenious endeavours arose to an ample estate ; but of which, in 

 his lifetime, he disposed to charitable uses to the value of £10,000." 



