houses, has its park open to the public, and is an exception to the
jealously-guarded places in most parts of England, but its avenues, rather
formal though very magnificent, are approached by lodges. The Wrexham
avenue leads to a farmhouse called Belgrave, and here is the
christening-point of the new, fashionable London of society, of novelists
and of contractors. Another like avenue leads to Pulford, where there is
another lodge: a third leads from Grosvenor Bridge to the deer-park, and a
fourth to the village of Aldford. The hall is an immense pile, strikingly
like, at first glance, the Houses of Parliament, with the Victoria Tower
(this in the hall is one hundred and seventy feet high, and built above the
chapel), and the style is sixteenth-century French, florid and costly. The
plan is perhaps unique in England, and comfort has been attained, though
one would hardly believe it, such size seeming to swamp everything except
show. The description of the house, as given by a visitor there, reads like
that of a palace: "The hall is an octagonal room in the centre of the house
about seventy-five feet in length and from thirty to forty broad: on each
side, at the end farthest from the entrance, are two doors leading into
anterooms--one the ante-drawing-room, and the other the ante-dining-room;
each is lighted by three large windows, and is thirty-three feet in length:
they are fine rooms in themselves, and well-proportioned. From these lead
the drawing-room and the dining-room respectively, both exceedingly grand
rooms, ingenious in design and shape, each with two oriel windows and
lighted by three others and a large bay window: this suite completes the
east side. The south is occupied by the end of the drawing-room and a vast
library--all _en suite_. The library is lighted by four bay windows, three
flat ones and a fine alcove, and the rest of the main building to the west
is made up of billiard- and smoking-rooms, waiting-hall, groom-of-chambers'
sitting- and bed-rooms, and a carpet-room, besides the necessary
staircases. This completes the main building, and a corridor leads to the
kitchen and cook's offices: this corridor, which passes over the upper