FARNHA 31 CASTLE.
THE ancient See of Winchester is once more vacant, and the historic Castle of Farnham tenantless. On the lawn, from under the grand cedars of Lebanon—planted in Bishop North's time, and raised from seed actually brought from that chain of mountains—the familiar form of the late excellent Bishop is now missing. The present article, however, is not in- tended as a study of the late prelate, but as a brief notice of the Castle that he loved, the "house on the hill," as he was pleased to call it. "No Bishop of Winchester," writes Dr. Thorold, "can spend a single hour at Farnham without appreciating his immense obligations to great and splendid ancestors, who, whether by learning or statesmanship, by patronage of letters, or great erudition, by love of good men, or by suf- fering for the truth's sake, have dignified the ancient See ; " so his first care on being translated was to spend thousands of pounds on the restoration of the episcopal palace, and by his munificence and bequests he has lightened the burdens of his successors for some generations.
The Castle stands on the top of a steep hill above the town of Farnham, and can be seen in its frame of trees from a long distance; it stands like a stronghold of the Church, a guardian of religions rights. It is built of red brick, the castellated towers and battlements conveying an intense feeling of immense—though now needless—strength. Passing through the massive gate in the tower and by the lawn the entrance is reached, and a long flight of stone steps leads to the front door. Inside, the great dining-hall is the main feature of the building, with the huge coloured windows on one side and galleries running round it at different heights, from over the dark oak balustrades of which spectators can witness what goes on below. The stone flooring of the hall which had been there from time immemorial, has now been replaced by wooden parqueterie. Endless staircases lead from it to the drawing-rooms and bed-chambers, and it will give some idea of the labyrinth of stairs in the Castle When it is stated that it took one mile and a hundred yards to carpet the whole. To one standing on the terrace outside on a summer's evening, the scene presented is one of the most gracious in the South of England. The wide, stately street far below the Castle reminds one of a foreign town, at the end of which there once rode King Charles, after sleeping in West Street, on the way to the scaffold at Whitehall. The red roofs of the houses catch orange and purple lights from the setting sun, and from the curling wreaths of blue smoke the old church tower of Farnham rises majestically, while the soft blue-green of the hop-bines border the buildings, and a mist rises in the meadows from the Wey, whose very waters attracted Isaac Walton himself. Beyond the town the fir-capped hill of Crooksbury stands clear against the sky above the woods of Moor Park. Fancy pictures Sir William Temple in his garden, and whilst that statesman in his retirement plans some fresh parterre, Swift, seeing his master engaged, steals up the path to the steward's cottage to seize a kiss from Stella. It was nothing to his secretary, as he courted in his quaint, rough way the patient maiden, that Sir William should lay down the law about gardening. It is everything to us. "The part of your garden next your house," he wrote, and the advice is good, "should be a parterre for flowers, or grass-plots bordered with flowers; or if, according to the newest mode, it be cast all in grass-plots and gravel-walks, the dryness of these should be relieved with fountains, and the plainness of those with statues; otherwise, if large, they have an ill effect upon the eye." Again, in the woods touching Moor Park, the monks of Waverley can be pictured pacing to and fro, and the ruined abbey is once more peopled by devout men who gave up their lives to good works.
The Manor of Farnham came into the custody of the See A.D. 860, when Swithen was Bishop and Alfred King ; but it was not till early in the reign of Stephen, 1136, that the Castle was built by his brother, Henry de Blois, then Bishop of Winchester and Abbot of Glastonbury. It was taken by the Dauphin of France in 1216, to be restored the following year, and again retaken and partially destroyed by insurgent barons, to be first restored by Peter de Rupilus about 1227. Adam de Orlton, Bishop of Win- chester, died in 134:5, and was succeeded by William de Edyngdon, "who was appointed by the King Prelate of the newly instituted Order of the Garter, an honour which has ever since been held by his successors to the See." And round the walls of the new drawing-room bang portraits of the "Garter Bishops," some originals and some copies, which Bishop Thorold has collected together and bequeathed to the Castle, so that all might be impressed by the dignity and importance of the office. The Castle was for several years the headquarters of the Parliamentary forces under Sir William Waller, and Oliver Cromwell wrote letters dated Farnham Castle which are still extant. Kings and Queens have supped and slept at the Castle. Queen Mary came as Gardiner's guest on her way to Winchester to marry Philip. Queen Elizabeth often lodged there; James I. was entertained by Bishop Andrews, and so down to George IIL, a very frequent guest, and our own Queen Victoria. The last view we have of the Castle as a fortress was in 1648, and when Bishop Morley succeeded to the See, he, in a great measure, restored it to its present state, and between 1662 and 1684, he spent over 210,000 upon it.
The keep, which still dominates the Castle, is the most striking feature of the whole episcopal pile; it dates, per- haps, from Henry III., and was first restored—so it is supposed—by Richard Fox, who, during the last years of his life, was totally blind. A steep, rugged stair leads up from the dungeons below, and a second stone staircase from the garden ; and when the top is reached it is hard to realise the bloodshed and carnage, the fierce attacks and defence, and the horrors of civil war, which the old stones bore witness to once upon a time, when you come suddenly upon a peaceful old-world garden on a level with the top of the highest cedar. Sir Peter Mew, the soldier-Bishop, is said to have been the first to make a garden on the top of the keep (about 1684), for he planted a wilderness of fruit-trees there. He served in the Army as a Captain in the early part of his life, and even when a Bishop he did not lose his military tendencies, for he materially assisted in gaining the victory of Sedgemoor, amongst other ways, by taking the horses out of his carriage and harnessing them to the guns. But it was the princely Bishop Sumner who first converted the entire top of the keep into a flower- garden, and Bishop Thorold perfected it. It is like a dream to lean against the old weather-beaten walls so many feet from the ground, and see the flowers in all their beauty. Groups of white madonna-lilies catch the soft, pink light from the setting sun,—crimson love-lies-bleeding hangs its velvet head, and canterbary-bells ring their chimes in silence. "Roses and honeysuckle," said the Bishop, "pinks and carna- tions, hollyhocks and sunflowers, sweet-peas and nasturtiums, and Prince of Wales's feathers, red, white, and tiger lilies, oceans of mignonette, thickets of sweet-briar, snapdragon, and London pride, sweet-william and lavender, shall have undisputed sway and dominion here, in a garden such as would have pleased Lady Corisande, and in which Swift, if he could walk over from Moor Park hard by, might for an 3aour be coaxed out of his savage disdain."
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