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hall is entered through a spacious porch in the roof of which is hung
an enormous bell. The room you enter is by no means gloomy. A
carved oak staircase with balustrade of peculiar form leads to other
rooms panelled to the ceiling, with fine overmantels. The leads of the
small window-panes are of fanciful design; one bears the date 1627
and the initials I. W. H., and these occur again with the date 1639 in
some oak carving in one of the bedrooms. A "well" stone staircase between rough-hewn stone walls leads up to the attics, which have
open timber roofs with semicircular span to the main beams. They
look as if they were but recently put up, so fresh does the wood look,
and the pegs that join the timbers still protrude as if they had just been hammered in, and awaited the workman's axe to cut them level.
A word upon the subject of these old roofs may not be out of place.
When old houses are restored, of course it is the proper thing to open
out an original timber roof where the original hall or chamber has
been divided and partitioned, but in so many instances nowadays flat
ceilings are removed to show the open timbers which were never
intended to be seen. Bedrooms are thus made cold and bare, with not nearly enough protection from the draughts from the tiles. The
attics at Swinsty are a proof of this, there being no great distance
between the floor and the roof. Another thing, if the floors were done
away with here, Mr. Robinson would have to come
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down a storey, and that is not desirable.