Читать книгу Knole and the Sackvilles онлайн

26 страница из 45

This Sir Richard was the founder of the family fortune, which was to be increased by his son and squandered after that by nearly all his descendants in succession. It was he who bought, in 1564, for the sum of £641 5s. 10½d., “the whole of the land lying between Bridewell and Water Lane from Fleet Street to the Thames.” This property, now of course of almost fabulous value, included the house then known as Salisbury House, having belonged to the see of Salisbury, which presently became Dorset House in 1603, and presently again was divided into Great Dorset House and Little Dorset House, as the London house of the Sackvilles. A wall enclosed house and gardens from the existing line of Salisbury Court south to the river, and shops and tenements in and near Fleet Street from St. Bride’s to Water Lane (Whitefriars Street). These were not the only London possessions of the Sackvilles. Later on they overflowed into the Strand, and another Dorset House sprang up, on the site of the present Treasury in Whitehall, to take the place of the older house in Salisbury Court, which had been destroyed in the Great Fire. It is idle and exasperating to speculate on the modern value of these City estates.

Правообладателям