Guy’s Cliff Near Warwick England

Stereoview
Guy's Cliff, near Warwick, England.
From Warwick, in Shakespeare's Country, travel the highroad to Kenilworth and you will soon come to this picturesque sheet of water, formed by the broadening of the River Avon, beyond whose farther shore the well-known mansion of Guy's Cliff rises in its quaint tiers of towers and gables. Few houses that have no years to speak of have achieved such a flavor of romance.

There was originally a small chantry here which in the middle ages was apparently renamed after Guy, Earl of Warwick, about whom there is much English legendary lore. Tradition has it he lived in a cave in the cliff for many years as a hermit following his return from the performance of prodigious feats in the Holy Land. There are some modern historians, however, who seek to prove that he never existed, though in the chapel built over the cave can be seen a crude mutilated statue said to represent Guy of Warwick for whom the cliff was named.

In the middle of the eighteenth century the property came into the hands of the Greatheads, and ultimately devolved through their heiress, on the Percy family. Lord Algernon being the present owner. The mansion was built in 1750, and with the mill which faces it, has achieved a venerable aspect and environment with most remarkable success. The mill is the most picturesque of the many, generally much older mills, for which the River Avon is so justly famous.

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