The Isle, another Tempest residence, stands on low ground, surrounded by marshes caused through risings of the Skerne. It is a picturesque place, with projecting gables and narrow mullioned lights. It was the residence of Colonel John Tempest, first M.P. for Durham County, and still belongs to the Marquess of Londonderry as representative of his family. Sledwish Hall, standing lonely and sequestered, is a place of "ghastly grey renown." Upwards of a hundred years ago the bones of an infant were found interred in a stone coffin in the field adjoining. The house, too, like most of these old mansions, is supposed to contain secret passages and rooms. Portions of the present building, more particularly the south front, date back to Plantagenet times, but the house as it now stands is an interesting specimen of Tudor architecture. It was rebuilt by John Clopton, Queen Elizabeth’s Receiver, his great work being the ceiling in the Orchard Chamber. This is divided into compartments by deep mouldings, ornamented by numerous crowned roses, fleurs-de-lis, and pomegranates. In the centre is a shield bearing his family arms, a quarterly shield, first and fourth, _paly a lion rampant_, and second and third _a cross pattee fitchée_, over all a crescent for difference. The arms are reversed through the artist having formed his mould without considering that the impression was the final result. Two other shields impressed from the same mould bear the initials E. C. (evidently for the builder’s wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Ashton of Great Lever, in Lancashire), the date 1584, and "a _tun_ with a rose _clapt on_."[16] Above this shield is a rose surrounded by three crowns. At the four corners of the room are large decorative groups; two are falcons with pomegranates, the third is a swan, and the fourth a boar under an oak-tree devouring an acorn. A deep cornice running round the whole ceiling is decorated with repeated devices of the Royal lion and the Welsh dragon supporting the crowned rose, the whole evidently symbolic of Good Queen Bess. There are several other good rooms, and a large chimney at the south-west is supported outside by three double brackets.