The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta.
The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton.


And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under the earth.

So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiquarians, and a
thorough Naboth's vineyard to critics, and architects, and all
persons who like meddling with other men's business, and spending
other men's money. So they were all setting upon poor Sir John,
year after year, and trying to talk him into spending a hundred
thousand pounds or so, in building, to please them and not himself.
But he always put them off, like a canny North-countryman as he
was. One wanted him to build a Gothic house, but he said he was no
Goth; and another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he lived
under good Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and another was
bold enough to tell him that his house was ugly, but he said he
lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that there was no
unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the old
place. For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and
Sir Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each
after his own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his
ancestors' work than of disturbing their graves. For now the house
looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown
and grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow
who did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it
for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which
looked as if it bad been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are.
From which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir John
was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and just the man to