The Old Hall of Calgarth, whose history, it has been said, belongs to the world of shadows, but whose remains still form an object of interest from their picturesqueness and antiquity, is situated within a short distance of the water, upon the narrowest part of a small and pleasant plain on the eastern shore of Windermere. The house has been so much injured and curtailed of its original proportions, that it is impossible to make out what has been its precise form: many parts having gone entirely to decay, and others being much out of repair; the materials having been used in the erection of offices and outbuildings, for the accommodation of farmers, in whose occupation it has been for a long period. Its original character has been quite lost in the additions and alterations of later days. It is however said to have been constructed much after the style of those venerable Westmorland mansions, the Halls of Sizergh and Levens. But there are few traces of the "fair old building," which even so late as the year 1774, Dr. Burn described it to be; and the destruction of this ancient home of the Philipsons has well nigh been complete. What is now called the kitchen, and the room over it, are the only portions of the interior remaining, from which a judgment may be formed of the care and finish that have been applied to its internal decoration. In the former, which appears to have been one of the principal apartments, though now divided, and appropriated to humble uses, the armorial achievements of the Philipsons, crested with the five ostrich plumes of their house, and surmounted by their motto, "Fide non fraude," together with the bearings of Wyvill impaling Carus, into which families the owners of Calgarth intermarried, are coarsely represented in stucco over the hearth, and still serve to connect their name with the house. The large old open fireplace has been filled up by an insignificant modern invention. The window still retains some fragments of its former display of heraldic honours; the arms of the early owners, impaling those of Wyvill, and the device of Briggs, another Westmorland family, with whom the Philipsons were also matrimonially connected, yet appear in their proper blazon. And in the same window, underneath the emblazonry, is this legend, likewise in painted glass:-- Robart. Phillison. and. Jennet. Laibor ne. his. wife. he. die d. in. anno. 1539 the. ZZ. Dece mbar 1579