Within four miles—north-west—of the venerable town of Bury St. Edmunds, the traveller may notice, not far from the road-side, the turrets of an ancient House, now decayed, but which, in the palmy age of England, was classed among the stateliest of its “stately Homes.” Unless attention is directed to it, however, it will attract no passers-by; for very humble are now the pretensions of the Palace-Hall, in which resided Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his Royal wife, the youngest daughter of Henry VII., sister to Henry VIII, and widow of Louis XII., King of France.

The Old Hall is situated in the very centre of a host of picturesque antiquities; in all directions around it exist objects of exceeding interest,—as relics of the olden time and imperishable illustrations of British History. It would be difficult to find in the kingdom so many remains of architectural splendour within a circuit of four or five miles. Bury contains the most interesting of our monastic ruins. Among them are those of the famous “Norman Tower” (still comparatively unimpaired), erected in the reign of the Conqueror, as the Grand Portal to the magnificent church of Abbot Baldwin;—the Charnel Chapel, in which Lidgate wrote,—the Church which for centuries enshrined the miracle-working bones of St. Edmund,—and the walls of the Chamber where, on the 20th of November, 1215, “the Barons” pledged “the repose of their souls” to extort the Charter of Freedom from the tyrant John. The road to West Stow is scarcely less rich in historic sites than the town of Bury. Without the north-gate are the remains of the Gateway to St. Saviour’s Hospital, where,—during the Parliament of 1446, assembled at Bury, by Henry VI.,—the “good Duke Humphrey” was murdered by Cardinal Beaufort and De la Pole; half a mile beyond, we cross the Old Toll-gate Bridge of the mitred Abbots of St. Edmunsbury; at a short distance, an ivy-clad Tower is all that remains of the Church of Fornham St. Genevieve; but tumuli still endure to indicate where the ten thousand Flemings were buried by “sloven-hands,” after the bloody battle which gave to the second Henry peaceable possession of the crown. By other roads we pass objects equally fertile of history. The Round Towers of Saxham are within ken; Risby and Hengrave Churches are close at hand; and very near us are some of the grandest and most beautiful of the Baronial Halls of England—Coldham, Rushbrooke, and Hengrave among the rest.

All who visit the ancient mansion of West Stow, will first enter the venerable Church, to which a footway leads through a field from off the main road. It is a fine example of a very early age. The Tower is square and embattled; the Chancel, apparently of a more recent date than the Nave, contains an enriched Piscina, of the fifteenth century, and many mural monuments and grave-stones of the once illustrious family of Crofts—a family now known in Suffolk only by history and these cold records of their fame. The Nave has an open roof; the brackets that support the principals are ornamented with armorial bearings of “many ancient Lords of this Manor, with their alliances.”

Of West Stow Hall very little is known. The assertion that it was formerly the residence of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and the Royal widow he had married, is supported mainly by tradition and their armorial bearings, which still exist, carved upon a stone, over the porch. Of the once extensive pile nothing now remains, except the Turrets we have pictured; and a long Corridor, reaching to a modern house—the comfortable home of a substantial farmer. The former bears ample evidence that its date is of the time of Henry VIII.; that of the Corridor is not so remote by a century.

It is certain that, after the romantic marriage of Charles Brandon with the beloved of his younger days, when death had freed her from her state-contract with Louis XII., and her early lover had become a widower, they lived for many years in comparative seclusion in Suffolk; and, although “Mary Tudor died at the Manor of Westhorpe in this county, in 1533,” it is more than probable that West Stow was one of their mansions. It was evidently of great extent; there are persons still living, who recollect a quadrangular court and extensive out-buildings; and the wide Moat by which it was surrounded was filled up only two years ago. The Tower is partially of a defensive character; the interior consists of several small chambers, one of which contains some singular paintings in distemper, the principal objects in which are these:—A boy hawking, with an inscription in old English letters, “Thus doe I all the day;” a young man making love to a maiden, inscribed—“Thus doe I while I may;” a middle-aged man, looking on—the inscription, “Thus did I when I might;” an aged man, hobbling onward—the inscription, “Good Lord, will this world last ever?” The drawings are rude, but they are of the age of Elizabeth. They were recently exposed to view by the removal of a skirting of oak; and are as fresh as if painted yesterday.