House and Garden 
VoL. XIII MAY, 1908 No. 5 
Houses With a History 
LONGLEAT 
By P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F. S. A. 
O LD john Aubrey aptly called Longleat “the 
most august house in England.’’ It has 
not played so prominent a part in the annals 
of English history as some others of the great houses 
but illustrious names are associated with Longleat, 
and its noble architecture, its magnificent surround¬ 
ings, its store of rare treasures, abundantly entitle it 
to a place in this series. It belongs to the English 
Renaissance or Elizabethan style of architecture, and 
displays greater knowledge of the art of building, hut 
less originality than many productions of that prolific 
age. The house was begun in 1567 and was only par¬ 
tially finished in 1580. The masons of those days 
were somewhat leisurely in their ways. They thought 
nothing of spending fifteen or twenty years over the 
construction of a house. Now we build quickly, and 
are impatient until the last stone is laid. We run 
up immense houses in a year, but will they weather 
the storms and stress of centuries, and then look as 
fine and noble as Longleat looks to-day ? 
Where the house now stands there was in early 
days a Priory of Black Canons of the order of St. 
Augustine, founded in 1270 by Sir John Vernon, the 
Lord of the Manor of Horningsham. It w as quite 
a small monastery, sheltering only a prior and four 
or five monks. Like many other similar institutions 
It fell into decay and was dissolved in 1529. The 
remains of the priory and the site were sold to Sir 
John Horsey, who sold them in 1540 to Sir John 
Thy line in whose family it has remained ever since. 
This gentleman w as one of the fortunate courtiers 
of the reign of Henry VI 11 ., who amassed wealth and 
lands and honors, and shared in the spoils of the 
monasteries, and had special facilities for so doing, 
inasmuch as he was the secretary to the Earl of Hert¬ 
ford, afterwards the Earl of Somerset, the famous 
Protector, who w as an unscrupulous robber of ecclesi¬ 
astical property, a personification of greed. Some 
crumbs were bestowed by the Protector upon his 
faithful secretary. By grants and purchase John 
Thynne acquired a large estate. He fought against 
the Scots at Musselburg and was knighted in 1547. 
Perhaps with some eye to her wealth, a year later 
he married the heiress of Sir Richard Gresham, one 
of the f amous merchant princes of the city of London. 
He found favor in the eyes of Queen Elizabeth, and 
before her accession was the controller of her house¬ 
hold. But the air of courts w as dangerous in those 
uncertain times; so, being a prudent man, he retired 
to the country, reared tw’o large families, and then 
CiiD.i/riiiht, J'JOS, bn The John C. Winston Co. 
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