COMPTON-WINYATES is a curious old house belonging to the Marquis of Northampton, and gives the title of Lord Compton to his eldest son. It lies in the range of hills of which EdgeHill forms a part, and is about four miles from Edge-Hill, and two from the village of Brailes. Perhaps there is no house in the kingdom which is located in a more hidden and out-of-theworld situation. It stands in a deep hollow of this range of hills, surrounded by woods and ponds. It is often called Comptonin-the-Hole, from its singular site; and a man of whom I asked way to it, said, "You never seed a house in sich a hole." In endeavouring to find it, I passed from Edge-Hill, down the the vale of the Red Horse, leaving the Red Horse itself on my left hand; passing through the obscure village of ChurchTysoe, and there made inquiries. So little even did the villagers, who were perhaps not more than a mile from it, seem to know it, that one had to go and inquire of another the way to it. I was at last informed that there was a narrow lane which led to it; but that it was so circuitous, I had better take a footpath leading over a hill which was in view, and to keep a mill which stood on its summit to my right. This is the mill of OverTysoe, which is laid down in the map of Kineton hundred, in the Coventry edition of Sir William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, from a survey in 1725; so that the mill, or a mill, has stood there for one hundred and fourteen years at least. I went on towards it, but soon found the footpath fade away to nothing, and I therefore ascended to this ancient mill to inquire there. When within a short distance of this mill I observed a stile to my left, and on reaching it beheld, to my great satisfaction, this old house of Compton-Winyates lying down in the solitary and most secluded valley below me. I know not how to describe the feeling which came over me at the sight of it. There was something so still-so dreamlikeso unlike any ancient hall which I had ever seen, that I stood and gazed on it in a sort of wondering reverie. It seemed as if I had suddenly come upon an enchanted region, or had got This is the rude figure of a horse cut in the turf of the hill side, shewing the red marle of the hill, most probably in commemoration of some ancient battle, as the White Horse in the vale of the same name in Berkshire. a peep at the Castle of Avalon, where King Arthur and Ogeir the Paladin are said still to abide with the fairy Morgana, awaiting the time when they shall return to the realms of France and England, to restore them to their ancient chivalrous honour. The words of Bishop Percy's ballad of the Hermit of Warkworth came vividly into my mind. Behind yon hill so steep and high, Down in the lowly glen, There stands a castle fair and strong, Far from the abode of men. Far indeed from the abodes of men did it seem, though I had so recently passed through the village of Tysoe,—but it was far from the stir of the present men of cities and steam-engines. It was not of the fashion of these times. There stood, in its perfect calm, that dark-red old mansion, with all its gables, towers, and twisted chimneys; with its one solitary smoke ascending above its roof, and around it neither other habitation nor any visible object or sound of life. Its hills and woods. seemed to shut it in to a perpetual loneliness; and the gleam of still waters came dimly here and there through the openings amongst overhanging boughs. I hastened down into the valley, and plunged into the woody shades. I passed the head of those nearly-hidden ponds, and as I approached the house, its utter solitude became more and more sensibly felt. It was now the moated grange of Tennyson's poetry. You might quite expect to see Mariana watching at one of the windows. The moat was not as most old moats now are, dry and become a green hollow, but full of water, as if still necessary for defence. As you drew near, a little church revealed itself under the trees on your right hand, while a garden on your left, leading down to the house, retained the style in which it had been first laid out some centuries ago. There was the little foot-path by which the family came to church, running along amid evergreens cut into a variety of shapes, not only peacocks and such things, but cut also into such figures as corresponded with the figures of the beds in which they grew, -cubes, rhomboids, triangles of different degrees of acuteness. To reach the great entrance of the house, it was necessary to hold round some offices to the left, and then I came into the front of the old court. Here a scene of ruin presented itself. The buildings on one side of the court-yard were nearly pulled down; on the other they consisted of a range of stables, coach-houses, etc. in a state of great dilapidation. This front, which is the south, is very venerable. It contains an old projecting gateway leading to the inner court, and various gables, towers, and twisted chimneys. Over the gateway are the royal arms, supported by a griffin and a dog, and surmounted by the crown royal. The spandrel of the porch surrounding the arms in form of a tablet, and the whole of the moulding of the spandrel, are ornamented with quaint animals, as lizards, mice, dogs, etc. In the corners between the elliptic arch and the spandrel, are emblazoned a portcullis on one side, and castle on the other, with the rose between them and the point of the arch; and, on each side of the spandrel, in the brick-wall, is again emblazoned in stone, the rose surmounted by the crown. These are indications of that loyalty of the Comptons and of that royal favour of which we shall speak anon. Passing through this gateway, you find yourself in the square court round which the house is built. The great hall is opposite to you on the right. You are struck with its grand bay-window, with its turreted head, and ornamented frieze. The old hall is lofty, and retains the style and features of the feudal age. In its oaken roof may yet be seen traces of the aperture whence the smoke made its escape from the fire in the centre of the floor. It has its old music-gallery, and the screen beneath it is curiously carved with fine tracery of leaves, amongst which the thistle is conspicuous. In the centre of the screen is a cross-panel, with a rude escutcheon of the ancient arms of the Comptons. The chief bearings are meant to represent a lion passant guardant between three helmets, the present arms of the Northampton family. There is also a battle scene upon this panel, with the most rude and grotesque figures of knights on horseback, fighting, others falling, others lying slain-all sketched with a grace that would match some of the Egyptian tombs, and a perspective that would delight a Chinese. Some of the slain men are tumbling up hill, and others are miraculously lying in the air, as if there were no such thing as specific gravity in the world. One wonders that even the carver could keep any gravity in himself. It is a performance in the very rudest |