It is this that gives so venerable an appearance to Montacute House; for, compared with many mansions coeval with it, the ancestral seat of the Phelips family looks quite double the age. The imposing height of Montacute as compared, for instance, with Hinton St. George, gives it stateliness and grandeur, while the other has none. Like Hardwick, the front of the house is one mass of windows; but it has not that formal spare appearance, for here there are rounded gables to break the outline. In niches between the windows and over the central gable stand the stone representations of such varied celebrities as Charlemagne, King Arthur, Pompey, Caesar, Alexander the Great, Moses, Joshua, Godfrey de Bouillon, and Judas Maccabeus. They look down upon a trim old garden walled in by a balustraded and pinnacled enclosure, with Moorish-like pavilions or music-rooms at the corners. As a specimen of elaborate Elizabethan architecture within and without, Montacute is unique. In Nash's _Mansions_ there is a drawing of the western front, which is still more elaborate in detail, and is earlier in date than the rest of the house; and this may be accounted for as it was added when Clifton Maybank (another house of the Phelips') was dismantled many years ago. But of this old house there are yet some interesting remains.[22] Inside there is a similarity also to Hardwick with its wide stone staircase and its ornamental Elizabethan doorways and fireplaces. The hospitality in the good old days was in keeping with the lordly appearance of the mansion. Over the entrance may still be read the cheery greeting: "Through this wide opening gate, None come too early, none return too late." But in these degenerate days the odds are that advantage would be taken of such hospitality; and one marvels at the open-handed generosity such as existed at old Bramall Hall in Cheshire, where the common road led right through the squire's great hall,[23] where there was always kept a plentiful supply of strong ale to cheer the traveller on his way. There can have been but few tramps in those days, or they must have been far more modest than they are to-day. [Illustration: MONTACUTE PRIORY.] Montacute Priory, near the village, has a fine Perpendicular tower and other picturesque remains. To see it at its best, one should visit the village late in autumn, when the Virginia creeper, which covers the ancient walls, has turned to brilliant red. Other buildings under similar conditions may look as lovely, but we can recollect nothing to equal this old farmstead in its clinging robes of gold and scarlet.