[2] “Alton Towers and Dove-Dale.” By Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A. (Black and Co.) The Roman Catholic establishment just referred to is close to the pretty little town of Alton, in which the visitor will find an excellent and comfortable inn (the “White Hart”). The intention of the founder, and of the architect, Pugin, in the establishment of the picturesque pile of buildings referred to, was to found an institution, lecture-hall, schools, &c., for the town of Alton; a large cloistered establishment for nuns, a chapel, and a hospital for decayed priests. The chapel alone is finished, and in it service is regularly performed by a resident priest, who lives in one part of the monastic buildings. The schools, too, are in use, and the building erected as a residence for the master is used as a small nunnery. In the chapel, which is elegantly fitted up, are buried John, Earl of Shrewsbury, the founder of the hospital, who died in 1852; his Countess (Maria Theresa), who died in 1856, to each of whom are splendid monumenta
[3] Jewitt’s “Alton Towers and Dove Dale.”
[4] Parts of this account are borrowed from Mr. S. C. Hall’s description of Cobham, printed in 1848 in the “Baronial Halls.” During the summer of 1867, Mr. Hall revisited the venerable mansion, its gardens and park, with the members of the Society of Noviomagus.
[5] “Cobham, anciently Coptham; that is, the head of a village, from the Saxon copt, a head.”—Philipot. Survey of Kent.
[6] Sir Thomas Broke and Joan de Cobham, his wife, had ten sons and four daughters. It is their tomb which occupies so prominent a position in the chancel of Cobham Church.
[7] Under a most iniquitous sentence, Raleigh was executed fifteen years after it was pronounced; and Cobham (by whose treachery the brave knight was chiefly convicted) had been a houseless wanderer meanwhile, perishing unpitied and unwept. Of their intimacy there is no doubt; and it is more than probable, that the old Hall we are describing was often the home of Sir Walter Raleigh when conspicuous as “the noble and valorous knight.” It is grievous to think that so great a “worthy” should have been sacrificed to the pitiful cowardice of so “poor a soul” as the last of the Cobhams—the degenerate scion of a munificent and valorous race.
[8] Sir Joseph Williamson was the son of a clergyman of Cumberland. He held various appointments under the Crown, was President of the Royal Society, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
[9] “Lady Katherine O’Brien died in November following; upon which her two-thirds of this manor and seat, which, with the rest of the estates of the late Duke of Richmond, purchased by Sir Joseph Williamson, descended to Edward, Lord Clifton and Cornbury (son of Edward, Lord Cornbury, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, and Catherine his wife, the only daughter and heir of the said Lady Katherine, by her first husband, Henry Lord O’Brien), and on his death, without issue, in 1713, to his only surviving sister and heir, the Lady Theodosia Hyde.”—Hasted’s Kent.
[10] In 1718 Sir Richard Temple, Bart., was created Baron and Viscount Cobham (the Temples, it appears, being in the female line connected with the Brokes), and this title is still held and enjoyed by his descendant the present Duke of Buckingham, K.G., whose titles are Baron Cobham, of Cobham in Kent; Viscount Cobham of the same place; Earl Nugent (in the peerage of Ireland); Earl Temple; Marquis of Chandos, Marquis of Buckingham, and Duke of Buckingham.
[11] The architect is C. F. Hayward, F.S.A. It is a handsome building, immediately fronting the Terminus, of a style which may be described as a free treatment of Gothic architecture, without any of the special characteristics which refer to one particular date—in fact, it is a modern design, well adapted to its purposes and position, and of substantial build, being of granite and limestone—combined with lightness and even elegance in certain details of terra-cotta work, from the well-known manufactory of Blashfield of Stamford.