CROSBY HALL.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR." J SIB.,—With reference to the letter headed "New Crosby Hall" which appeared in your columns of November 21st, will you kindly allow me to correct a mistake which it contains,— namely, that by carrying out the Chelsea scheme for re-erecting the fabric "it is the utilisation of a treasure otherwise lost" ? The Leighton House Committee hopes that the structure may be erected in the grounds of Leighton House as a public art and history library. In the Architectural Review of November, 1908, Mr. John Belcher, A.R.A., to whom the Committee has entrusted the work, has published drawings and plans showing Croat,' Hall as it is proposed to recon- struct it on the lawn of the Leighton House garden, and surrounded by beautiful trees. The advantages of the Leighton House scheme compared to those of the Chelsea proposal are believed to be :— (1) £10,000 instead of £100,000 would be required to complete the whole undertaking.
(2) The site in the garden of Leighton House would reproduce, as regards its position to the main thoroughfare, the original con- ditions which Sir John Crosbie chose when he erected the building nearly five hundred years ago.
(3) It is felt that to re-erect Crosby Hall as an adjunct of any modern building must entirely denude the beautiful fifteenth- century architecture of its ancient value and cheapen the effect it might otherwise produce. Crosby Hall being a small building, only sixty-five feet by twenty-seven, it is obvious that, in order to retain its atmosphere of old-world charm, it should be placed away from the turmoil and roar of our great city life in London, and apart from any close proximity to modern buildings. Nature alone would form a worthy framework for it. The Leighton House garden affords at the same time a secluded resting-place for the ancient structure, and a site which is the centre of an ever-increasingly populated district, distant only two miles from Hyde Park Corner.
(4) Crosby Hall would be a public institution instead of the hall of a residential College.
(5) The erection in the Leighton House garden involves no destruction of even a tree, whereas the Chelsea scheme involves the demolition of five of the most ancient houses in Chelsea which are full of interest. Mr. Randall Davies, F.S.A., pleaded strongly for their preservation in a letter to the Times of July 31st. In the house nearest the river in Danvers Street he believes that Swift wrote his journal to Stella.
—I am, Sir, &c., EMILIE ISABEL BAnEINOTON
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