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Golden End

My own home—bearing the tranquil name of Golden End—is an ancient manor; out of a sandy lane turns an avenue of great Scotch firs, passing the house and inclining gradually in its direction. The house is a strange medley; one part of it is an Elizabethan building, mullioned, of grey stone; one wing is weather-tiled and of simple outline. The front, added at some period of prosperity, is Georgian, thickly set with large windows; over all is a little tiled cupola where an alarm bell hangs. There is a small square garden in front surrounded by low walls; above the house lies what was once a bowling-green, with a terraced walk surrounding it. The kitchen garden comes close up to the windows, and is protected on the one side by a gigantic yew hedge, like a green bastion, on the other by an ancient stone wall, with a tiled roof; below the house lie quaint farm-buildings, cartsheds, barns, granaries, and stables; beyond them are pools, fringed with self-sown ashes, and an orchard, in the middle of which stands a brick dovecot with sandstone tiles. The meadows fall from the house to the stream; but the greater part of the few acres which we hold is simple woodland, where the copse grows thick and dark, with here and there a stately forest tree. The house seen, as I love best to see it, from the avenue on a winter evening, rises a dark irregular pile, crowned with the cupola and the massive chimneys against a green and liquid sky, in which trembles a single star; the pine-trees are blacker still; and below lies the dim mysterious woodland, with the mist rising over the stream, and, beyond that, soft upland after upland, like a land of dreams, out to the horizon’s verge.

Within all is dark and low; there is a central panelled hall with round oak arches on either hand leading through little anterooms to a parlour and dining-room. There are wide, meaningless corridors with steps up and down that connect the wings with the central building; the staircases are of the most solid oak. All the rooms are panelled except the attics, which show the beams crossing in the ancient plasterwork. At the top of the house is a long room which runs from end to end, with a great open fireplace. The kitchen is a huge, paved chamber with an oak pillar in the centre. A certain amount of massive oak furniture, sideboards, chests, and presses, with initials or dates, belongs to the place; but my father was a great collector of books, china, and pictures, which, with the furniture of a large London house, were put hurriedly in, with little attempt at order; and no one has since troubled to arrange them. One little feature must be mentioned; at the top of the house a crazy oak door gives access to a flight of stairs that leads on to a parapet; but below the stairs is a tiny oratory, with an altar and some seats, where the household assemble every morning for a few prayers, and together sing an artless hymn.