Note 45 — HAM HOUSE, SURREY.

Lysons, writing more than half a century ago, describes the furnishing of the Mansion in terms which suit exactly to describe its present state. “It is,” he says, “a curious specimen of a mansion of the age of Charles the Second. The ceilings are painted by Verrio, and the rooms are ornamented with that massy magnificence of decoration then in fashion. The furniture is very rich; even the bellows and brushes, in some of the apartments, are of solid silver, or of silver filigree. In the closet adjoining the bed-chamber, which was the Duchess of Lauderdale’s, still remains the great chair in which she used to sit and read; it has a small desk fixed to it, and her cane hangs by the side. The furniture of the whole room is such that one might almost fancy her Grace to be still an inhabitant of the house.”