The Old Hall is situated in the very centre of a host of picturesque antiquities; in all directions around it exist objects of exceeding interest,--as relics of the olden time and imperishable illustrations of British History. It would be difficult to find in the kingdom so many remains of architectural splendour within a circuit of four or five miles. Bury contains the most interesting of our monastic ruins. Among them are those of the famous “Norman Tower” (still comparatively unimpaired), erected in the reign of the Conqueror, as the Grand Portal to the magnificent church of Abbot Baldwin;--the Charnel Chapel, in which Lidgate wrote,--the Church which for centuries enshrined the miracle-working bones of St. Edmund,--and the walls of the Chamber where, on the 20th of November, 1215, “the Barons” pledged “the repose of their souls” to extort the Charter of Freedom from the tyrant John. The road to West Stow is scarcely less rich in historic sites than the town of Bury. Without the north-gate are the remains of the Gateway to St. Saviour’s Hospital, where,--during the Parliament of 1446, assembled at Bury, by Henry VI.,--the “good Duke Humphrey” was murdered by Cardinal Beaufort and De la Pole; half a mile beyond, we cross the Old Toll-gate Bridge of the mitred Abbots of St. Edmunsbury; at a short distance, an ivy-clad Tower is all that remains of the Church of Fornham St. Genevieve; but tumuli still endure to indicate where the ten thousand Flemings were buried by “sloven-hands,” after the bloody battle which gave to the second Henry peaceable possession of the crown. By other roads we pass objects equally fertile of history. The Round Towers of Saxham are within ken; Risby and Hengrave Churches are close at hand; and very near us are some of the grandest and most beautiful of the Baronial Halls of England--Coldham, Rushbrooke, and Hengrave among the rest. All who visit the ancient mansion of West Stow, will first enter the venerable Church, to which a footway leads through a field from off the main road. It is a fine example of a very early age. The Tower is square and embattled; the Chancel, apparently of a more recent date than the Nave, contains an enriched Piscina, of the fifteenth century, and many mural monuments and grave-stones of the once illustrious family of Crofts--a family now known in Suffolk only by history and these cold records of their fame. The Nave has an open roof; the brackets that support the principals are ornamented with armorial bearings of “many ancient Lords of this Manor, with their alliances.”