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BELVOIR CASTLE

Denton Manor, the seat of Sir C. G. E. Welby, Bart., is just beyond Harlaxton, and there one might once have seen a fine old manor house, now replaced by a large modern hall of fine proportions; the work is by Sir A. W. Blomfield, good in design and detail, and containing a notable collection both of furniture and pictures. St. Christopher’s Well, a chalybeate spring, is in the park, and in the restored church are a good recumbent effigy of John Blyth, 1602, and a figure of Richard Welby, 1713, with angels carefully planting a crown on his wig. After this the road passes into Leicestershire, so we turn to the right and in less than four miles, halfway between the Melton road and the Nottingham road, and more in Leicestershire than in Lincolnshire, we come to Belvoir Castle. The mound on which it stands is over the border and is not a natural height, but was thrown up on a spur of the wold as early as the eleventh century by Robert de Todeni, who thence became known as Robert de Belvedeir. Certainly the pile is grandly placed, and has a sort of Windsor Castle appearance from all the country round. It has been in possession of the Manners family now for four hundred years. The celebrated Marquis of Granby, a name well known in all the neighbourhood as a public-house sign, was son of the third Duke. He was “Col. of the Leicester Blues” in 1745, and General and Commander-in-Chief of the British contingent at Minden, where the English and German forces, under the Duke of Brunswick, defeated the French in 1759, and he distinguished himself in battle in each of the three following years. The castle, destroyed by order of Parliament in the civil wars, was rebuilt in 1668, and again in 1801, but a fire having destroyed part of it in 1816 it was restored at the worst of all architectural periods, so that at a near view it does not fulfil the expectation raised by its grand appearance when seen from a distance. As at Windsor there is a very fine “Guard Room,” and many large rooms hung with tapestry or pictures, and a picture gallery of unusual excellence. The Duchess’s garden in spring is one of the finest horticultural sights in the kingdom. The greater part of the castle is most liberally thrown open daily to the public.