Houses with a History 
GENERAI, VIEW OF THE DRAWING-ROOM 
CLAVDON HOUSE 
now in Sweden ; but ever and anon turning 
up with an empty purse and a complaining 
tongue. His younger brother, Edmund, a 
captain in the royalist forces in Ireland, was 
one of the slaughtered at Drogheda in 1649. 
A cousin, hapless Dick Hals, was a gentle¬ 
man of the highway, who, after many breath¬ 
less escapes, died, not without dignity, at the 
hands of the hangman. Whilst his eldest 
brother, “ Mun,” was living a quiet country 
life at the “White House” in East Clay- 
don, a second son of Sir Ralph, John, also 
sought his fortunes abroad. When at 
last he comes home to marry and settle 
down, it is to succeed his father, Sir Ralph, 
who had outlived his eldest son, and who 
died at Claydon House in revered old age 
in 1696. 
Sir Ralph had received a baronetcy after 
the Restoration, and in 1703 Sir John was 
made a peer as Baron Belturbetand Viscount 
Fermanagh. 'These were years of expansion. 
Lord Fermanagh bought Steeple Claydon of 
the Chaloners in 1705. Forty-five years 
before, 'Thomas Chaloner, who had been one 
of King Charles’s judges, had fled the coun¬ 
try at the Restoration to escape a barbarous 
death. He was a man of parts and capacity. 
His alum works at Guisbro’, near Whitby, 
founded in 1600, were the first of the kind 
in England, and his descendants still carry 
on the industry there. 'The quaint old 
school was built and endowed by him in 1 656, 
and is now incorporated in a thriving village 
institute and library, with a fine lecture hall, 
established by the present baronet, Sir Ed¬ 
mund Verney. Old and new are happily 
conjoined in the building, and thus the aim 
of the founder finds fruition three and a half 
centuries after his time. 
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