House and Garden 
Vol. VII 
January, 1905 
No. 1 
Steeple Claydon Village 
HOUSES WITH A HISTORY 
THE HOME OE THE VERNEYS 
By A. R. Goddard 
I N studying the remains which have come 
down to us from other days, as, for in¬ 
stance, the great monoliths of Stonehenge, 
we are forever toiled by the limitations of 
the visible. Bound by these and what do 
we get beyond a bare specification of shape, 
material and color. So many uprights of 
brown silicious 
sandstone, 
roughly squared; 
so many lintels 
of the like laid 
across; so many 
smaller stones of 
an igneous na¬ 
ture standing 
within the others; 
so many feet-run 
of rampart and 
ditch enclosing 
the whole. All 
this may be fully 
set forth, and 
even drawn with 
every added 
charm of desolate foreground and weirdness 
of shadowing and sky effects, without sug¬ 
gesting the least clue to the haunting mys¬ 
teries of life and meaning and origin wrapped 
up in the great creation. 
The same thing holds good of our old 
English villages and country-houses. Beau¬ 
tiful though they 
often are, their 
chief allurement 
is that they are 
the expression 
and memorial of 
another England 
than the one in 
which we live 
and move. Man¬ 
or-house, church 
and village—that 
oft-repeated trin¬ 
ity of our rural 
lands — enshrine 
for us every¬ 
where vivid reali¬ 
ties of earlier ex- 
A COTTAGE AT STEEPLE CLAYDON 
Copyright , iqoy—Henry T. Coates dr 3 Co . 
T 
