I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton-Houghton, I know not what to call it, a monument of grandeur or a ruin. . . . . I have chosen to sit in my father's little dressingroom, and am now by his escritoire, where, in the height of his fortune, he used to receive the accounts of his farmers, and deceive himself or us with the thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at once, and how weak. For what has he built Houghton? For his grandson to annihilate or for his son to mourn over ?" In 1779 the famous collection of pictures was sold by the spendthrift Earl to the Empress of Russia, and again Horace Walpole mourns their loss. "The pictures of Houghton I hear and I fear are sold. What can I say? I don't like even to think of it. It is the most signal mortification to my idolatry for my father's memory that it could receive. It is stripping the temple of his glory and of his affection." During the last years of his life the third Earl was more or less out of his mind, but he lingered on until 1791, when he was succeeded by his uncle, Horace Walpole, then in his seventyfifth year. He never, however, took up his residence at the Hall, and appears to have regarded his inheritance of the earldom and the estates as somewhat of a misfortune. "A small estate loaded with debts of which I don't understand the management and am too old to learn, endless conversations with lawyers and packs of letters to read every day and to answer, all this weight of new business is too much for the rag of life that hangs about me. . . . . Surely no m man at seventy-four. . . . can have the smallest pleasure in being called by a new name. Six years later Horace Walpole was, as he had foreshadowed, buried in the little church of Houghton, and with him passed away the last descendants of Sir Robert Walpole in the male line, the Houghton Estate passing to the family of Sir Robert Walpole's daughter Mary, who had married the Marquis of Cholmondeley. The Countess most generously provided tea for her very numerous though 'grateful visitors, all of whom expressed their great appreciation of her kindness in granting them the opportunity of seeing her residence, which they had so thoroughly enjoyed. Thus ended an excursion which was a record one, not solely in point of the number taking part in it, but also for the quantity of interest it afforded. Fortunately it was in no way marred by inclement weather. MEETING OF THE Wednesday, October 30th. The Rev. E. C. Hopper exhibited a halfgroat of Henry VII., struck at Canterbury, which was found among a heap of stones washed from Starston Bridge during the great storm of August 26th. Mr. J. C. Tingey sent information that he had recently inspected the fresco discovered a year or two since on the south wall of Tattersett Church. The colours were very indistinct, but there could be little doubt that the painting represented the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus. The prostrate figure of the sufferer was the most easy to recognise; behind him were three other persons, the one nearest the west end of the church bearing a drawn sword. Also, that the flood of last August had laid bare the foundations of the Abbey Mill in Damgate, Wymondham, but there did not appear to be anything to see more interesting than the spring of an arch over the stream. Also, that he had noticed that the four windows at the top of the round tower of Aslacton Church had triangular apexes; they were of two lights divided by a pillar supporting an oblong impost, and, so far as he could remember, they resembled those in the round tower of St. Mary Coslany. A letter from Mr. Robert Gurney was read reporting that an earthen beaker of the Bronze age had been found by a labourer when digging gravel in a pit close to Ingham Mill. It was in nearly perfect condition and measured about 5 ins. in height. |