The Tovells' house at Parham, which has been long ago pulled down, and rebuilt as Paritam Lodge, on very different lines, was of ample size, with its moat, so common a feature of the homestead in the eastern counties, "rookery, dove-cot, and fish-ponds"; but the surroundings were those of the ordinary farmhouse, for Mr.Tovell himself cultivated part of his estate.
"The drawing-room, a corresponding dining-parlour, and a handsome sleeping apartment upstairs, were all _tabooed_ ground, and made use of on great and solemn occasions only--such as rent-days, and an occasional visit with which Mr.Tovell was honoured by a neighbouring peer.

At all other times the family and their visitors lived entirely in the old-fashioned kitchen along with the servants.

My great-uncle occupied an armchair, or, in attacks of gout, a couch on one side of a large open chimney....

At a very early hour in the morning the alarum called the maids, and their mistress also; and if the former were tardy, a louder alarum, and more formidable, was heard chiding their delay--not that scolding was peculiar to any occasion; it regularly ran on through all the day, like bells on harness, inspiriting the work, whether it were done well or ill." In the annotated volume of the son's memoir which belonged to Edward FitzGerald, the writer added the following detail as to his great-aunt's temper and methods:--"A wench whom Mrs.Tovell had pursued with something weightier than invective--a ladle, I think--whimpered out 'If an angel from Hiv'n were to come mawther'" (Suffolk for _girl_) "'to missus, she wouldn't give no satisfaction.'" George Crabbe the younger, who gives this graphic account of the _menage_ at Parham, was naturally anxious to claim for his mother, who so long formed one of this queer household, a degree of refinement superior to that of her surroundings.

After describing the daily dinner-party in the kitchen--master, mistress, servants, with an occasional "travelling rat-catcher or tinker"-- he skilfully points out that his mother's feelings must have resembled those of the boarding-school miss in his father's "Widow's Tale" when subjected to a like experience:-- "But when the men beside their station took, The maidens with them, and with these the cook; When one huge wooden bowl before them stood, Filled with huge balls of farinaceous food; With bacon, mass saline! where never lean Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen: When from a single horn the party drew Their copious draughts of heavy ale and new; When the coarse cloth she saw, with many a stain, Soiled by rude hands who cut and came again-- She could not breathe, but with a heavy sigh, Reined the fair neck, and shut th' offended eye; She minced the sanguine flesh in frustums fine, And wondered much to see the creatures dine!" The home of the Tovells has long disappeared, and it must not therefore be confused with the more remarkable "moated grange" in Parham, originally the mansion of the Willoughbys, though now a farmhouse, boasting a fine Tudor gateway and other fragments of fifteenth and sixteenth century work.