lxxiv 
PROCEEDINGS, 
In crossing the Common to the station the rapid disappearance 
of the gorse due to invasion by the bracken was noticed, and 
that rare trefoil, Trifolium filiforme , was found. 
Field Meeting, 10th June, 1911. 
GORHAMBURY, ST. ALBANS. 
The sixteenth Annual Congress of the South-Eastern Union 
of Scientific Societies was this year held at St. Albans, and it 
was arranged that our Society should join in the last meeting 
held during the four days of the Congress, a visit to Gorhambury 
by invitation of the Earl of Yerulam followed by a garden party 
at Kitchener’s Meads given by Mr. A. E. Gibbs, F.L.S., Local 
Secretary and Treasurer of the Congress. 
A large party went to Gorhambury in motor omnibuses, first 
inspecting the works of art and historical relics which make the 
mansion well worth a visit. Chief among these are the portraits 
of Queen Elizabeth, of Sir Francis Bacon, Baron Yerulam, and 
of Sir Edward Grimston, an ancestor of the present Earl of 
Yerulam, taken in 1444 and being the earliest authentic portrait 
of a gentleman in England. 
Some of the party then crossed the park to the Pondyards 
under the guidance of Mr. Gibbs to investigate the flora and 
fauna of the ponds and their vicinity, the majority accompanying 
Mr. C. H. Ashdown to view the ruins of a former mansion not 
far from the present one, and to hear from him a history of the 
Gorhambury Estate and of the various mansions which had been 
erected in the park. 
The estate was traced through the possession of Bobert de 
Gorham, the Abbey of St. Albans, Sir Balph Bowlatt, Balph 
Maynard, Sir Nicholas' Bacon, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas 
Meautys, Sir Harbottle Grimston, and William Luekyn, to 
whom it was bequeathed on condition of his taking the name 
and Arms of Grimston, and from whom it has passed by descent 
to its present owner. 
The first house was built by Bobert de Gorham about the year 
1170; the second, the ruins of a small part of which were being 
viewed, between 1563 and 1568. It was here that Queen 
Elizabeth was three times entertained by Sir Nicholas Bacon— 
in 1571, 1574, and 1577. When Francis Bacon came into 
possession of Gorhambury this house was partly in ruins, and 
the water-supply had failed, so he built by the water the third 
house, which he called Yerulam House, of which nothing 
remains except part of the servants’ quarters, by the Pondyards. 
The fourth house, the existing mansion, dates only from the 
eighteenth century. 
From the ruins the party proceeded across the park and by 
Maynes Farm to the Pondyards, the tenant of the farm, 
Mr. W. B. Nott, having kindly cut a path through the long grass. 
