Lanhydrock House.

The vale of Lanhydrock is remarkably beautiful. The house, which derives its name from it, stands in a fine park, which is approached by an avenue of ancient sycamores, nearly half a mile in length. A gallery, one hundred and sixteen feet long, occupies the north side of the mansion.

The manor in the olden time belonged to the Glynns, and after remaining with them for some descents, devolved, by the marriage of the heiress of the family, to the Lyttletons. In the like manner it next went, in default of a male heir, to the house of Trenance. The next change of hands was in 1620, when the estate was bought by Sir Richard Robartes, Knight, who became a Baronet in 1621, and was advanced to the Peerage in 1624, by the title of Baron Robartes, of Truro. “This last dignity,” says Sir Bernard Burke, in his Visitation of Seats and Arms, “is stated to have been forced upon him by the favourite, Buckingham, who compelled him to purchase the unsought honour at an expense of ten thousand pounds. The story, however, rests on no better or more solid foundation than the general evil character of Buckingham in all such matters.”

His son, John, Lord Robartes, was a general on the side of the Parliament in the great Civil War, and garrisoned the house for a few days in the summer of 1644. The Royal cause then coming for a time into the ascendant, it was taken by Sir Richard Granville, on whom the king bestowed it; but in the year 1616 the wheel of fortune went round again, and the Parliament restored it to Lord Robartes. He, however, now warmly espoused the cause of Ckai4es the Second, and came into such high favour with His Majesty, that he advanced him to the several dignities of Lord Privy Seal, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and President of the Council, and in 1679 he was made Viscount Bodmin and Earl of Radnor.

The sister of the third Earl of Radnor, the Honourable Mary Vere Robartes, married Thomas Hunt, Esq., of Mollington, and the place thus passed to the Hououi’able Mrs. Agar, grand-daughter of the Earl, from whom it descended to the present family.

Among the family pictures is one of the first Earl of Radnor.

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Charles Agar, Esq., of Yorkshire, married Ellis, daughter of Peter Blanchville, Esq., of the county of Kilkenny, in Ireland, and settling at Gowran, in that county, died there, February 14th., 1696, and was succeeded by his son,

James Agar, Esq., of Growran Castle. By his second wife, Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Wemyss, Knight, of Danesfort, Kilkenny—she died in 1771, aged 106—he had, with other children, (one, a son, George Agar, created, June 6th., 1790, Lord Callan, and a daughter, Ellis Agar, created, August 1st., 1758, Countess of Brandon,) an elder son,

Henry Agar, Esq., M.P., in 1727, for the Borough of Cowran, who married, in May, 1733, Anne, only daughter of the Right Honourable Welbore Ellis, Bishop of Meath, and had, with other children, (the third son, Charles Agar, Archbishop of Dublin, was created Earl of Normanton in 1806,) an eldest son,

James Agar, Esq., of Gowran Castle, many years M.P. for Kilkenny, created Baron Clipden, July 27th., 1776, and Viscount Clipden, January 12th., 1781. He married Lucia, eldest daughter of John Martin, Esq., and widow of the Honourable Henry Boyle Walsingham, second son of Henry, Earl of Shannon, and had, besides his heir to the title, a third sou,

The Honourable Charles Bagenal Agar, who married, as above stated, in 1804, Anna Maria, only daughter and heiress of Thomas Hunt, Esq., of Mollington Hall, Cheshire, and sole heiress of her great uncle, Henry Robartes, third Earl of Radnor, by whom he left at his decease, June 16th., 1811,

Thomas James Agar-Robartes, M.P. for East Cornwall, born March 18th., 1808, married, January 8th., 1839, to Juliana, daughter of the Right Honourable Reginald Pole-Carew, of Antony, in Cornwall. He assumed the additional surname of Robartes, and was created a Peer of the United Kingdom, December 13th., 1869. He had, by his marriage, an only child,

The Honourable Thomas Charles Agar-Robartes, born January 1st., 1844, and married, April 24th., 1878, to Mary, daughter of Francis Henry Dickenson, Esq., of Kingsweston, Somersetshire.