are the old models now being reproduced by
modern architects, combining novelty without and comfort within, and
they are just far enough from London to make them pleasant
country-houses, with all the advantage of city luxuries.

THE WEALD OF KENT.

Proceeding eastward along the chalk-downs and over the border into Kent,
we reach the Wealden formation, the "wooded land" of that county--so
named by the Saxons--which stretches between the North and South Downs,
the chalk-formations bordering this primeval forest, but now almost
entirely transformed into a rich agricultural country. The Weald is a
region of great fertility and high cultivation, still bearing numerous
copses of well-grown timber, the oak being the chief, and furnishing in
times past the material for many of its substantial oaken houses. The
little streams that meander among the undulating hills of this
attractive region are nearly all gathered together to form the Medway,
which flows past Maidstone to join the Thames. It was the portions of
the Weald around Goudhurst that were memorable for the exploits of
Radford and his band, the originals of G. P. R. James's _Smugglers_.
Goudhurst church-tower, finely located on one of the highest hills of
the Wealden region, gives a grand view on all sides, especially to the
southward over Mr. Beresford Hope's seat at Bedgebury Park. In this old
church of St. Mary are buried the Bedgeburys and the Colepeppers. Their
ancient house, surrounded by a moat, has been swept away, and the
present mansion was built in the seventeenth century out of the proceeds
of a sunken Spanish treasure-ship, Sir James Hayes, who built the house,
having gone into a speculation with Lord Falkland and others to recover
the treasure. This origin of Bedgebury House is recorded on its
foundation-stone: it has been greatly enlarged by successive owners, and
is surrounded by ornamental gardens and grounds, with a park of wood,
lake, and heather covering two thousand acres. In the neighboring church
of Kilndown, Field-marshal Beresford, the former owner of Bedgebury,
reposes in a canopied sepulchre. Just to the eastward is Cranbrook, the
chief market-town of the Weald, the ancient sanctuary of the Anabaptists
and the historical centre of the Flemish cloth-trade, which used to be
carried on by the "old gray-coats of Kent." Their descendants still live
in the old-time factories, which have been converted into handsome
modern houses. Edward III. firs