in the house in her younger days. Perhaps the most interesting room to me was the secret hiding-hole : they could not show us the ghost, but they did explain the mystery of the secret chamber. All the rooms are panelled in oak from floor to ceiling, and in one bedroom a certain stile in the panel will slide, if pressed, and allow a piece of the panelling to open like a door. Then there is disclosed a hidden room, perhaps six feet square, without light or air. If the door be shut, a trap in the oaken floor, three inches thick, will lift, and there, behold, is a steep flight of steps down to another tiny room. The floor of this lower room is modern, so we cannot tell exactly how it was arranged originally. There may have been a way of escape underground, although outdoor exits were liable to betray themselves. There still are marks in the wall showing where food could have been passed from a cupboard in the drawingroom below. This untouched, original, secret chamber is very interesting, and the way in which a part of the panelling, exactly like that which surrounds it and is in all the rooms of the house, opens, when a certain bit of it is moved, was so ingenious that I copied it for the entrance to our hiding-hole at this Old Parsonage, Didsbury, where we keep the apples and drink, but found it was not adapted for everyday use.

There are other curiosities about Pitchford Hall, for on a knoll between the house and garden, in a widespreading very ancient lime-tree, is another little house built among the branches. This sylvan retreat or arbour was mentioned in writings more than two hundred years since, and is a wonderfully pleasant place from which to view the country round. It may originally have been partly designed as a watch-tower in troublous times, and gradually come to be a happy place in days of ease. We thought we should like to stay there all night, or have afternoon tea. I noticed the tree was full of mistletoe, which is not commonly found on the

linden, though others near by had some also. A limb of this tree containing 150 feet of timber fell in 1823, and in 1856 another nearly as large. One of the big chimney-stacks of the house has a tree growing out of it, which spreads above the chimney like an umbrella, to keep off the rain. Another small thing worthy of note is the steep grey roof of the little church adjoining the hall. This is probably of stone, but every bit is covered with grey lichen or the more showy grey stonecrop, or white sedum, interspersed here and there with polypody fern. On the pool above, the water lilies lie, and every leaf of luxuriant vegetation is reflected in the still waters when the coots and ducks are quiet. Enormous trees of varied sorts and patriarchal age encircle all with grateful shade, and in the distance rises Shropshire's sacred mount. the Wrekin.

TREAGO CASTLE-WYTHALL

R

EADERS of our former pilgrimages may remember that when in Herefordshire at midsummer we had on two consecutive evenings come to fine old houses that we were not allowed to photograph. Three months elapsed before we could get the requisite permission and were free to go again. On the last Saturday in September, in the gloomy weather that had prevailed all the summer, we cycled to Stockport as usual for the 8.45 express to Hereford. Soon after noon we were cycling through the quaint old city, o'er its streets so fine and broad and so intensely narrow. Along the Monmouth road the pace was good until the long ascent of Aconbury Hill, up which we toiled above a mile. A short halt was made for lunch where a heap of broken stones looked comparatively soft and dry. Near by was a beautiful place with the beautiful name of Wormelow Tump. It may be an aristocratic occupation here to sit by the roadside eating, for a smart dogcart came past and the groom touched his hat as if he thought we were gentlemen. Then an accident happened which might have been serious.

We were going down a long steep hill where by the roadside was a herd of many swine feeding. Two big old razor-backed sows with many grades of porkers with them. X led the way, and I cautiously followed. His good luck has always been wonderful and he got safely past, but the pigs winded him and snorted. They may have known all about that herd of swine spoken