was doubtless the "large hall of an older date" referred to by Miss Stanley, the other portions of the building having been added about the beginning of the last century. The two end pillars, bearing the crest of the Stanleys--the eagle and child--with a portion of the wall, may be seen abutting upon the roadside; but, with these exceptions, not a vestige of the old mansion remains. The connection of the Stanleys with Alderley dates back about four hundred and fifty years or thereabouts, when the estate was acquired by the marriage of John Stanley, a brother of the first Earl of Derby, with Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Thomas Weever, of Weever and Alderley. This John's father, Sir Thomas Stanley, of Lathom, after serving as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, emerged from among the country gentlemen as Lord Stanley, and was made controller of the household of the "meek usurper," Henry VI., when, in consideration of his services, he had granted to him by favour of the King the wardship and marriage of Thomas Weever's heiress, and he, with commendable care for the worldly well-being of his younger son, bestowed the lady and her lands upon him. The house of Stanley, which ranks among the greatest of our governing families, is one of the most ancient as it is one of the most distinguished in the page of history, comprising at the present day, in addition to the baronetcy enjoyed by the elder line--the Stanleys, of Hooton in Wirral--two peerages, the Earldom of Derby of Knowsley, in Lancashire, and the Barony of Stanley of Alderley, in Cheshire, besides the younger branches in Staffordshire, Sussex, Kent, and Hertfordshire. The first known ancestor was one Adam de Aldithlegh, so named from his paternal estate of Audithlegh, in Normandy, who came over with William the Conqueror. Acquitting himself bravely on the field of Hastings, he was rewarded with large territorial estates in the newly conquered country. He was accompanied in the expedition by his two sons, Lydulph or Lyulph and Adam de Aldithlegh. These sons married, and in due course two grandsons were born to the old Norman warrior, both of whom married into a Saxon family of noble rank and ancient lineage, which had been fortunate enough to retain possession of its estates, while confiscation had been the lot of those around it. The family derived its name from the manor of Stanley or Stoneley, the stony lea or stony field according to the Anglo-Saxon meaning, a little hamlet lying about three miles south-west of the small manufacturing town of Leek, in Staffordshire, a place which, Erdswick, the old topographer, remarks "seems to take its name of the nature of the soil, which, though it be in the moorlands, is yet a rough and stony place, and many craggy rocks are about it." One of the grandsons, Adam, the son of Lyulph de Audithlegh, became in right of his wife lord of Stanley, and was ancestor of the Lord Audley of ancient times, and is represented