OLD LOUGHTON HALL.
19
More than two centuries afterwards, an anonymous writer16
described the Hall as an Elizabethan pile of considerable beauty,
the front and ceiling of the inner hall and a stone staircase being by
Inigo Jones. It is not improbable that Inigo Jones was employed
to design the interior alterations ; for not only must he have been
well known to Sir Robert and the Lady Mary as the deviser of the
machinery and decorations of the costly masques in which they
themselves, as courtiers, doubtless often played a part,17 but he was
also the particular protege of their kinsman, the third Earl of Pem-
broke. Whether he had anything to do with the exterior seems
more doubtful, as it is generally spoken of as being Elizabethan in
character; and a writer in 1770 said of it18 (in accordance with the
taste of the time, half apologetically) that Loughton Hall, "though
it is not a regular, is a large, handsome building."
From the beginning of the seventeenth down to the middle of
the nineteenth century we get but one peep into Loughton Hall,
and that is through the windows of the High Court of Chancery.19
On the death of John Wroth, in 1707/8, a dispute arose between his
widow and the children of his two former wives. This resulted in
the filing of long "Bills" and "Answers," through which it is a
weariness to wade. John Wroth, the son, refers in his statement
to certain goods in the Hall, which he, now resident there, had
bought from the complainant, his stepmother, and her co-executors.
The value of the whole amounted to £547 5s. 2d., and, among
others, the following items occur : Goods in the King's chamber,
£34; in the dining-room, £10; in the drawing-room above, £6;
in the drawing-room below, £30; in the great parlour, £12; and—
irons in the hall, 6s. The garden, cellars, buttery, and press-room
are also named.
It is needless to trace here the descent of the manor, which
remained in the possession of the Wroth family until 1738,
when, on the death of Elizabeth, the childless widow of John
Wroth, it passed, under his will,-" to her great-nephew, William
Henry, fourth Earl of Rochford. It was sold by him in 1745 ; and,
thenceforward passing by will, it became, in 1825, the property of
William Whitaker Maitland, of Woodford Hall. Soon after this the
old manor-house once more emerges from its obscurity—an obscurity
16 "Lewis' Topographical Dictionary," 1844.
17 Nichols, op.. cit., i., 479.
18 "History of Essex," by a Gentleman, vol. iii.
19 Chanc. Proc. b. 1714: Hamilton, 645 —Wroth &. Wroth.
20 P.C.C.; 91, Tenison : proved by the widow, April 28, 1718.
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