Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850.Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
It is an old, patched-up, rickety dwelling, containing, perhaps, but few
of the original stones, yet interesting as being the lodge-entrance to
the offices of Beaufort-House; remarkable, also, as the dwelling of a
family of the name of Howard, who have occupied it for more than a
hundred years, the first possessor being gardener to Sir Hans Sloane,
into whose possession, after a lapse of years, and many changes, a
portion of Sir Thomas More's property had passed. This Howard had skill
in the distilling of herbs and perfumes, which his descendant carries on
to this day. We lifted the heavy brass knocker, and were admitted into
the "old clock-house." The interior shows evident marks of extreme age,
the flooring being ridgy and seamed, bearing their marks with a
discontented creaking, like the secret murmurs of a faded beauty against
her wrinkles! On the counter stood a few frost-bitten geraniums, and
drawers, containing various roots and seeds, were ranged round the
walls, while above them were placed good stout quart and pint bottles of
distilled waters. The man would have it that the "clock-house" was the
"real original" lodge-entrance to "Beaufort House;" and so we agreed it
might have been, but not, "_perhaps_" built during Sir Thomas More's
lifetime. To this insinuation he turned a deaf ear, assuring us that his
family, having lived there so long, must know all about it, and that the
brother of Sir Hans Sloane's gardener had made the great clock in old
Chelsea Church, as the church books could prove. "You can, if you
please," he said, "go under the archway at the side of this house,
leading into the Moravian chapel and burying-ground, where the notice,
that 'within are the Park-chapel Schools,' is put up." And that is quite
true; the Moravians now only use the chapel which was erected in their
burying-ground to perform an occasional funeral service in, and so they
"let it" to the infant school. The burying-ground is very pretty in the
summer time. Its space occupies only a small portion of the chancellor's
garden; part of its walls are very old, and the south one certainly
belonged to Beaufort House. There have been some who trace out a Tudor
arch and one or two Gothic windows as having been filled up with more
modern mason-work: but that may be fancy. There seems no doubt that the
Moravian chapel stands on the site of the old stables.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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