In a print, published about forty years since, by J. Edington, 64 Gracechurch Street, of Fulham Church, as seen from the river, the ancient aspect of the modern Pryor’s Bank is preserved. [Picture: Fulham Church] The situation of this humble residence having attracted the fancy of Mr. Walsh Porter, he purchased it, raised the building by an additional story, replaced its latticed casements by windows of coloured glass, and fitted the interior with grotesque embellishments and theatrical decorations. The entrance hall was called the robber’s cave, for it was constructed of material made to look like large projecting rocks, with a winding staircase, and mysterious in-and-out passages. [Picture: Vine Cottage] One of the bed-rooms was called, not inaptly, the lion’s den. The dining-room represented, on a small scale, the ruins of Tintern Abbey; and here Mr. Porter had frequently the honour of receiving and entertaining George IV., when Prince of Wales. It was then called Vine Cottage, {213} and having been disposed of by Mr. Porter, became, in 1813, the residence of Lady Hawarden; and, subsequently, of William Holmes, Esq., M.P., who sold it to Mr. Baylis and Mr. Lechmere Whitmore about 1834. By them a luxurious vine which covered the exterior was cut down, and the cottage, named after it, replaced by a modern antique house. Mr. Baylis being a zealous antiquary, his good taste induced him to respect neglected things, when remarkable as works of art, and inspired him and his friend Mr. Whitmore with the wish to collect and preserve some of the many fine specimens of ancient manufacture that had found their way into this country from the Continent, as well as to rescue from destruction relics of Old England. In the monuments and carvings which had been removed from dilapidated churches, and in the furniture which had been turned out of the noble mansions of England—the “Halls” and “old Places”—Mr. Baylis saw the tangible records of the history of his country; and, desirous of upholding such memorials, he gleaned a rich harvest from the lumber of brokers’ shops, and saved from oblivion articles illustrative of various tastes and periods, that were daily in the course of macadamisation or of being consumed for firewood. The materials thus acquired were freely used by him in the construction of a new building upon the site of Vine Cottage, and adapted with considerable skill; but when neither the vine nor the cottage were in existence, it appeared to Mr. Baylis ridiculous to allow a misnomer to attach itself to the spot. After due deliberation, therefore, respecting the situation upon a delightful bank of gravel, and the association which an assemblage of ecclesiastic carvings and objects connected with “monkish memories,” there collected, were likely to produce upon the mind, the new house was styled the “Pryor’s Bank.”