Crewe Hall is the seat of the Right Hon. Hungerford Crewe, third Baron Crewe, who was born in 1812, and succeeded his father in 1835. His grandfather, the first peer, represented Cheshire in parliament from the year 1768 until his elevation to the upper house in 1806. The manor was from a very early period the property of the family of Crue, or Crewe, and some remains of a far more ancient seat are still to be found in the neighbourhood. “About the year 1300, Joan, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the last male heir of the elder branch of the family, married Robert Praers, whose grand-daughter conveyed the manor to Sir Robert Foulshurst.” From this family it was purchased, in 1578, by Sir Christopher Hatton. “A fortunate lawyer” had the means of restoring it to the race to whom it had originally belonged. About the year 1610 Sir Randal Crewe, Serjeant-at-Law, descended from Patrick, a younger brother of Thomas de Crewe, bought it from Sir Christopher’s heirs, and erected, between the years 1615 and 1636, the present mansion. In 1684 the male line became extinct, by the death of John Crewe, Esq.; Anne, his eldest daughter, having married John Offley, Esq., of Madeley Manor, their eldest son, John, subsequently took the name of Crewe in 1708, and, as we have stated, the family was ennobled in 1806. The hall is a remarkably beautiful structure, and a fine example of the architecture of the period. It is characterised by a distinguished architect as “undoubtedly one of the finest remaining specimens of the English branch of the Italian cinque cento, which may be considered to have arrived at its full state of perfection during the reign of James I.” According to some passages in Fuller, at the period of its erection it must have been classed among the more sumptuous edifices of the kingdom. He says, “Nor must it be forgotten that Sir Randal first brought the model of excellent building into these remote parts--yea, brought London into Cheshire, in the loftiness, sightliness, and pleasantness of their structures.” Although it has undergone many improvements, it has lost but little of its original character. “It consists of two lofty stories, surmounted by a sculptured open parapet, concealing, in some degree, the high roof, from which rise the chimneys, representing detached octagonal columns, with their plinths, bases, and capitals.” The central compartment--the line of the front being broken at each extremity by bow windows--is composed entirely of stone, and is rich in decoration; the arch of the doorway is supported by four fluted Ionic columns, on sculptured pedestals. A dwarf wall and balustrades surround the edifice at its base; and the courtyard, now a prettily laid out lawn and garden, is entered by some finely modelled gates of cast-iron, produced at the foundry of Messrs. Bramah. The [Illustration]