Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, which descends like an angel of
mercy on many a threatened and abandoned building and preserves it for
future generations. The Winster market-house is of great age; the
lower part is doubtless as old as the thirteenth century, and the
upper part was added in the seventeenth. Winster was at one time an
important place; its markets were famous, and this building must for
very many years have been the centre of the commercial life of a large
district. But as the market has diminished in importance, the old
market-house has fallen out of repair, and its condition has caused
anxiety to antiquaries for some time past. Local help has been
forthcoming under the auspices of the National Trust, in which it is
now vested for future preservation.

[Illustration: The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk]

Though not a town hall, we may here record the saving of a very
interesting old building, the Palace Gatehouse at Maidstone, the
entire demolition of which was proposed. It is part of the old
residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, near the Perpendicular
church of All Saints, on the banks of the Medway, whose house at
Maidstone added dignity to the town and helped to make it the
important place it was. The Palace was originally the residence of the
Rector of Maidstone, but was given up in the thirteenth century to the
Archbishop. The oldest part of the existing building is at the north
end, where some fifteenth-century windows remain. Some of the rooms
have good old panelling and open stone fire-places of the
fifteenth-century date. But decay has fallen on the old building. Ivy
is allowed to grow over it unchecked, its main stems clinging to the
walls and disturbing the stones. Wet has begun to soak into the walls
through the decayed stone sills. Happily the gatehouse has been saved,