The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 370, May 16, 1829Various
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 370, May 16, 1829
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
There is, near the hall, an ancient refectory, or dining-room, shut up,
and in so dangerous a state as to require to be filled with props to
support its ceiling. The grand staircase, which is of oak, and coeval with
the building, leads to the gallery, in which are situated the principal
sleeping-rooms, distinguished as the green, blue, red chambers, &c.,
according to the predominant colours of the ancient and faded tapestry
with which they are hung; nor would the old manor-house deserve the name
of such, was there not in one of these a concealed door behind the arras,
and in another, the report at least of a ghost. A narrow door, near the
end of the gallery, opens immediately upon an old and narrow staircase,
the ascent to that chapel in the very roof of the building, which at the
period of the Reformation, was contrived and fitted up for the secret
advantage of the Roman Catholic proprietors of Sawston; this chamber, for
it is nothing more, is certainly little calculated to impress the mind
of the spectator with an idea of the splendour of Catholic worship; we
approached it by a narrow decaying staircase, stepped over bare rafters,
and were scarcely able to pilot ourselves securely by the faint
glimmerings of day-light, streaming through the chinks in the tiling
overhead. Upon the opening of the chapel door, however, a full tide of
light greeted us, admitted by a dormer window, and this displayed an
apartment, known by its altar and benches to be appropriated to sacred
purposes, the sole decorations of whose plain white-washed walls were some
few engravings of madonnas, saints, and holy families, &c., chiefly
French, and not particularly beautiful or valuable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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