e Cedars," two noble cedar trees
of immense girth, one of which is represented in the accompanying cut.
This was formerly the residence of Sir James Branscomb, who, according to
Faulkner, "in his early days had been a servant to the Earl of
Gainsborough, and afterwards, for upwards of forty years, carried on a
lottery office in Holborn. He was a common-councilman of the Ward of
Farringdon Without, and received the honour of knighthood during his
shrievalty." The house has been a ladies' boarding-school for many
years. From the Kensington Road we can return direct to London, having
in this chapter departed from our even course on the Fulham Road for the
purpose of visiting the North End district.

[Picture: Tree in the fore-court of "The Cedars"]

CHAPTER VII.

THE PRYOR'S BANK, FULHAM.

Nestling in trees beneath the old tower of Fulham Church, which has been
judiciously restored by Mr. George Godwin, there may be seen from Putney
Bridge a remarkable group of houses, the most conspicuous of which will
be conjectured from a passing glance to belong to the Gothic tribe. This
house, which has been a pet kind of place of the Strawberry Hill class,
is called the Pryor's Bank, and its history can be told in much less than
one hundredth part of the space that a mere catalogue of the objects of
interest which it has contained would occupy. In fact, the whole
edifice, from the kitchen to the bedrooms, was a few years since a
museum, arranged with a view to pictorial effect; and if it had been
called "The Museum of British Antiquities" it would have been found
worthy of the name.

In a print, published about forty years since, by J. Edington, 64
Gracechurch Street, of Fulham Church, as seen from the river, the ancient
aspect of the modern Pryor's Bank is preserved. [Picture: Fulham Church]
The situation of this humble residence having attracted the fancy of Mr.
Walsh Porter, he purchased it, raised the building by an additional
story, replaced its latticed casements by windows of coloured glass, and
fitted the interior with grotesque embellishments and theatrical
decorations. The entrance hall was called the robber's cave, for it was
constructed of material made to look like large projecting rocks, with a
winding staircase, and mysterious in-and-out passages. [Picture: Vine
Cottage] One of the bed-rooms was called, not inaptly, the lion's den.
The dining-room represented, on a small scale, the ruin