Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/145

 12 S. IX. AUG. 6, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 115 Owing to the cheapening of the price of bread by the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the better wages now obtained by the agri- cultural labourer, the privilege of gleaning is not now of the importance it once was ; and having for nearly forty years lived in a dis- trict exclusively devoted to grazing and dairy farming, I am unable to say to what extent leasing is now practised, or whether the custom has died out altogether. WM. SELF-WEEKS. Westwood, Clitheroe. BRANDENBURGH HOUSE, FULHAM (12 S. ix. 72). Brandenburgh House, so cele- brated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for its many remarkable owners, was in Hammersmith on the right-hand side of Fulham Road, opposite Sussex House, and its grounds stretched clown to the bank of the Thames. In the seventeenth century, before it rose to its future splendour, it bore success- ively the names of Crab -Tree House and The Great House. It was built by the noted loyalist Sir Nicholas Crispe and cost him 23,000, a good- price in those days, more especially as amongst his many useful inventions was the art of brickmaking as it is now practised. Sir Xicholas was the prototype of that interesting hero in ' The Scarlet Pimpernel,' and his wonderful ad- ventures in the cause of his Royal master were most thrilling. At his death in 1665, his heart, by his express desire, was en- shrined in an urn and placed on a pedestal in Hammersmith Church, below a bust of Charles I. which he had erected, and he left money for refreshing it with wine every year, which bequest was carried out for a hundred years. His house was sold by his grandson to Prince Rupert, who spent much of his time there with Margaret Hughes, the actress, for whom he bought it. At the end of ten years she sold it to a wealthy merchant, Sir Timothy Lannoy, descendant of an ancient French Huguenot family who made his fortune by scarlet silk-dye. His son's widow married the second Duke of Atholl, and in 1748 she sold it to George Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe, the intriguing politician, who renamed it La Trappe and spent a fortune on it. He left it to his cousin, Thomas Wyndham, and from him it passed into the hands of Mrs. Sturt, whose wonderful masquerades and other entertainments made her celebrated in the gay w oriel. In 1792 it was first called Brandenburgh House when it -was bought by the Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, and became more celebrated than ever for its festivities and theatricals, reigned over by that wonderful lady, the Margravine, formerly Countess of Craven and nee Berkeley. A great deal about Brandenburgh House is to be found in her memoirs. She left it in 1819, and t he-last occupant was Caroline of Brunswick f George IV.'s wife, who died there in 1821. Soon after the house was sold by auction and then pulled down, a factory being erected on its site. CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Swallowfield Park, Beading. There is an account of this house in Hughsqn's ' London,' vol. vi., p. 537. It- is described as " a celebrated villa, seated on the Thames at Hammersmith." A footnote says : " This house, although it adjoins to and is generally esteemed a part of Hammersmith, is actually in the Fulham division of the parish of Fulham." It was bought in 1792 by Christian,. Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, who had mairied Elizabeth, widow of William, 6th Baron Craven (see the Hon. Vicary Gibbs's ' (In)Complete Peerage'). J. Norris Brewer, in vol. iv. of ' London and Middlesex,' 1816, devotes five pages to the house, with an engraving entitled ' Brandenburgh House and Theatre.' Queen Caroline appears to have lived at the house generally during her trial, and there she died. Another view of the house, entitled ' Brandenburg House, Hammersmith, Her Majesty's Residence,' is given in Robert Huish's ' Memoirs of Caroline, Queen Con- sort of England,' 1821, vol. ii., on the engraved title page of which is a small print of ' Her Majesty receiving Addresses at Brandenburg House.' This gives the land side of the house, whereas the other two give the river in the foreground. According to a little book called ' Round about London,' by a Fellow of i?he Society of Antiquaries, 4th ed., 1878, pp. 58, 59, Brandenburgh House was immediately East of the Hammersmith Suspension Bridge. " It has been pulled down ; a madhouse occupies part of the site, and Fulham Workhouse another part." ROBERT PIERPOINT. Formerly the residence of the Margravine of Anspach, this was demolished in 1823