Page 15 Advertisements Column 7

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21988, 24 June 1933, Page 15

Wilton House, near Salisbury, for four centuries the residence of successive Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, is one of the few “ stately homes of England ” unspoiled in beauty and famed alike an prose and verse. Here, from June 26 to July 1, will be staged a loan exhibition of historical treasures from the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxford, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, axjjl the Isle of Wight and Wiltshire. Originally the site of a Priory of Benedictine nuns, King Alfred in 871 converted the building into an abbey, and endowed it with his own palace at Wilton. After the dissolution of monasteries in the sixteenth century, Henry VIII presented the lands to Sir William Herbert, who was created the first Earl of "Pembroke. Wilton House entertained Sir Philip Sydney. Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, Izaak Walton, Samuel Daniel, and Philip Massinger, and, according to tradition, Shakespeare acted there before James I in tlie first performance of “ As You Like It.” Queen Elizabeth spent three days at Wilton in 1563, and Charles I, a friend of the fourth Earl, was a frequent visitor.