In his lordship's stables close by we had the privilege of seeing "a racer" who had won sixteen or more "seconds," as well as a budding Derby winner of the future. Culford is a stately house in a very trim and well-cared-for park. It looks quite modern, but the older mansion has been incorporated with it. In Charles II.'s day his Majesty paid occasional visits to Culford _en route_ from Euston Hall to Newmarket, and Pepys records an incident there which was little to his host's (Lord Cornwallis') credit. The rector's daughter, a pretty girl, was introduced to the king, whose unwelcome attentions caused her to make a precipitate escape, and, leaping from some height, she killed herself, "which, if true," says Pepys, "is very sad." Certainly Charles does not show to advantage in Suffolk. The Diarist himself saw him at Little Saxham Hall[7] (to the south-west of Culford), the seat of Lord Crofts, going to bed, after a heavy drinking bout with his boon companions Sedley, Buckhurst, and Bab May. The church is in the main modern, but there is a fine tomb of Lady Bacon, who is represented life-size nursing her youngest child, while on either side in formal array stand her other five children. Her husband is reclining full length at her feet. Hengrave Hall, one of the finest Tudor mansions in England, is close to Culford. Shorn of its ancient furniture and pictures (for, alas! a few years ago there was a great sale here), the house is still of considerable interest; but the absence of colour--its staring whiteness and bare appearance--on the whole is disappointing, and compared with less architecturally fine houses, such as Kentwell or Rushbrooke, it is inferior from a picturesque point of view. Still the outline of gables and turreted chimneys is exceptionally fine and stately. It was built between the years 1525 and 1538. The gatehouse has remarkable mitre-headed turrets, and a triple bay-window bearing the royal arms of France and England quarterly, supported by a lion and a dragon. The entrance is flanked on either side by an ornamental pillar similar in character to the turrets. The house was formerly moated and had a drawbridge, as at Helmingham in this county. These were done away with towards the end of the eighteenth century, when a great part of the original building was demolished and the interior entirely reconstructed. The rooms included the "Queen's Chamber," where Elizabeth slept when she was entertained here after the lavish style at Kenilworth in 1578, by Sir Thomas Kytson. From the Kitsons, Hengrave came to the Darcys and Gages.