[Illustration: FIG. 179.--WENTWORTH WOODHOUSE, YORKSHIRE, 1740.] [Illustration: FIG. 180.--WENTWORTH WOODHOUSE. THE SALOON.] [Illustration: FIG. 181.--Wentworth Woodhouse. The Staircase Hall.] [Illustration: FIG. 182.--PRIOR PARK. THE HALL. The ceiling of the hall was opened up by Goodridge, who added the balustrade in 1829.] Another of the great mansions built about the same time as Wentworth Woodhouse was Prior Park, near Bath, and here again the result would appear to owe something to Campbell’s second design for Wanstead in so far as the great hexastyle portico is concerned. The architect was John Wood, of Bath, who designed it in 1736 for Ralph Allen, an extremely capable man, who, from being a clerk in a Bath post office, became one of the wealthiest men of his time. He established a lucrative system of posts, and he exploited the quarries of the district. It is said, indeed, that Prior Park was built in order to advertise the excellence of Bath stone; if true, it was a noble form of advertisement. The house stands high up on a hillside, and is flanked at a distance by stables and other buildings to which it is joined by low rusticated arcades of the same height as the basement story (Fig. 183). The whole façade is slightly curved concavely in order to follow the conformation of the ground. From the terrace on which the house stands a fine flight of steps, partly straight and partly curved, leads down to a lower level, but this is a later addition, carried out by H. E. Goodridge, of Bath, in the year 1825. [Illustration: FIG. 183.--Prior Park, near Bath, 1736.] It is interesting to find so splendid a house built for a self-made man, but as Allen left no family, it has not acquired the intimate charm of most great houses; it was for many years a Roman Catholic college, but has now been taken over for purposes connected with the war. The interior has suffered from fire, but the great hall retains its imposing appearance (Fig. 182). Like most halls of the period, it is, perhaps, too grand to be home-like, but it is admirably suited for the present uses of the house. If, as is said, Allen was the prototype of Fielding’s Mr. Allworthy, he must have been an amiable as well as a capable man. The man himself may have stood for the portrait, but Fielding placed Allworthy in circumstances of his own invention. He was made of ancient descent, and although his seat was in Somerset, and occupied a site comparable to that of Prior Park, the house itself was a noble product of the Gothic style; “there was an air of grandeur in it that struck you with awe, and rivalled the beauties of the best Grecian architecture; and it was as commodious within as venerable without.” Do we not see in this description signs of a revolt from the prevailing worship of the classic type? Fielding published “Tom Jones” about 1744, but there were still many years to run before the classic idea ceased to dominate domestic architecture.