July 21. THE favourable reception yougave Tto my humble attempt to pre serve some idea of the old school at Rugby (which has since given place to a more superb building) encourages me to send you the sketch of another Mansion, for which I feel almost equal veneration. (See Plate L.) This house has for several centuries been the Seat of a Roman Catholic family of the name of Hanford. It is called WOLLAS Hall, and stands on the north side of Bredon Hill, in Worcestershire, at about one third of the ascent from the Vale of Evesham. The estate, with that part of Bredon Hill on which it stands, is generally called Woollers Hill. I have not been able to ascertain the etymology of this name: Dr. Nash thinks it is a corruption of Wolvers-hill, and that it was given to it from the great number of wolves which about the time of the Conquest infested this part of the country; but, though there is some ingenuity in this derivation, the more prevailing opinion is that it takes its name from that of the founder of the house. The first possessor of this estate of the name of Hanford was a son of Sir John Hanford, who purchased it of Lord Burleigh, in the reign of Elizabeth; from which period it has been enjoyed by the descendants of Sir John Hanford without intermission. Over the porch is cut the family motto, "Memorare novissima," and the date, 1611, which answers to the eighth Jear of James the First; but the Porch and its superstructure are evidently of a more recent time than the main building. Of the exterior of the house, the drawing (though destitute of other advantages) is, I think, a pretty correct sketch. It is built with an excellent hard stone, darker in colour, and of a closer grain than Portland, and of which none is now found. in the neighbourhood. Time has had no other effect than to give it a more venerable appearance, for the protuberances and edges of the stone are as bold and sharp as when first cut. The great Hall, which has a skreen and musick gallery over it in the manner of that of the Temple, is lighted by the two large windows on the right of the Porch; and from the dimensions of this Hall a tolerable GENT. MAG. September, 1811. idea may be formed of the size of the House. The Hall is in width 22 feet; in height 18; and in length 34 feet; and has a noble appearance. Among the pictures are a portrait of Sir George Winter, by Vandyck; another of a Lady Winter, by Lely; and a portrait of Henrietta Maria, the Queen of Charles the First, by Vandyck all undoubtedly originals. The small windows in the attic story give light to the Chapel, which is an elegant well-proportioned room, with a gothic-arched roof, an altar, and sacristy. The offices and out-buildings are convenient and suitable to the Mansion, and have all a peculiarly veuerable appearance. A small stream of water rises just under the brow of the Hill, and turns a wheel which roasts the meat in the great kitchen. Whether more modern houses are, for their sungness and comfort, to be preferred to these venerable man. sions, I presume not to decide; but it would be difficult to select a finer situation for a house than this. I have no words to convey a tolerable idea of its beauties. He who would have the most complete view of the Vale of Evesham, must take it from somewhere near this House. From the bowling-green are seen Strensham, the birth-place of the learned and witty Butler, so dishonourably neg lected by the careless Monarch whose cause he espoused; Upton upon Severn; the abbey and town of Pershore, with the white sails of the barges, gliding within a mile of the house, on the Avon, which, although here at its greatest width and depth, meanders, more than in any other part of its course, amongst groves, houses, orchards, and through open pasture*. On ascending to the top of the hill, above the house, the view is yet more. majestic, though I think less sweet and enchanting. From a small knoll on the top, the whole horizon is taken in; and hence the visitor who has * I have heard my mother say that my father once took her across the Vale in the fisherman's boat, during a flood, when nothing was visible but the tops of the highest elms, and he could not touch the top of the waterfall, which is 25 feet high, with a very long boat-hook. These floods, occasioned by the rising of the Avou and the Severn at the same time, are one cause of the great fertility of the Vale. a taste for the charms of Nature, may enjoy a prospect which is not equalled by any thing I have seen. Towards the east, Broadway-Hill, with its straight foot-path four times crossing the winding carriage-way down into the Vale; Lord Coventry's Tower, and the woods beneath it; then turn ing with the Sun, the Gloucestershire bills, with the town of Cheltenham, snugly and warmly embayed by its neighbouring hills; next Gloucester Cathedral; Tewksbury, with the junction of the Severn and Avon on its race ground; May Hill, the Black Mountain in South Wales; then the Malvern hills, a little foreshortened, the Abbey of Great Malvern, the Shropshire hills; then Worcester, Cracombe Hill, and Evesham (with its finely preserved Tower and beautiful Church, in ruins) finishes the circle. I cannot conceive any thing finer than this sublime prospect, and have certainly seen nothing that so completely fills my mind. The Thames, at Windsor, is broader than the Avon; the buildings and seats beyond comparison finer; but in every natural beauty it is, I think, much inferior. The view from the top of Malvern is very fine and extensive; but too like that of an Aëronaut, the objects are not well marked: from Bredon Hill all is distinct, and the Malvern hills form a magnificent object to look upon. There are many curiosities near the house: It is indeed all classic ground. The first object in ascending from the house is the foundation of a Chapel, which was dedicated to Saint Cathcrine of the Rock, said to have been founded by Richard Muchgros, whose family resided at Wollas Hall, in the reign of Henry III. On the top of the hill is a camp, with double trench, inclosing about twenty acres of ground: Dr. Nash thinks it British, but it is generally believed to be Roman; an idea that is strengthened by its shape, the entrance from the East, and the number of Roman coins and utensils which are constantly turning up. At the brow is a stone Prospect-house, which from the vale appears like a square pillar; but it has two rooms, one above the other, capable of receiving twenty persons. Near this is an immense stone, called "The Bramsbury Stone," of which, though it is so large and conspicuous, I can get no account. About fourcore years ago, a hillock, on the side of the hill, containing about an acre, with its trees and cattle, slipped nearly an hundred yards down; and ten years ago, without any previous warning, a chasm opened on the hill in the solid rock, about 200 yards long, of the breadth of fifteen feet, and of very unequal depth; and in this state the whole remains. The wolves have disappeared long ago; but there are a great many foxes, and a sufficiency of hares and partridges; and I have heard the present Mr. Hanford say, that "Bredon Hill rabbits" were formerly cried in London. The air of this place, although as it fronts the North it is rather keen, is yet very healthy, as I gratefully remember, for it restored me after a dangerous and tedious fever. The soil is proverbially fruitful. The grass is most luxuriant: it is never scorched up, nor ever rots the sheep. It indeed altogether well deserves to be described by a pen vastly superior to that of Yours, &c. JOHN PUGH, jun. Lambs Conduit Street. Topographical Account of BANWELL, co. SOMERSET. (Continued from page 107.) ANWELL had formerly a weekly years past it has been entirely neglected and disused. There are two fairs held here annually, the one on the 18th of January, when large droves of excellent fat oxen, grazed in the superlatively rich pastures in this neighbourhood, are brought for sale; the major part of them in time of war are purchased by the contractors for victualling the Royal Navy; the other fair is on the 18th of July, but of little account in comparison of the one heid in January. There are but few good houses at Banwell, the habitations here, in general, being old and mean structures, principally covered with thatch. The Church is the only building here worthy of remark; this, however, is particularly so, being one among the many elegant parish churches to be met with in the West of England: it is said that these beautiful structures one their preservation in in a great measure to the influence which that "great child of honour" Cardinal Wolsey possessed over the mind of his imperious master Henry the VIIIth. If this be so, it is at least a proof of the Cardinal's taste; and whatever his faults may have been, we have nothing to do with them just now; let us therefore say with the injured Queen (Catharine of Arragon) "Peace be with him *!" The Church of Banwell was antiently appropriated to the Abbey of Brewton, and was, with the Chapels of Churchill and Puxton, valued by the taxation of Pope Nicholas VI. A. D. 1292, at forty-seven marks, a pension of three marks being paid out of it to the Priory of Bath, and one mark to the Hospital of Brewton. The vicarage was valued at twenty shillings†. The presentation to the vicarage is at present in the Dean and Chapter of the Holy Trinity in Bristol, and its annual value is about 5001. The Rev. Frederick William Blomberg, A. M. (who is in the commission of the peace for this county, and who sometimes resides in the vicarage-house, which he has repaired and greatly improved) is the present Incumbent. The impropriate tithes, of about 2001. per annum, belong to John Lenthall, Esq. of Oxfordshire, who is also impropriator of Churchill and Puxton. Banwell Church is a large, regular, and simply elegant pile, consisting of a lofty nave and chancel, the former about eighty feet long, with side ailes, which are divided from the nave by ranges of light handsome pillars, four on each side; the breadth of the Church, including the side ailes, is about sixty feet. Two tiers of windows on each side give light to the interior; one tier of large ones in the side ailes, consisting of seven on the North side, including one at each end, and six on the South side, also including one at each end, and five smaller ones on each side in the upper part of the nave : Some of these windows have small portions of painted glass still remaining in them. In the East window of the North aile are in painted glass the Arms of England and France quartered; the Arms of Bishop Beckington; and Gules, a cross lo zengy Argent; Gules, three fusils in fesse Argent; each charged with an escalop Sable*. I am inclined to think, from the circumstance of Bp. Beckington's Arms appearing here, and from the style of the architecture, that this Church was rebuilt by that Prelate about the time he built the Palace; if this be correct, the present structure must have been erected in the latter end of the reign of King Henry VI. or the beginning of that of Edward IV. The Screen, dividing the nave from the chancel, is an elaborate and beautiful piece of antient carving in wood, representing Palmtrees; and amateurs say it is hardly to be surpassed by any thing of the kind in the kingdom. Above this screen is a large gallery, supposed to have been formerly a rood-loft; and in latter times I have been informed an organ stood in the centre of it. At the West end of the nave is a handsome modern gallery for the Churchmusicians: it is raised upon four neat fluted columns, with handsome foliaged capitals, and an entablature supporting an elegantly neat pediment. Above the gallery, just below the arch of the roof of the Church, is a carving in stone, now well-plas tered with whitewash, supposed to be intended for St. Andrew the Apostle, to whom, as we are informed by Mr. Collinson, the Church is dedicated. At the West end of the North aile are placed two large instruments, said to have been used formerly for the purpose of pulling off the thatch and roofs of houses when on fire to stop the progress of the flames; the whole, including iron-work and shaft, is about 20 feet long on the sides are rings for putting ropes through, whereby the united strength of a great number of men could act with effect; or even horses might by means of those ropes be attached to the instrument: the iron work has something the appearance of an anchor divested of one of its arms or flukes, and the wood-work is much worm-eaten and decayed +. The baptismal font is of stone, and stands at the N. W. corner of the nave, raised on a high step, and is very large, evidently intended for the immersion of the infant, and lined with lead, having in the centre of the bottom an aperture to let out the water, which lost itself in the foun dation of the building, that it might not be defiled after having been used in the holy sacrament of Baptism *. It would be needless to give copies of the Monumental Inscriptions already printed in Collinson's History. I shail, therefore, content myself with copying two or three which do not appear in that work. At the East end of the South aile against the wall is a plain tablet of white marble with the following inscription: "Near this place lieth the body of the Reverend Blinman Gresley, A. M. Vicar of this parish, who departed this life the 23d Nov. 1772, aged 59. "Remember my end, for thine also shall be so: To-day is mine, to-morrow thine.I shall rise again." On the floor near the above Monument, is a well-preserved whole length figure in brass with a long gown and band: the inscription is in antient Church text, and not in the common old English Black-letter, as given by Mr. Collinson. The date is Mo. V. iij (1503). At the East end of the chancel is a large handsome window, below which a new altar-piece was set up in 1805; it is composed of stucco, and divided into compartments, on which are written the Decalogue, Creed, and Lord's Prayer, in gold letters on a black ground, and the representation of elegant crimson curtains, with gold cords, fringe, and tassels, gives a high finish and pleasing effect to the whole. The altar is environed with a new semicircular railing of iron, but put up in rather a bungling and inconvenient manner; indeed the railing itself, from the formidable spikes running round its top, would have been more proper for the fence of a garden, or couri-yard, than for the situation in which it is placed. At the upper end of the chancel, against the South wall, is a small niche and piscina, used formerly for holy-water: the chancel is not ceiled, and the naked arched wood-work of the roof, of mean construction, has by no means *On an average of seven years the anual christenings are 27, burials 20. Collinson. of the floor is a small square brass a pleasing appearance. In the centre plate, inscribed as follows: "Georgius Phillips, mercator, qui obijt hic innatam beationem ad resurgendum 27° die Novembris, anno Domini 1680; positus." At the North side of the commu non-rails, on a small oval marble fixed in a large blue slab of the pavement, is inscribed: "Sacred to the memory of the Reve rend Walter Chapinan, 20 years Vicar of this Parish, who departed this life Sept. 25th, 1798, aged 47." This gentleman was son of the late Rev. Dr. Chapman of Bath, and was one of the most elegant preachers of his time; a man of the most gentle, manly manners, and whose bosom milk of human kindness: he was unwas amply fraught with the genuine fortunately killed by å fall from his horse, near Uphill, on the day men. tioned above. There are various other Inscriptions in the pavement of the Church and chancel," that tell in homely phrase who lie below," but it would intrude too much upon your pages to insert them here; these, however, have often implored and obtained from me "the passing tri bule of a sigh." The South entrance to this Church is by a large and lofty porch, in the East wall of the interior of which is a niche supposed to have been the place of a holy-water pot in the days of Popery. At the West end of the Church stands a stately and well-built tower, the height of which to the top of the parapet is 100 feet, crowned with a spire turret at the S. E. angle (on which the vane or weather-cock is fixed), and four handsome pinuacles. A good spiral stone stair case conducts you to the flat leads on the top of the tower, from whence some charmingly diversified prospects to the North, North-west, and North east, present their beauties to the eye of the spectator; and the whole is terminated by the Bristol Channel, the steep and flat Holmes, with the Light-house on the latter, and the distant purply-blue hills of South Wales; the stupendous conical mountain of Skerid Vawz, in the vicinity of Abergavenny, in clear weather, is plainly seen from hence. In this tower are six large and sonorous bells, and a clock, |