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But I fancy that our ideas of rural grandeur have altered
since many of our older country seats were built. To be near the
village, so as in some way to afford comfort, protection, and
patronage, and perhaps also with some view to the pleasantness of
neighbourhood for its own inmates, seemed to be the object of a
gentleman when building his house in the old days. A solitude in the
centre of a wide park is now the only site that can be recognised as
eligible. No cottage must be seen, unless the cottage _orne_ of the
gardener. The village, if it cannot be abolished, must be got out of
sight. The sound of the church bells is not desirable, and the road
on which the profane vulgar travel by their own right must be at a
distance. When some old Dale of Allington built his house, he thought
differently. There stood the church and there the village, and,
pleased with such vicinity, he sat himself down close to his God and
to his tenants.
As you pass along the road from Guestwick into the village you see
the church near to you on your left hand; but the house is hidden
from the road.


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