Note 261 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 2)

Then Montagu House. “I apprehend,” says Smith, in his Antient Topography of London, “that the custom of inlaying, or tesselating, wooden floors commenced in England in the reign of King Charles the First, and ended in that of Queen Anne. I have secured patterns of four such floors: two belonging to the reign of Charles the First, and two to that of Charles the Second. No. 1 is from that part of Whitehall lately inhabited by the Duchess of Portland. No. 2 is from Somerset House. Nos. 3 and 4 are from the present old gallery and waiting-room in the Marquis of Stafford’s house in Cleveland Row.”