It receives light from two mullioned windows. This room is in the Tower—the whole length and breadth of which it occupies. Every chamber throughout the mansion has been fitly furnished by Mr. Kay. The ancient coffer, bound with iron—(it supplies our initial letter)—concerning which tradition has been always busy—is one of the few heirlooms of the House.
We believe, with this exception, the whole of its picturesque contents, from attic to cellar, have been the introductions of Mr. Kay; and we cannot sufficiently praise the sound taste and judicious feeling by which that gentleman has been actuated in his efforts at restoration both within and without.
At a short distance from the mansion is a singularly picturesque turret—an
engraving of which we annex. Through the township of Turton passed the ancient Roman road; and in the immediate neighbourhood may be traced many relics of remote antiquity.
From “the Height” a most extensive view is obtained—a view unsurpassed in England for singularity and deep interest,—taking in Bolton and Warrington and other towns and villages full of factories; from hence also are seen Billinge Hill and Beacon, the far-famed Pike and Beacon of Rivington; while a deep shadow that hangs over an enormous space, points attention to busy and prosperous Manchester, buried with its prodigious wealth in the centre of a valley some fifteen miles away.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The windows formerly contained some rare specimens of painted glass, which the late proprietor permitted a clerical friend to abstract for the purpose of decorating a neighbouring church.
[2] Fuller states that Sir John Huddleston “was highly honoured by Queen Mary, and deservedly. Such was the trust reposed in him, that when Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen, she came privately to him at Sawston, and rid thence behind his servant, the better to disguise herself from discovery, to Framlingham. She afterwards made him, as I have heard, her Privy Councillor; and besides other great boons, bestowed the bigger part of Cambridge Castle, then in ruins, upon him, with the stone whereof he built his fair house in this county.”