Miss Hill shewed the whole succession of wonders with great civility.  The house was magnificent, compared with the rank of the owner.

JULY 26.

We left Combermere, where we have been treated with great civility.  Sir L. is gross, the lady weak and ignorant.  The house is spacious, but not magnificent; built at different times, with different materials; part is of timber, part of stone or brick, plastered and painted to look like timber.  It is the best house that I ever saw of that kind.

The Mere, or Lake, is large, with a small island, on which there is a summer-house, shaded with great trees; some were hollow, and have seats in their trunks.

In the afternoon we came to West-Chester; (my father went to the fair, when I had the small-pox).  We walked round the walls, which are compleat, and contain one mile three quarters, and one hundred and one yards; within them are many gardens:  they are very high, and two may walk very commodiously side by side.  On the inside is a rail.  There are towers from space to space, not very frequent, and, I think, not all compleat[1186].

JULY 27.

We staid at Chester and saw the Cathedral, which is not of the first rank.  The Castle.  In one of the rooms the Assizes are held, and the refectory of the Old Abbey, of which part is a grammar school.  The master seemed glad to see me.  The cloister is very solemn; over it are chambers in which the singing men live.

In one part of the street was a subterranean arch, very strongly built; in another, what they called, I believe rightly, a Roman hypocaust.

Chester has many curiosities.

JULY 28.

We entered Wales, dined at Mold, and came to Lleweney[1187].

JULY 29.

We were at Lleweney.

In the lawn at Lleweney is a spring of fine water, which rises above the surface into a stone basin, from which it runs to waste, in a continual stream, through a pipe.

There are very large trees.

The Hall at Lleweney is forty feet long, and twenty-eight broad.  The gallery one hundred and twenty feet long, (all paved.) The Library forty-two feet long, and twenty-eight broad.  The Dining-parlours thirty-six feet long, and twenty-six broad.

It is partly sashed, and partly has casements.

JULY 30.

We went to Bach y Graig, where we found an old house, built 1567, in an uncommon and incommodious form.  My Mistress[1188] chattered about tiring, but I prevailed on her to go to the top.  The floors have been stolen:  the windows are stopped.

The house was less than I seemed to expect; the river Clwyd is a brook with a bridge of one arch, about one third of a mile.

The woods[1189] have many trees, generally young; but some which seem to decay.  They have been lopped.  The house never had a garden.  The addition of another story would make an useful house, but it cannot be great.  Some buildings which Clough, the founder, intended for warehouses, would make store-chambers and servants’ rooms[1190].  The ground seems to be good.  I wish it well.