The house is in the style of an old Elizabethan mansion, and now that time has mellowed the stone and clothed the walls with greenery, one might imagine that it really dated from the Tudor period. Mr. Nightingale was a man of artistic tastes, and every detail of the house was carefully planned for picturesque effect. The mansion is built in the form of a cross with jutting wings, and presents a picture of clustering chimneys, pointed gables, stone mullioned windows and latticed panes. The fine oriel window of the drawing-room forms a projecting wing at one end of the house. The rounded balcony above the window has become historic. It is pointed out to visitors as the place where “Miss Florence used to come out and speak to the people.” Miss Nightingale’s room opened on to this balcony, and after her return from the Crimea, when she was confined to the house with delicate health, she would occasionally step from her room on to the balcony to speak to the people, who had come as deputations, while they stood in the park below. Facing the oriel balcony is a gateway, shadowed by yew-trees, which forms one of the entrances from the park to the garden. In front of the house is a circular lawn with gravel path and flower-beds, and above the hall door is inscribed N. and the date 1825, the year in which Lea Hurst was completed. The principal rooms open on to the garden or south front, and have a delightfully sunny aspect and a commanding view over the vale. From the library a flight of stone steps leads down to the lawn. The old schoolroom and nursery where our heroine passed her early years are in the upper part of the house and have lovely views over the hills. In the centre of the garden front of the mansion is a curious little projecting building which goes by the name of “the chapel.” It is evidently an ancient building effectively incorporated into Lea Hurst. There are several such little oratories of Norman date about the district, and the old lady at Lea Hurst lodge shows a stone window in the side of her cottage which is said to be seven hundred years old. A stone cross surmounts the roof of the chapel, and outside on the end wall is an inscription in curious characters. This ancient little building has, however, a special interest for our narrative, as Miss Nightingale used it for many years as the meeting place for the Sunday afternoon Bible-class which she held for the girls of the district. In those days there was a large bed of one of Miss Nightingale’s favourite flowers, the fuchsia, outside the chapel, but that has been replaced by a fountain and basin, and the historic building itself, with its thick stone walls, now makes an excellent larder.