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238 sense, a liking for making materials serve one's turn, and perhaps at bottom some little grain of sentiment:—this I think was what went to the making of the old house."

To this account of Kelmscott may be added a few observations made by Mr. Webb from his further knowledge as a professional architect:

"From my earliest recollections this general kind of house was familiar to me, where the coarse oolite stone of Thames valley gave the peculiar character to the old buildings in and around Oxford. There are still remaining, in more or less perfect state, many houses of the same quality, though some are more architecturally marked than at Kelmscott.

"It is a known fact that in outlying places, where stone mason's work is the chief part of the building, and there are many quarries giving the same formation of stone, the prevailing traditions of building lasted longer in one place than another. This makes it often difficult in such places to be sure of dates from the style of the masonry, and more particularly in the last centuries, as the masons worked so much in the older way, when in busier places, or districts, changes of fashion told more quickly.

"W.M. often spoke of what was recorded here and there, and of what he had gathered from the natives, as to dates of the Kelmscott house building: I came to no conclusion—save, that the work was really later than it looked to be.

"For so late a time of genuine native building, and from the modesty of the house altogether, it was singular how the regular plan of the old English form, of all degrees of importance, was inclosed in the earlier part of it. There was the entrance doorway in the front wall leading through to the opposite doorway in