SEATES.
[This chapter comprises only a few scattered notes; of which the
following are specimens.—J. B.]
I TAKE Merton to be the best seated for healthy aire, &c., and sports,
of any place in this county. The soile is gravelly and pebbly.
Ivy Church, adjoining to Clarendon Parke, a grove of elms, and prospect
over the city of Salisbury and the adjacent parts. The right honorable
Mary, Countess of Pembroke, much delighted in this place.
At Longford is a noble house that was built by Lord Georges, who
married a Swedish lady. [See before, p. 102. Sir Thomas Gorges was the
second husband of Helena dowager Marchioness of Northampton, daughter
of Wolfgang Snachenburg, of Sweden: see Hoare’s Modern Wiltshire,
Hundred of Cawden, p. 31.—J. B.]
Little-coat, in the parish of Rammysbury, is a very great house. It was
Sir Thomas Dayrell’s, who was tryed for his life for burning a child,
being accessory. It is now Sir Jo. Popham’s, Lord Chief Justice. [The
murder here alluded to is said to have been committed in
Littlecot-house. The strange and mysterious story connected with it is
recorded in a note to Scott’s poem of “Rokeby,” and also in the account
of Wiltshire, in the Beauties of England.—J. B.]
Longleat, the dwelling place of the Thynnes, a very fair, neat, elegant
house, in a foul soile. It is true Roman architecture, adorned on the
outside with three orders of pillars, Dorique, Ionique, and Corinthian.
Tocknam [Tottenham] Parke, a seate of the Duke of Somerset, is a most
parkely ground, and a romancey place. Severall walkes of trees planted
of great length. Here is a new complete pile of good architecture. It
is in the parish of Great Bedwin. [The domain comprises the whole
extent of Savernake Forest.—J. B.]
Wardour Castle, the seate of the Lord Arundell, was kept by Col.
Ludlow: a part of it was blown up by Sir F. Dodington in 1644 or 1645.
Here was a red-deer parke and a fallow-deer parke. [Some of the ruins
of the old castle still remain. The present mansion, belonging to the
Arundell family of Wardour, was erected about seventy years ago.-J. B.]
Knighton Wood, the Earle of Pembroke’s, is an exceeding pleasant place,
both for the variety of high wood and lawnes, as well as deer, as also
the prospect over the New Forest to the sea, and the whole length of
the Isle of Wight It is a desk-like elevation, and faces the south, and
in my conceit it would be the noblest situation for a grand building
that this countrey doth afford.