drink, that he would lay aside two
shillings every day; and having done so for a considerable time, as
his business required him to keep a horse and cart; when they were at
leisure, he sent them to Aston furnace,[5] to bring away large masses
of scoriae, usually termed slag or dross, that lay there in great
abundance. Having collected together a large quantity of it, he
began to erect this building, to represent ruins; and to add to the
deception, there is in the front of the house, in small pebble stones,
the date, 1473; and all this was done, as he informed the writer of
this article, without advancing any other money than the fourteen
shillings per week. It is now nearly overgrown with ivy, and if no
account had been given of the materials with which it is erected,
posterity might have been at a loss to know what substance the walls
were built with. Hubert Galton, Esq. now resides there, who pays rent
for the house, and about fifteen acres of land, more than L100. per
annum, exclusive of the enormous parochial taxes of Birmingham, which
for these premises, from Michaelmas, 1816, to Michaelmas, 1817,
amounted to the astonishing sum of sixty-one pounds and ten shillings,
viz. thirty-six levies for the poor, at 30s. each, three highway
levies, at 30s. each, and two levies for the church, at 30s. each.
In the back ground, beyond this, is seen a glass-house, belonging to
Messrs. Shakespear and Fletcher.

[Footnote 5: A blast furnace, for the making of pig iron, very near at
hand.]

You now cross the Bourn, a small stream of water, that separates
Warwickshire from the county of Stafford, and passing by Mr. Boulton's
plantations on the left, when you are about half way up the hill,
there is on the right hand, Prospect-house, where the late Mr. Eginton
carried on his manufactory of stained glass.

At the two mile stone, on the left, is the entrance to Soho, where
Matthew Robinson Boulton, Esq. resides, who is proprietor of the _Soho
Manufactory_.

The road leading to this magnificent pile of building is on the left,
when you have passed through the turnpike. The spot upon which it is
erected, was, in the year 1764, a sterril, barren heath, and so it
continued until 1793, when it was inclosed by act of parliament. The
late Mr. Boulton, in the first instance, expended more than nine
thousand pounds in the erection of buildings, exclusive of machinery.
He soon after removed his manufactory from Birmingham; and then
this e