lorious manorial houses that sometimes unexpectedly greet
us in our wanderings, and gladden us like the discovery of a hidden
treasure. Some such ancestral hall we have occasionally encountered, in
unlooked-for quarters, in our native county of Lancaster, or in its
smiling sister shire; and never without feelings of intense delight,
rejoicing to behold the freshness of its antiquity, and the greenness of
its old age. For, be it observed in passing, a Cheshire or Lancashire
hall, time-honored though it be, with its often renovated black and
white squares, fancifully filled up with trefoils and quatrefoils,
rosettes, and other figures, seems to bear its years so lightly, that
its age, so far from detracting from its beauty, only lends it a grace;
and the same mansion, to all outward appearance, fresh and perfect as it
existed in the days of good Queen Bess, may be seen in admirable
preservation in the days of the youthful Victoria. Such is Bramall--such
Moreton, and many another we might instance; the former of these houses
may, perhaps, be instanced as the best specimen of its class,--and its
class in our opinion, _is_ the best--to be met with in Cheshire,
considered with reference either to the finished decoration of its
exterior, rich in the chequered coloring we have alluded to, preserved
with a care and neatness almost Dutch, or to the consistent taste
exhibited by its possessor to the restoration and maintenance of all its
original and truly national beauty within doors. As an illustration of
old English hospitality--that real, hearty hospitality for which the
squirearchy of this country was once so famous--Ah! why have they
bartered it for other customs less substantially _English_?--it may be
mentioned, that a road conducted the passenger directly through the
great hall of this house, literally "of entertainment," where, if he
listed, strong ale, and other refreshments, awaited his acceptance and
courted his stay. Well might old King, the Cheshire historian, in the
pride of his honest heart, exclaim, "_I know divers men, who are but
farmers, that in their housekeeping may compare with a lord or baron,
in some countries beyond the seas;--yea, although I named a higher
degree, I were able to justify it._" We have no such "golden farmers" in
these degenerate days!

The mansion, was originally built by Sir Ranulph de Rookwood--or, as it
was then written, Rokewode--the first of the name, a stout Yorkist, who
flourished