Downstairs at the Aldirch Memorial

THE FRONT HALL

"Imagine ... a wide hall running through the middle. At your right hand, as you enter, stands a tall mahogany clock, looking like an Egyptian mummy set up on end." -- from Story of a Bad Boy (1869)

THE PARLOR

"The walls are covered with pictured paper, representing landscapes and sea-views - for example this enlivening figure is repeated all over the room: A group of English peasants wearing Italian hats are dancing on a lawn that abruptly resolves itself into a sea beach, upon which stands a flabby fisherman (nationality unknown), quietly hauling in what appears to be a small whale, and totally regardless of the dreadful naval combat going on just beyond the end of his fishing-rod. On the other side of the ships is the main- land again, with the same peasants dancing." -- from Story of a Bad Boy (1869)

THE KITCHEN

The kitchen where young Tom Bailey was fed and entertained by the irish cook Miss Kitty Collins.
-- from: Story of a Bad Boy (1869)

THE DINING ROOM

"Sunday morning -- At seven o'clock my grandfather comes smilelessly down stairs. He is dressed in black, and looks as if he had lost all his friends during the night. Miss Abigail, also in black, looks as if she were prepared to bury them, and not indisposed to enjoy the ceremony. Even Kitty Collins has caught the contagious gloom, as I perceive when she brings in the coffee-urn -- a solemn and srulpturesque urn at any time, but monumental now -- and sets it down in front of Miss Abigail. Miss Abigail gazes at the urn as if it held the ashes of her ancestors, instead of a generous quantity of fine old Java coffee." -- from Story of a Bad Boy (1869)

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