Among your subscribers there are doubtless many collectors of topographical
drawings and engravings. I shall feel specially obliged if any of them
could find in their collections a view of old Mereworth Castle (as it stood
prior to the comparatively modern erection of Lord Westmoreland), and
furnish me with a long desiderated description of it. Local tradition
represents it as having been a baronial castle rising from the middle of a
small lake, like that of Leeds, though of smaller dimensions, with the
parish church attached. I should rather conjecture it to have been an
ancient moated manor-house, magnified, in the course of tradition, into a
baronial castle and lake.
Whatever the old building was, it was pulled down by John, seventh Earl of
Westmoreland, during the first half of the last century. Had it been of the
character of Leeds Castle, as the representative of a long line of baronial
ancestry, he would hardly have levelled such a structure, with all its
inspiring associations, merely for the purpose of gratifying his passion
for Palladian architecture by the erection of the present mansion.
The ancient building seems to have been the residence of the knightly
family of De Mereworth during the twelfth, thirteenth, and part of the
fourteenth centuries, and from that time, till near the end of Elizabeth's
reign, it ceased to be a _family residence_; for, after passing through
various hands (none of whom were likely to have resided there), it
descended in 1415 to Joan, wife of the Lord Burgavenny, sister and coheir
to the Earl of Arundel. The Burgavennys of that day resided always at their
castle of Birling, which circumstance would intimate that it was a grander
and more baronial residence than Mereworth Castle (for they had come into
possession of both estates very nearly at the same period); and afterwards
Mereworth by settlement passed to Sir Thomas Fane of Badsell, in marriage
with Mary, daughter and sole heiress of Henry Lord Burgavenny, and "jure
suo" Baroness Despencer, in 1574. From that time till its dismantling in
the last century, Mereworth Castle was again a family residence, the seat
of the Earls of Westmoreland; Francis, eldest son of said Sir Thomas {125}
Fane and Mary Baroness Despencer, having been advanced to that earldom. As
the seat of a noble family for more than a century and a half, it is hardly
likely that no view should have been taken of it; I have searched, however,
in vain for it in Harris, Buck, and other published collections.
It would be a matter of special interest to many besides myself, to obtain
some information respecting it.
John, seventh earl, the builder of the present Palladian mansion, died in
1762, when the earldom passed to a distant cousin, and the barony of
Despencer was called out of abeyance in favour of Sir Francis Dashwood, the
son and representative of Mary, sister and _eldest_ co-heir of John,
seventh Earl of Westmoreland, and heir to his estates. On his death _s.p._,
Sir Thomas Stapleton, sole heir to the Barony of Despencer (as lineal
descendant and heir of Catherine, the _younger_ sister and co-heir of the
said John, seventh earl), succeeded to the estate; and from him it has
lineally descended to Mary, Viscountess Falmouth, and "jure suo" Baroness
Despencer, the present representative of the family. At Mereworth Castle
itself, where the Viscount and Viscountess Falmouth reside, there is no
view of the old building; but it is very possible that some drawing or
engraving of it may exist in some of the residences of the Earls of
Westmoreland subsequent to the seventh earl, or at the seat of the
Dashwoods, or in the British Museum.
I trouble you with this Query, in the hope that, among your numerous
readers, some one may be placed in a position to give us information on the
subject. In doing so they would greatly oblige