LOST TREASURES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4486, 1 November 1922, Page 4

LOST TREASURES.

IN COUNTRY HOUSES. In Victorian days, much 17th and 18th-century furniture, besides objects ofi art and vertu, .was relegated to the servants’ apartments, and there large quantities, of it still remain—not forgotten, but unnoticed and unknown, states a writer in the Overseas Daily Mail. Thus Una cook's bedroom may contain an .exquisite 18th-century mahogany knee-hole writing table, stands ing on elegant square, tapering legs? which does' duty as a dressing-table; while the butler’s bed-sitting-room is graced by a 17th century oak hanging cupboard—-just such ,a piece as the new earl is asking the dealers to look out for to complete the furnishing of his Jacobean bedchamber.

In a certain noble dining-room there were five single Chippendale chaiFjS and one armchair, witihi carved ribbon backs and cabriole legs and claw and ball feet; now there are six single and two armchairs, a complete set. The missing ones, made to look smart by the addition of Victorian wool-work covers to the loose seats (one subject being Elijah .'ed by ravens), were found respectively k.in the gamekeeper’s qottage and the visiting maids’ sitting-room.

The corridors and passages in old houses are very badly lighted as a rule, and these, many cases, have yielded their treasures; I have instances, in mind, such as a pair of William and Many gesso side-tables, worth at least £l5O, whose mission for the past fifty years had been merely to support two enormous cases of stuffed pheasants and water fowl.

There are still undiscovered) many hiding places. r knew of a baronet who lived at his country seat more or- less for thirty years without being aware that his llnen-fpld papelled smoking-room contained in its enormous carved oak mantelpiece a secret cupboard large enough, to hide half a dozen people ! Recently a close examination of the carving revealed a minute keyhole and finally the doOr was opened. What did we find ? Ancient military equipage, not very valuable; various survey maps; many pairs of pld unused boots, much too narrow ifor~anyone nowadays; and, last of all, a wooden box which, on being opened, was found tp contain forty-eight venlarge edrly Italian, exquisitely cut cornelian and amethyst intaglios in. gold frames’, worth several hundreds of pounds.