Morning journal and courier., 1889-03-30
NO. 76

kitchen with it's ranges and appointments like those of 8 vast American hotel inc scullery, the bakery, the laundry and dryino rooms; following around the end of tbe court are the harness rooms, the carriage room, the fre-department room, the rooms for washing carriages, the veterinary rooms. and then the stables for half hundred horses; these are followed along the remain- ing side of the court by granaries, hay rooms, ice-houses and 8 medley of compartments necessary to vast establishment; but every one with floors, walls and ceilings of gran- ite; and also every one with narrow win dows splaying outwaTdly through massive masonry whose inner apertures permit of no human ingress, and which on occasion might be used for most aggressive defense at arms.
 The ducal home portion of this great es- tablishment is briefly little less than palace in itself. The interiors save those of yalets', waiting maids and childrens' apartments and the nurseries, are finished in the costliest marbles and woods. The grand salon and the grand hall both have the entire height of the second and third lofty stories, and arc princely in their austere though splendid decorations. The library alone is as fine an apartment as the main hall of the Astor Li- brary in New York. His 1ordship's cham Der, and the ladyship's boudoir. in different portions of the building, are upwards of fif- ty feet square, the furnishings and decora- tions of the former being in silver and gray,
 
 while the grand chamber for the use of noble guests is larger than either, and is set with jeweled cabinets, tables of lapis lazu1i, and bedstead of carved ivory hung with satins embroidered in silk and gold. The great hall would answer for reception purposes by royalty itself; while the paintings by such artists as Gervase, Kneller, Hogarth and Reynolds are alone valued at quarter of million dollars. But the most curious and impressive room of all is the ''armorial room" This has the height of two stories, is rnassively finished in Irish oak with mar ble floor and no furniture whatever, with it's ceiling supported by Gothic arches. In the spaces between these are the armorial es- cutcheons, in alto relieve, colored' and gild- ed, of the entire line of the heretofore great and noble house of Manchester. An idea of the real vastness and stately splendor of the place can be formed from the fact that large chapel, as perfect in design and pro- portion as may be found in any city of Eng- land, is built within corner of the main castle, and the space occupied would never be noticed by stranger. The front facade of the castle Is set round about with ter- race built bodily up from the depths of shadowy dell and burn lying nearly hun- dred feet below. The grand hall and salons open directly, or through fine conservatories, upon this terrace. It is simply dream in prospect, fountains and flowers. But high above this upon the great battlemented tow CTS the prospect is more surpassing still. Far below are the tree-tops. the songs of birds, of fountains, of tumbling brooks. Rabbits sport in open places. Swans float in shining pools Pheasants whirr and flash from copse to copse. At one side is the old, little town, huddling against the castle gates. At the other, for miles on miles, the billowy waves of forest green to the far limits of the great demesne. Then tiny holdings, valleys, streams, and, away towards the Irish sea, the Mourne Mountains of blue. Far in the north the black and gray of the heights of Tyrone. One will drink in, like wine, the matchless beauty of it all, almost forgetting in the momentary intoxieation that just be- yond this dream of art and nature, only out there at the edge of those walls of stone capped by their savage spears of glass, the novels and misery begin.
 EDGAR l.. WAKEMAN.