On the east side of the house were the old gardens, now presenting a dismal appearance, for the sole surviving signs of the topiary work of our forefathers are the broken ranks of a long line of stunted yew trees; even these trees have not been spared of late years, and the woodman’s axe has been responsible for considerable gaps. On this side, too, remain traces of the old earthworks thrown up by the Royalist garrison to repel the besiegers on this, the most weakly of the naturally strong defences formed by the slope of the hill. In the farmhouse reposes a collection of old cannon balls rescued from the ruins, methods of destruction far preferable to the stealthy creeping action of the prince of destroying agents—Unchecked Decay—now so busy there. Let us hope, however, that before it is too late a helping hand may lay its healing touch on these walls which crown the slope, a spot noiseless save for the thousand and one sounds of the neighbouring farmyard, and that distant and discordant triumph of modernity, the railway, which, thanks to the situation of the manor house on its hill, finds no near approach. BRADSHAW AND THE BRADSHAWES By C. E. B. Bowles, M.A. Chapel-en-le-frith, a little old-fashioned town in the heart of the Peak, is fairly encompassed by a range of hills, one of the loftiest of which, rising, indeed, to a height of 1,225 feet, is Eccles Pike. About a mile and a half from the town, and on the southern slope of this hill, which towers above it, safeguarding it from the cold blasts of the north wind, stands the old homestead of the Derbyshire Bradshawes. Built in the more peaceful times of the first Stuart King, Bradshaw Hall is to-day a substantial witness to the fact that, unlike our Georgian ancestors, they who lived in the time when James the First was King were like ourselves—most appreciative of a home commanding a wide expanse of land and sky, and yet beneath the friendly shelter of a hill. [Illustration: Bradshawe Hall.] The hall is girt on all sides by the lands which have formed part of the domain for many centuries. Many of them, too, are known to-day by the same names which have distinguished the various enclosures through nearly all that time. The ground immediately below the hall on its southern side was the old pleasance, and bears traces of having been originally terraced. Here were the gardens and orchards, the latter certainly in existence as early as 1542, being mentioned in a lease[40] bearing date 20th April, 33 Henry VIII. Below them was the Home Croft, a seven-acred field now called the Hall Meadow. The view from these old pleasure grounds must have been very striking, extending as it does right away to the Combs Moss and Valley, and looking towards the Black Edge. [40] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxv., p. 59.