Kippax, which is close to Fryston, was, in the eighteenth century, a fairly large, but not notably large, building, but when Lord Rockingham began the construction of Wentworth the late Mr. Bland's ancestor declared that, whatever happened, he would not be outbuilt by anybody, and that Kippax, in spite of Wentworth, should be the longest house in Yorkshire. He accordingly extended its frontage by the addition of two wings, which really were for the most part a succession of narrow outbuildings masked by classical walls of imposing and balanced outline, the result being that a dwelling which is practically of very moderate dimensions confronts the world with a façade of more than seven hundred feet.
A house differing in character from any of those just mentioned is Stanway, where I have stayed as the guest of the then Lady Elcho. It variegates with its pointed gables the impending slopes and foliage of the outlying Cotswold Hills. It is a beautiful building in itself--but the key to its special charm was for me to be found in certain pictures, void of all technical merit, and relegated to twilight passages--pictures representing, with an obvious and minute fidelity, scenes from the life lived there during the times of the first two Georges. One of these shows the milkmaids going home from their work arrayed in striped petticoats, and carrying their milk pails on their heads. Others show members of the family enjoying themselves in the garden or setting out for a ride, while the clergyman of the parish, or the chaplain, is pacing one of the walks in solitary meditation, with a telescope under his arm.
At Lyme, in Cheshire, the ancient home of the Leghs, which owes its present magnificence to Leone, the Georgian architect, by whom Chatsworth was renovated, other pictures of a similar kind abound. In the days of the first Lord Newton I visited Lyme frequently, and was often late for breakfast because as I went through the passages I could not detach myself from a study of these appealing records.
Of houses no less typical of the country life of England I can give a further example without quitting the Cotswolds. I allude to Sherborne--the late Lord Sherborne was one of my earliest friends--with its two principal frontages enriched by Inigo Jones with clusters of Corinthian columns--a house still happily remote from railways and towering chimneys. The late Lady Sherborne, like the Duchess of Cleveland at Raby, kept an album, to which, whenever she could, she extorted a contribution in verse, or otherwise from her friends. My own contribution on one occasion was this--it was written at the close of a visit at Whitsuntide: