31 MARCH 1928, Page 13

1 7 ROM Holm TO Senoot.

A few miles east are two houses that have attained to a certain fame ; one because an eccentric genius lived there and exercised his meditative skill in an entirely lovely environ- ment that was perhaps its inspiration ; the other because the garden is the site of a Roman cemetery and the acre is still " rich indeed " with unquarried Samian ware and funeral urns and Roman glass and other uncharted treasures. Both these houses are now schools. Other brave houses not far off are on the way to be absorbed into a community, most abruptly contrasted with their rural and sporting past. Slightly to alter Goldsmith :

"Their sport is fled and all their charms withdrawn."

Hut he wrote of the " Deserted Village," not the deserted country house. * * • a