'The entrance into the hall strikes the traveller with all the solemn magnificence of antiquity. This apartment is seventy-eight feet in length, very lofty, and of a proportionable width. The ceiling is formed of wood pannels, in large squares, and the upper end of the hall is wainscotted in the same manner. The pannels are in number one hundred and twenty-nine on which are painted portraits of the Saxon kings, and the sovereigns of England,down to the union of the houses of York and Lancaster with many noble personages: but the pictures have little to recommend them but their antiquity.'