Gents Mag 1848 part 2 p.31

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	Gentleman's Magazine 1848 part 2 p.31 MR. URBAN, ALTHOUGH the anonymous form of the very extraordinary attack by your OLD SUBSCRIBERS (vol.XXIX. p.618) on my description of Brougham Hall might well excuse my replying to it, yet I feel it due both to my own character and to your readers to request the insertion of the following remarks. The point-blank denials, - such as, "the hall does not stand upon the Roman station," "there was no tower," "Udard de Brougham was not governor of Appleby Castle," &c. - it would be easy for me to answer in like manner by re-insisting upon those facts detailed in my letter, and with quite as much propriety; for if you must in common justice allow my description, although compiled in great measure from memory, and for the amusement of a friend, is quite as likely to be true as the ostentatious accusations put forth by your correspondents, without even a shadow of an attempt at proof. They say that I wish to impress upon your readers that Brougham Hall, as it at present exists, has done so for centuries; and yet, if they had not read my letter with jaundiced eyes, they must have noticed that I repeatedly speak of renovations and alterations as having taken place, and still taking place. I knew that the house had been extensively re-edified, and never wished to convey a contrary impression, or for a moment supposed I was doing so; neither do I think iin looking over my letter that such an impression is at all given. It is ridiculous to say, because a house has been repaired and in part rebuilt, that therefore the whole is a modern structure; and it is anything but just to accuse me of falsifying, because I have not stated the exact time when such repairs were made. Who, in popularly describing Warwick Castle or any other old mansion, is expected to name the different periods when every late alteration was made?* I am not
	* Since writing the above, I have received a note from a person to whom I applied for information to rebut your correspondents' charges, and I send you an extract: "Bearing always in mind that some parts, particularly the upper portion of the old tower, the old kitchen, and part of the west front, had, from decay, been [continued on next page] repaired, and in some parts wholly rebuilt, but with the old materials, between the years 1828 and 1830. The kitchen part fell down, and was replaced by what is now the great staircase in 1842. The timbering of the old tower was uninjured, as was the trap-door part, and is now in its old place. It is of very early date, as anybody who knows anything of old woodwork can at once see. In the same way the ceiling of the old drawing room was saved, being suspended by ropes fixed to the rigging while the defective portion of the west wall was repaired."
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