Pepy's Diary. 17 Aug 1668. Up, and by water to White Hall, and so to St. James's, and thence with Mr. Wren (age 39) by appointment in his coach to Hampstead, to speak with the Atturney-general (age 70), whom we met in the fields, by his old route and house; and after a little talk about our business of Ackeworth, went and saw the Lord Wotton's (age 25) house and garden, which is wonderfull fine: too good for the house the gardens are, being, indeed, the most noble that ever I saw, and brave orange and lemon trees.

Evelyn's Diary. 02 Jun 1676. We returned in the evening by Hampstead, to see Lord Wotton's (age 33) house and garden (Bellsize House), built with vast expense by Mr. O'Neale, an Irish gentleman who married Lord Wotton's mother, Baroness Stanhope. The furniture is very particular for Indian cabinets, porcelain, and other solid and noble movables. The gallery very fine, the gardens very large, but ill kept, yet woody and chargeable. The soil a cold weeping clay, not answering the expense.

Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. I wish I could recall more details of that day - of the wombat's reception of us, and of the other beasts we visited - but can only remember a passing call on the owls, between one of whom and Gabriel (age 32) there was a feud. The moment their eyes met they seemed to rush at each other, Gabriel rattling his stick between the cage bars furiously and the owl almost barking with rage. Lizzie's (age 30) slender, elegant figure - tall for those days, but I never knew her actual height - comes back to me, in a graceful and simple dress, the incarnate opposite of the "tailor-made" young lady. We went home with them to their rooms at Hampstead, and I know that I then received an impression which never wore away, of romance and tragedy between her and her husband. I see her in the little upstairs bedroom with its lattice window, to which she carried me when we arrived, and the mass of her beautiful deep-red hair as she took off her bonnet: she wore her hair very loosely fastened up, so that it fell in soft, heavy wings. Her complexion looked as if a rose tint lay beneath the white skin, producing a most soft and delicate pink for the darkest flesh-tone. Her eyes were of a kind of golden brown - agate-colour is the only word I can think of to describe them - and wonderfully luminous: in all Gabriel's drawings of her and in the type she created in his mind this is to be seen. The eyelids were deep, but without any languor or drowsiness, and had the peculiarity of seeming scarcely to veil the light in her eyes when she was looking down.

Whilst we were in her room she shewed me a design she had just made, called "The Woeful Victory" - then the vision passes.

Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. Rossetti (age 32) and his wife (age 30), after their return from Paris, took a lodging at Hampstead, but she was so ill at first that we never saw her till near the end of July, when to our great delight a day was fixed for the deferred meeting, and Gabriel suggested that it should take place at the Zoological Gardens. "The Wombat's Lair" was the assignation that he gave to the Madox Browns and to us. A mention of this meeting in a letter that I wrote next day gives the impression of the actual time: "She was well enough to see us, and I find her as beautiful as imagination, poor thing."