The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 263: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XXVII BELLENDEN PRIORY WE must now shift the scenes for a short space, in order to introduce our readers to that manison where, as George Woodfall so confidently predicted, Rose Foster experienced. a cordial welcome and immediately found a home. At the period of which we are writing, Bellenden Priory was one of the most remarkable features of interest at the West End of the metropolis, — not only in an architectural. point of view, but likewise on account of its great antiquity. It stood a little way retired from the western side of the Edgeware Road, from which thoroughfare the garden was. separated and indeed concealed by a high wall fronted with flintstones. In the middle of this rude and rugged boundary there was a Gothic portico containing a massive gate studded with large nails, and a bell-pull of thick iron wire, with a deer’s foot for a handle, appeared on one side of this solemn-looking entrance. Within the boundary there was a large garden laid out in so tasteful a manner as to afford a striking relief, with its modern characteristics, to the medizval style of the spacious building which stood in the midst; and on a small piece of water surrounded by picturesque grottoes a couple of stately swans and several aquatic birds from foreign climes floated about. The priory itself was a large, rambling edifice, exhibiting in its different parts various kinds of architecture, according to the ages in which additions had been made to the structure. The front was comparatively modern, three stories high, and with tall but narrow casements, each one opening on a stone: balcony filled with evergreen plants. The principal entrance consisted of oaken folding doors standing beneath a portico, 233 vee (C(O) ANC 6)(0)(©) So