There is also, on the first floor, and at the east end of the mansion, another chamber, which once had a door of communication with the room in which the painting was discovered, but of which the door-way, though visible, is now built up, and which is at present entered from the outside of the building, by a modern staircase and door. In this chamber there is a closet, built of stone, and ingeniously built into and forming part of the stack or range of chimney-flues before mentioned. The chamber has a fire-place, on the left of which is the stone closet before mentioned, which was once entered by a thin oaken door, of which the lower half still remains, the upper portion having been sawn off. The closet has been lighted from the outside, by two small apertures in the stone work at the back of it, now built up. {250a} I could not discover that there were any traces of the old hall having ever been surrounded by a moat, as is the case with some other halls near that part of Cheshire. {250b} Upon the whole, considering that it belonged to a family of eminence in the county, I was disappointed with the size of Soss Moss Hall, the appearance of the rooms, and the want of the conveniences and comforts which, even three centuries ago, such a family might be reasonably supposed to require; nor does the hall convey to a spectator the idea of a mansion formerly inhabited by a leading family in the county. Besides which, the situation of the hall is bad: it is quite in a flat, the soil is poor and sandy; the public road near it was bad in several places, within my recollection; and, from the appearance of bog-earth in many situations close to it, there cannot be a doubt that, less than three centuries ago, the land about it must have been wet, and almost a swamp; and certainly it was not the situation which we should expect a family of a certain rank in the county, to select for their principal mansion. The last time that I heard anything of the son of old William Wyche was in September, 1848, when I learnt that he had been for some time an ostler at a small inn at Knutsford, and had since been a labouring gardener at Manchester, or in its vicinity, and was then in very indifferent circumstances, and out of work. Such has been the falling away, and sad reverse, in the fortunes of the old and once high and influential Cheshire family of Wyche, or De la Wyche! CHAPTER XII. WILMSLOW CHURCH, CHESHIRE. {253a}