on about 1525. The architect is unknown, but the house is peculiarly
interesting, partly because it is the best example of the use of terra
cotta in the moulding combined with brickwork, and partly because it is
one of the earliest houses in England built as a country home rather
than a castle. Sir Richard Weston, the founder, was one of the ablest
servants and greatest friends of Henry VIII, the more astonishing a
friendship in that it was never broken. Henry VIII sent his friend's son
to the scaffold, accused as a lover of Anne Boleyn; he went to the block
protesting his innocence, and there was nothing to prove him guilty; his
last words were a defence of the queen. His son, a baby when his boyish
father was executed, married the daughter of Sir Thomas Arundell. Sir
Thomas had suffered for treason, so that husband and wife were the
children of parents who had been sent to the block. They entertained
Elizabeth at Sutton; she would have a child's memory of the founder of
the house, and doubtless praised the rebus in the terra cotta moulding,
the "R.W.," the grapes and the tun.

Later representatives of the Westons at Sutton were the Salvin family,
and it was one of these Salvins, I imagine, to whom Frank Buckland
refers in his edition of White's _Selborne_. Captain Salvin lived at
Whitmoor House, near Guildford, and was the happy owner of a tame wild
sow. Lady Susan was her name, and this is how her master describes
her:--

"My sow originally came from Syria, and was given to me by H.H. the
Maharajah Duleep Singh. She is a remarkably fine healthy animal,
and her instinct and affection can only be equalled by the dog. She
follows me almost daily in my walks like a dog, to the great
astonishment of strangers. Of course I only take her out before the
crops are up, and too low to injure, during the spring and summer
months. I always have her belled, to hear when she is in the wood,
etc.; and the bell, which is a good sheep's bell, is fastened round
her neck with a strap and a buckle.

"Her leaping powers are extraordinary, either over water or timber;
indeed, only a few weeks since she cleared some palings (between
which she had been purposely placed to secure her for a time) three
feet ten inches in height. Knowing my pig's excellent temper, even
when she has young pigs, and when domestic sows are always most
savage, I was once guilty of a practical joke. I got