whose hired assassins waylaid and shot Thynne in Pall Mall.  The Count escaped punishment, but his instruments were hanged upon the scene of the crime.  The property then passed to a cousin who became the first Viscount Weymouth.  The third Viscount was made Marquis of Bath when he was the host of George III in 1789.  A famous guest of the first Viscount was Bishop Ken, who stayed at Longleat for many years as an honoured visitor.

Amongst the treasures on the walls of the corridors and saloons are several Holbeins, portraits of contemporaries of his, including Henry VIII.  There are also a number by Sir Peter Lely, one being of Bishop Ken and another of his friend and host; several interesting paintings of celebrated men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and some good representative examples of great artists from Raphael to Watts.  The grand staircase and state drawing-room are of admirable proportions and form part of the work of Wyatville.  In the drawing-room is treasured a cabinet of coral and a writing tablet which belonged to Talleyrand.  The great hall, which contains a collection of armour and ancient implements of war of much importance and value, has a fine wooden roof and minstrels’ gallery.  Among the stags’ horns that decorate the walls will be seen two mighty headpieces that once belonged to Irish elks and were discovered in a peat bog.  The chimney-piece here belongs to the period before Wyatville began his transformation of the interior.

Not least of the attractions of Longleat are its surroundings.  The park is sixteen miles round, and a large portion of this great space is taken up by garden and pleasaunce, as distinct from the deer park itself.  The approach from Warminster and the north is by a wooded ascent with Cley Beacon to the right and past “Heaven’s Gate,” a favourite view-point with Bishop Ken, who, it is said, composed the morning hymn associated with his name while contemplating the inspiring scene before him.  Almost as fine is the approach from the south through the arched gateway on the Horningsham road.  This route passes through groves of magnificent timber and by the string of delightful ponds that give the place its name.

The road that hugs the Plain on its western side goes almost directly north from Warminster and, passing Upton Scudamore, reaches Westbury in less than four miles.  The history of this old town is closely bound up with that of the kings of Wessex and at Westbury Leigh is a site called the “Palace Garden,” encircled by a moat said to have once been the residence of these monarchs.  The Westbury White Horse is supposed to have been cut as a memorial of the great victory of Alfred over the Danes in 890 (or 877).  In the later Middle Ages, this town, like many others in the west, was a centre of the cloth trade, and, later, iron foundries were a feature of the place.