20
OLD LOUGHTON HALL.
illumined for a moment by the lurid light of the conflagration in
which it vanished for ever.
After his accession to the estate, Mr. Maitland took the house in
hand and carried out extensive alterations, both inside and out.
The illustration which accompanies this paper (taken from a water-
colour sketch at Golding's Hill, the home for many years of his
widow) is thought to represent the exterior as it was just before the
fire. The building presented, according to a contemporary account,21
two frontages, each 162 feet long, with a depth of 65 feet, being of
what is called the Elizabethan style originally, and, from a date on
the leaden spouts, would seem to have been erected about the year
1616. The front had been modernized, continues the writer, and
ornamented along the line of facade with pilasters, over which ran a
range of columns, both of the Doric order. Within, the recent
decorations were generally of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, richly
gilded at the capitals. Over £6,000 had, it is said, been recently
spent on mere building operations, and fifty rooms were destroyed
or damaged.
The fire seems to have had its origin in a beam in the library
chimney, and burst forth early on the morning of Sunday, December
nth, 1836. The butler, awakened by the library bell, which was
fortunately set ringing by the fall of some burning material on to the
wire attached to it, roused the household, and all were soon got out
of danger. But none too soon ; for "in a few seconds the whole
[west] wing was one body of fire." The subscription fire-engine
("from Chigwell," says one account) and the neighbours were
quickly on the spot ready to help. The only supply of water, how-
ever, was from a pond 360 yards distant. Two servants rode off to
London, and by ten o'clock two other fire-engines, hurried down as
fast as four post-horses in each could drag them, were on the spot.
The west wing was then hopelessly burnt, and the energies of the
firemen were bent on the east one, containing the kitchen offices,
with rooms above them. Fears were at one time entertained for the
ancient church of S. Nicholas, in which, of course, no morning
service was held. Fortunately, however, there was no wind, and it
escaped damage. Some few things were dragged out of the house
on to the lawn and saved ; but the magnificent library of over 10,000
printed volumes and MSS., many rare, and some said to be unique,
was destroyed, together with a costly collection of pictures which, it
21 "Essex Standard," December 16, 23, 30, 1836; "Essex Herald," December 13, 1836,