Vane House, Hampstead, Jan. 18. 1851.
_Abbot's House at Buckden_ (Vol. ii., p. 494.).--MR. C.H. COOPER asks,
"will M.C.R. explain his allusion to the Abbot's House at Buckden?" Being
only an occasional visitor there, I can give no other explanation than it
is universally called so by the inhabitants of the place. The house is very
low-roomed, and only one story high; it has been compoed over, so that
there is nothing very ancient in the look of the brickwork, excepting the
chimneys, which form a cluster in the centre. The door I mentioned,
evidently is an ancient one. A good deal of iron about it, and in square
compartments.
When I was there recently, I was informed of a discovery in a public-house
_formerly_ called the Lion--now, the _Lamb_. A gentleman in the place came
into possession of some pamphlets respecting Buckden; in one of which it is
said, that this house was originally the hostel where the visitors and
domestics used to go when the bishop had not room at the palace for them,
and that it would be found there was an "Agnus Dei" in the ceiling of one
of the lower rooms. The consequence was, search was made for it: and what
seemed a plain boss, where two beams crossed each other, on being cleansed
and scraped, turned out to be as the book said, and which I saw only last
week. The clergyman has the pamphlet above alluded to. Whether this, and
the abbot's house, belonged to the palace I cannot say. The road now runs
between them.
The "Agnus Dei" is seven or eight inches in diameter; the lamb, &c., in the
centre, and the words "Ecce Agnus Dei" in a circular border round it.
This is all the information I can now give.