THE PIXEY GARDEN ([pp. 35], [36])
go after it, the edges being unsquared, and then the whole structure may come tumbling down.
At the inn at Manaton I once heard a group of old inhabitants talking over various buildings that had fallen down, and quarrelling as to which of them had made the greatest noise in falling. Here at Wreyland the end wall of the Tallet—some 40 tons—fell out into the orchard in the twilight of a Sunday evening as people were on their way to church. “And Miss Mary *****, her were a-passin’ at the time; and, when her come in afterward, her said in all her born days her never beheld such a noise.”
People talk as though there was no jerry-building in the olden times. I believe the jerry-builder was as busy then as now, but his buildings have all tumbled down and been forgotten long ago. Only the best of the old buildings have lasted until now; and these are constantly in need of structural repair. I have overhauled a good many of these buildings; and by the time I have underpinned the walls, and grouted them, and done all the other necessary things, I always find I could have got a better result by taking them right down, and setting them up again on fresh foundations. And no one would have known the difference. At the lower end of Souther Wreyland there is a chimney-stack that looks as venerable as anything here. I built it new in 1906 from its foundation to its summit: there was nothing there before.
If one had merely to repair a building as an ancient monument, there would be comparatively little trouble. But there is serious trouble, when one wishes to retain the characteristics of a building, and yet meet modern needs with bath-rooms and the like. Bed-rooms used to open into one another, and you had to pass through other rooms to reach your own; but people now object to that. If the roof slopes down towards the outer walls, one cannot always get height enough for a passage without encroaching too much upon the rooms; and one does better then by putting in more staircases, each giving access to a group of rooms. This house has three main staircases, and no passages upstairs, except a short one that I built in 1899. Others have as many staircases, and passages as well; and people say that they are like the countryside—all lanes and hills.
In dealing with the Hall House, I decided not to sacrifice the Seventeenth Century work in order to restore the Fourteenth, though the restoration would have been of interest. There was originally a hall, with a screen across it, and a gallery projecting out beyond the screen on corbels. Subsequently the floor of the gallery was carried on across the hall, and the front of the gallery was carried up to the roof, thus making two rooms upstairs, and two down below, divided by the screen. These four rooms are useful, and the hall would have been very useless, as no courts are held for Wreyland manor now.
My great-great-grandfather Nelson Beveridge Gribble was lord of Wreyland manor, but always lived in this house—Yonder Wreyland—and never at the Hall House. I believe he held Court Baron and Court Leet and View of Frankpledge in the Lower Parlour here; and it must have been unpleasantly crowded, if the Homage and the Tithing came here in full force.
The last sitting of the court was held on 14 February 1871. I have printed the record of the sittings from 1437 to 1441, from 1479 to 1501, and from 1696 to 1727, Wreyland Documents, pp. 1-88, and have said there (pp. i-c) all I have to say about the history of this manor.