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Title: The Growth of the English House: a short history of its architectural development from 1100 to 1800
Author: Gotch, J. Alfred (John Alfred)
Language: English
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HOUSE ***
The Growth of the
ENGLISH HOUSE
_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND. Illustrated by a
Series of Views and Details from Buildings erected between
the years 1560 and 1635, with Historical and Critical Text.
Containing 145 folio Plates reproduced from Photographs,
together with measured drawings, plans, details, &c., dispersed
throughout the text. 2 vols., large folio, in cloth portfolios,
gilt, $50.00 net; or 2 vols., handsomely bound in half morocco,
gilt, $60.00 net.
“A work of national importance. Though these halls are with
us now, it would be rash to say that we shall have them for
ever, but while these volumes remain we shall always have _a
splendid memorial of the most splendid remains of the England of
the past._”--_The Daily News._
EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. An Historical and
Descriptive Account of the Development of the Tudor, Elizabethan, and
Jacobean Periods, 1500–1625. With 87 Collotype and other Plates and
230 Illustrations in the Text from Drawings by various accomplished
Draughtsmen, and from Photographs specially taken. Medium 8vo. $9.00
net.
This work is quite independent and distinct, both in plan and
illustration, from the author’s larger work, and is in no sense
a reduced or cheaper edition of it. Of the 317 Illustrations
only about twelve are taken from the larger book.
[Illustration: SHELDONS, WILTSHIRE.]
The Growth of the
ENGLISH HOUSE
A Short History of
its Architectural Development from
1100 to 1800
By
J. ALFRED GOTCH,
F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A.
Author of “Architecture of the Renaissance in England,”
“Early Renaissance Architecture in England,” &c.
London, B.T.Batsford
New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons
M CM IX
_Printed at_ THE DARIEN PRESS, _Edinburgh_.
PREFACE.
The object aimed at in the following pages is to tell the story of the
growth of the English house from its first appearance in a permanent
form down to the time of our grandfathers, when it lost much of its
interest. Although it is a history of domestic architecture, no deep
architectural knowledge is required to understand it; technical terms
are avoided as far as may be, and of such as are used a glossary
will be found at the end of the volume. The reader unacquainted with
architecture will be able to follow the story without difficulty; but
he who already knows something of our English buildings will of course
be better able to link it up with the general development of English
architecture. It is the main stream of progress which is followed, but
there are many pleasant backwaters and interesting tributaries which
it is impossible to explore in the space at command. Those who are
desirous of pursuing the subject more minutely will have no difficulty
in finding books dealing with particular periods--Mediæval, Tudor,
Early Renaissance, or Late Renaissance. Hitherto, however, the panorama
has not been unrolled from end to end in one volume.
To render the subject intelligible numerous illustrations are
essential, and thanks are due to all who have kindly contributed in
this respect, especially to the publishers, Messrs Batsford, whose
assistance in this and other respects has been invaluable. In view of
the many admirable books which appear from year to year, it becomes
increasingly difficult to avoid familiar ground; indeed the mediæval
period presents very few fine examples which have not at one time or
another been figured. The reader is therefore requested not to be
impatient if he meets with a number of old friends in the early part
of the book, and to be equally considerate if, in the periods where
examples are more abundant, he misses some of the best-known houses,
inasmuch as the aim has been, so far as was compatible with the proper
treatment of the subject, to illustrate the text with unfamiliar
buildings.
In order not to distract attention, footnotes and references have been
avoided, and with a view to help those who are not conversant with
the subject, there will be found, in addition to the short glossary,
a chronological list of the principal buildings tabulated under the
reigns of the English monarchs.
J. A. G.
WEEKLEY RISE, _near_ KETTERING,
_September_ 1909.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION--THE NORMAN KEEP 1
II. THE KEEP DESCRIBED 7
III. THE FORTIFIED MANOR HOUSE OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY--THE DOMINANCE OF THE HALL 24
IV. THE COURSE OF MEDIÆVAL BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH
CENTURY 44
V. THE LATER MANOR HOUSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 67
VI. MEDIÆVAL DOMESTIC FEATURES--DOORWAYS, WINDOWS,
FIREPLACES, CHIMNEYS, ROOFS AND CEILINGS,
STAIRCASES 87
VII. EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY--COMING OF THE
ITALIAN INFLUENCE 126
VIII. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--SYMMETRY IN PLANNING 141
IX. ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES--EXTERIORS 157
X. ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES--INTERIORS 186
XI. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--PERSONAL DESIGN--TRANSITIONAL
TREATMENT 205
XII. CLASSIC DETAIL ESTABLISHED--INFLUENCE OF THE AMATEURS 221
XIII. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EXTERIORS--THE PALLADIAN STYLE 233
XIV. LATE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH
CENTURIES--INTERIORS--DETAILS AND FEATURES 259
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BUILDINGS 303
GLOSSARY 309
BRIEF LIST OF BOOKS 313
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS 315
INDEX 325
[Illustration: Norham Castle, Northumberland.]
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY--THE NORMAN KEEP.
Those who, in the course of their wanderings through the remote
districts of England, whether on business or on pleasure bent, have
seen the lonely tower on the hillside, or the grey ruins of some
ancient dwelling gleaming through the spaces of encircling trees, have
no doubt often speculated as to the precise significance of these
remnants of antiquity. They may have dismissed them from consideration
as being relics of a past order of things having no connection with
the concerns of the present day. Yet to the dweller in a modern house
these maimed survivals have as much interest as have his own ancestors;
and the home to which he returns after his travels can trace its
descent step by step from those rugged masses of stone which roused his
interest as he passed them by.
It is not difficult for any one to trace a likeness between the house
of to-day and that of, let us say, the time of Elizabeth; but the
resemblance between an Elizabethan manor house and a Norman castle or a
Northumbrian peel-tower is not by any means so obvious, yet the descent
of one from the other can be clearly established. It is the object of
the following pages not only to show how this can be done, but to trace
briefly the continuous changes which have transformed, in the course
of some seven or eight centuries, the gaunt and desolate keep into the
comfortable mansion or villa of our own experience.
Everybody knows that an Englishman’s house is his castle, but it should
also be remembered that in early times an Englishman’s castle was his
house. Castles were not necessarily military strongholds; many of them
were so, but many of them, again, were nothing more than fortified
houses, and it is in these fortified houses that we must seek the first
germs of our own homes, the earliest evidences of domestic architecture.
In this inquiry we need not trouble ourselves about Roman villas;
they were exotic, and there is no reason to believe that they had
any influence on English houses. Nor need we spend much time on
the centuries which elapsed between the extinction of the Roman
civilisation and the Norman Conquest. The country was widely populated
during those years, but any one who has climbed the bleak downs
whereon its inhabitants clustered, or scrambled up the vast earthworks
which were the strongholds of its chieftains, may well wonder how the
race survived. Some kind of shelter from the weather there must have
been, probably in the shape of wooden buildings. But such primitive
structures cannot be considered as architecture, and we will now
concern ourselves only with buildings of a permanent nature on which a
certain amount of trained skill has been bestowed, buildings, in fact,
which convey definite information as to their arrangement, and may be
classed, more or less, as works of art. Such buildings--at any rate so
far as they are dwellings--are not to be found of a date prior to the
Conquest, nor, with few exceptions, for more than half a century later.
The “castles” of the Conqueror were probably merely the huge earthworks
which he found scattered throughout the land. Any new works which he
caused to be made were probably of wood. It was not until the middle of
the twelfth century that stone buildings superseded to any great extent
these wooden structures; at least few existing remains can be dated
earlier than then; and it is in the midst of the great ditches of these
earthen “castles” that many of the stone keeps of that time were built,
the encircling outer mounds being further strengthened by stone walls.
The few remains of the stone castles built during the reigns of the
Conqueror and his sons do not provide us with any definite link between
themselves and their predecessors of wood, although it is probable
that they embodied in a permanent form the kind of accommodation
previously provided in more perishable materials; the most important
part of this accommodation being the hall. They certainly do not seem
to have had any long ancestry on the other side of the Channel, for
it is doubtful whether any building of this nature in Normandy can
be dated prior to the Conquest. But although the exact causes which
determined their shape are still to seek, it is clear that the fashion
became established of erecting stone castles, wherein the keep was the
principal building.
The keep was the domestic part of the castle; it contained the rooms
used by the owner and his family. Surrounding it at some distance was
the outer wall strengthened according to circumstances by projecting
towers and entered through a fortified gatehouse. The extent and
intricacy of the defences varied according to the importance of the
castle; but these matters belong rather to military architecture than
to domestic, and all that need be said is that those retainers who
overflowed from the towers and other permanent buildings were housed
in temporary wooden buildings within the courtyard.
Wooden buildings were indeed the ordinary dwellings of the time. There
must have been many more people outside than inside the castles, even
if we regard the castles which have survived as only a small part of
those which actually existed. The ordinary manor houses, as well as
the homes of the peasantry, were built of wood and have in consequence
entirely disappeared. It is true that there are many wooden houses (or
houses of wood and plaster) still to be found in all parts of England,
but they are all of a much later date. It is doubtful if a single
specimen of the twelfth century survives. It must also be remembered
that not infrequently the inferior rooms of a stone house, such as the
kitchen, were built of wood.
The keep, then, is the earliest form of English house built in
permanent fashion. It was not, as some suppose, a prison or dungeon,
or even the last refuge of a beleaguered garrison; it was the ordinary
home of the family. In examining the ruins of a castle where the keep
is the principal remnant, it is not necessary to postulate a vast array
of other buildings, and to wonder what they were, and whither they
have disappeared. It was probably the only considerable building, the
remainder of the establishment consisting of a wall of enclosure and
various minor buildings, mostly of wood.
What, then, was the accommodation in these keeps, these homes of our
ancestors of the twelfth century, of the men who slew Thomas à Becket,
of the barons who revolted against Henry II.?
[Illustration: 1. Castle Rising, Norfolk. The Keep.]
The keeps were massive rectangular structures several storeys in
height, with walls of great thickness. Their size varied according to
the requirements of the owner. Some were about 90 ft. square, others
but 30 or 40 ft. They were not necessarily exactly square, but, as a
rule, their sides were of nearly equal length. The White Tower of the
Tower of London, begun by order of the Conqueror in the later years of
the eleventh century, measures 118 by 107 ft. The keep of Rochester
Castle, built about 1130, is 70 ft. square. Castle Hedingham in Essex,
built about the same time, is 60 by 55 ft.; the keep of Dover Castle
(about 1154) is 90 ft. square; Castle Rising (Fig. 1), probably a few
years later in date, is 75 by 60 ft.; Kenilworth, dating from the third
quarter of the century, is 87 by 54 ft.; while the Peak Castle in
Derbyshire, erected about 1176, measures some 40 by 36 ft. These are
all outside measurements, and as the walls were very thick, seldom less
than 8 ft., and sometimes as much as 16 or 20 ft., the available space
within them was much less than their total area. Nevertheless, after
deducting the thickness of the walls, there remained in the largest
such huge rooms as that in the Tower of London, 90 ft. long by 37
ft. wide; in the medium-sized, such as Hedingham, rooms 38 by 31 ft.;
while in the smallest, such as the Peak Castle, the space was 22 by
19 ft., equal to the drawing-room of an ordinary house of the present
day. But although the rooms were spacious, they were few in number,
and badly lighted. As a rule there was but one room on each floor;
some of the more important, however, such as Rochester and Castle
Rising, had two large rooms on each floor and one or two smaller, but
this was the exception rather than the rule. Occasionally a chapel was
added; sometimes it occupied part of the floor space inside the walls;
sometimes, as at Coningsburgh, it was contrived within the thickness of
the wall itself, augmented by hollowing out one of the huge buttresses.
But the chapel was always small--space was too valuable for it to be
otherwise; and it was used not only for sacred purposes, but also not
infrequently as a private room for the lord.
There are many examples of Norman keeps remaining in various parts
of the country, but it will be sufficient to describe two of them
as being typical of their fellows. One, although not of the largest
size, was yet a fine building; it is Hedingham Castle in Essex: the
other is small, the Peak Castle in Derbyshire. The former is among the
very few of existing keeps that can be dated earlier than the reign
of Henry II. who came to the throne in 1154. The chaotic times of his
predecessor, Stephen, saw the erection of many castles which became
the scenes of frightful oppression and outrage; but after his death
they were razed to the ground, and apparently with great thoroughness,
since no examples, it may be said, are to be found which can be safely
dated between the years 1135 and 1154, during which period he nominally
reigned over England.
CHAPTER II.
THE KEEP DESCRIBED.
The great keep at Castle Hedingham is a fine specimen of the work of
the twelfth century. Its exact date has not been ascertained, but
its arrangement and its architectural detail point to the same date
as Rochester Castle (about 1130), and good authorities go so far as
to suggest that the same designer was employed on both. It has all
the characteristics of an early keep; a vast, plain mass of masonry,
slightly broken by the long vertical lines of shallow buttresses and
angle turrets, and pierced at each floor with small windows--smallest
near the ground where most accessible (Fig. 2). The entrance, as at
Peak Castle, and all early keeps, is some feet above the ground, and
in this case is approached by a flight of steps; it leads into the
first floor, below which at the ground level, or thereabouts, is the
cellar or store-room, approached only from the room above it. The plan
is quite simple (Fig. 3), consisting of a large room (38 by 31 ft.) on
each floor, enclosed by thick walls which are honeycombed with mural
chambers and recesses. Some of these chambers are _garde-robes_,
others were no doubt used as sleeping places by the family and
principal guests. Over the entrance floor were two others; first the
hall, a room with two tiers of windows, the upper of which gave on to
a gallery or triforium which made the circuit of the building in the
thickness of the wall: above the hall another room very similar to that
on the entrance floor.
Then came the roof, round which was a rampart walk protected by the
battlements, and leading to the four angle turrets which rose above
the general mass of the building. Access to these various floors was
given by a commodious circular staircase more than 11 ft. in diameter.
There were thus four main rooms; the basement, the entrance floor,
the hall of two storeys, and the room over it. All these, except the
basement, were warmed by a large fireplace, and lighted--if lighted it
can be called--by eight small windows. The hall had in addition eight
two-light windows in the triforium. There is no room which can be
identified as the kitchen; there is no indication that the windows were
glazed.
[Illustration: 2. Castle Hedingham, Essex. The Keep (_cir._ 1130).
The head of the entrance door is visible on the left: the opening on
the right is modern.]
[Illustration: 3. Castle Hedingham, Essex.
Plans of the Keep.
1. Ground Floor, or Basement.
2. First, or Entrance Floor.
3. The Great Hall.
4. Upper part of Hall, with Gallery.
5. Room over Hall.]
[Illustration: 4. Castle Hedingham, Essex.
A window of the gallery in the hall.]
Against the means of attack which were then available this place was
impregnable, but the safety thus assured must have been both gloomy
and draughty. In its way, however, it was a lordly residence; the main
rooms were spacious, the smaller rooms were considerable in number, the
staircase was of ample width. The gallery must have afforded a certain
amount of quasi-privacy to those who were not privileged to occupy the
mural chambers. The architectural detail of the doorways, windows,
arches, and fireplaces is good (Figs. 4, 5, 6). Across the middle of
the entrance floor and of the hall is thrown a fine bold semicircular
arch, of nearly 30 ft. span, to carry the floor of the room over (see
section, Fig. 5); the whole treatment is simple, sturdy, and splendid,
as befitted the chief stronghold of the race for whom it was built,
the De Veres, Earls of Oxford.
[Illustration: 5. Castle Hedingham, Essex.
Section of the Keep.]
[Illustration: 6. Castle Hedingham, Essex.
A Fireplace. Showing the short flue leading to a vertical vent in the
face of the wall.]
The fireplaces had not a flue such as we understand it, that is a long
shaft running up the whole height of the building and crowned by a
chimney; instead of this they had a short funnel contrived in the wall,
and leading almost directly to small vertical openings in the face of
the wall, cleverly concealed in the angle of a buttress (Fig. 6). The
fireplaces, moreover, were mere recesses in the wall surmounted by
round arches; there was no attempt at a projecting hood or any such
ornamental feature as we are accustomed to think of as a chimney-piece.
These things were to come later. They were, however, of generous size,
as indeed they might well be, for it must be remembered that the
windows were not glazed, and although they were too small to make the
place cheerful, they were quite large enough to make it cold, and as
each side of the room had an outside wall, the wind, from whatever
quarter it blew, would find its way in. It is true that there were
wooden shutters to the windows, which could be shut at night, but in
spite of this there was every inducement to maintain a large fire; the
volume of the flame may have overcome the disadvantage of the short
flue, but the smoke must have had difficulty in escaping through the
small vents, and doubtless much of it eventually found its way out
through the open windows.
The sleeping accommodation was very meagre. The lord, and perhaps some
of his family, had separate retiring places; they could not be called
rooms, for they were only such chambers as could be contrived in the
thickness of the walls; and in point of size, although not at all in
point of luxury, were comparable to a sleeping compartment on a modern
_train de luxe_. The household, men and women, old and young,
slept in the great hall, a custom which conduced neither to comfort
nor the observance of the proprieties. In the same room the whole
establishment had its meals. During the greater part of the day the
men, at any rate, were occupied with outdoor pursuits.
The Peak Castle, at Castleton in Derbyshire (Fig. 10, p. 19), is an
extremely interesting example of an early dwelling. Its situation may
be described as highly romantic, although that adjective of course
expresses a sentiment which is of comparatively modern origin. Up to
about the middle of the eighteenth century, travellers regarded such
desolate places as Old Sarum, or ruins so difficult of access as the
Peak Castle, with feelings approaching to horror. It was only towards
the end of that century, or in the early years of the nineteenth,
that the romantic aspect was appreciated. It is tolerably certain that
romance had no part in the selection of this site for a dwelling, but
rather the assurance of security which it offered. An extremely steep
spur of the rocky hill which forms one side of a precipitous dale--one
of the dales for which Derbyshire is famous--is deeply bitten into
by a gorge which almost severs it from its parent ridge (Fig. 7). An
irregular triangle of rocky ground is thus formed rising steeply from
its longest side up to the opposite angle, and bounded on one side
by the precipitous slope of the dale, and on the other by the sheer
descent of the gorge. No site could be better protected by nature. The
side next the gorge is absolutely inaccessible. The side next the dale
offers interesting hazards to good climbers. The remaining side is a
grass slope steeper than most modern roofs, and traversed by a zigzag
path up which the breathless visitor toils painfully. The town lies at
the foot of the slope; the castle, of no great extent, is placed at
its summit. The keep is built in the extreme angle, where the gorge
desists from finally biting its way through the side of the dale and
leaves a narrow rugged strip of rock to connect the almost detached
triangle from its parent hillside. A stone flung from one side of the
keep would fall sheer down the gorge; flung from the opposite side
would drop some 40 or 50 ft. on to the steep slope of the dale, and
thence descend with huge and rapid bounds to the bottom.
[Illustration: 7. Peak Castle, Derbyshire.
Plan of the Site.]
The summit of the triangle was enclosed by a wall running from the
gorge to the dale, thus forming a good-sized courtyard. It was of
course on the slope, and to make it rather more level, the lower part
was raised, partly it would seem on vaulted chambers, partly by filling
up earth against the wall. These chambers have never been explored, but
workmen who have repaired the wall bear testimony to their existence,
and if the description they give of some of the articles found in them
has been rightly interpreted, it would seem that the Romans had made
use of them. This is still a matter for conjecture, and so is the exact
arrangement of such buildings as were adjacent to the wall.
There were apparently two entrances to the courtyard. The chief of
these was adjacent to the dale, and from the remains of the arch stones
would appear to have been some 5 or 6 ft. wide. Here is said to have
been the porter’s rooms, and if this were the main entrance, custom
would place the porter there. At the other end of the wall, against
the gorge, are the remains of what has been called the sally-port; but
the work has been so much defaced as to render its purpose obscure.
Between these two features there is a rectangular buttressed projection
which may have contained rooms, while overlooking the gorge is a recess
in the wall which seems to have been a window. It is said--but the
statement has not been properly verified--that there are remains of
the foundations of a structure which carried a drawbridge across the
narrow upper end of the gorge; and it is almost certain that an ancient
track leads along the hill on the further side of the gorge in the
direction of the castle. All these points are of interest, and are
worthy of further investigation; but that part of the ruins which most
readily repays a visit is the keep. This has been described as merely
a prison or a watch-tower; but from the carefully selected position of
the castle, from what is known of its history, from the fact that the
little town of Castleton clusters at its foot, and from a comparison
with other castles, it would seem that the tower is the small keep of a
small castle, and was its most secure dwelling-place. References in the
great Roll of the Pipe show that a considerable number of soldiers were
accommodated here; it is also recorded that in 1157 Malcolm of Scotland
made his personal submission to Henry II. here, and that that king was
again here in 1163, when the castle must have had even more restricted
accommodation.
[Illustration: 8. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire (1176.)
Plans of the Keep.]
[Illustration: 9. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire]
The keep itself, which was built in 1176, is very similar in
arrangement to the peel-towers of the Scottish border and to the
towers which elsewhere formed the nucleus of many fortified houses. It
probably represents the first step in domestic planning, and may be
regarded as one of the earliest ancestors of the great houses of later
centuries.
It consisted of two main floors (Figs. 8, 9); beneath the lower
was perhaps a store-room, although this is not certain. The debris
with which the lower part of the building is filled has not been
investigated; excavation might determine whether there ever was a
cellar, and also whether there was any internal communication with
a natural cave or passage which undoubtedly passes through the rock
beneath it, and from which a tortuous and difficult descent can be
made to the great Peak Cavern which is approached along the gorge so
frequently mentioned. Above the upper chamber was the roof, originally
of steep pitch (see section, Fig. 9), but which may have been raised
and flattened so as at once to form a third chamber and to give more
convenience for the purposes of watching and defence.
At its best, at any rate, the keep can only have contained four rooms,
and it is quite possible that it only had two. The upper and better
of these was that into which the entrance door opened (at D, Fig. 8),
a door some 6 or 8 ft. from the ground, and doubtless approached by
a wood ladder. Near this door a circular staircase of about 5 ft. in
diameter led up to the roof and down to the lower room (Fig. 9), which
was dimly lighted by two small windows, but otherwise was devoid of any
feature whatever. The floors were of wood. The upper room, about 22 by
19 ft. in size, was also lighted by two small windows; in one wall was
a _garde-robe_ (G) with a shoot corbelled out from the wall; in another
was a small mural chamber (M) occupying one corner of the building and
lighted by a very small window on two of its sides. So far, this keep
is just like many others, although on a small scale; but here there is
no sign of a fireplace or flue. Some means of warming the place, and,
on occasion, of cooking, there must have been; and the probability is
that a fire was contrived on the floor, and that the smoke was carried
away by a flue of wood and plaster. It would not have been beyond the
ingenuity of the time to provide a hearth to carry the fire.
[Illustration: 10. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire (1176).
South-west Face.]
The exterior of the keep has suffered so much that hardly any detail is
left, nearly all the facing stone having disappeared. The most perfect
side is that towards the gorge, difficult of access (Fig. 10). From it,
however, we learn that the building consisted of a plain mass of ashlar
work broken at the angles and the middle of each side by a shallow
projecting pier. Each corner of the building has a small circular
shaft with cap and base of the ordinary Norman type. The window
openings must have been narrow, as was usually the case, and probably
of very simple detail, matching that of the doorway and the shoot of
the _garde-robe_. At the parapet level there were probably four
turrets rising from the angle buttresses, but all traces of them have
gone. Indeed all that can be gathered of the external appearance is
that it was of the usual severe type and that the detail was of the
simplest.
While castles and their keeps were still in full occupation, but
towards the later years of their existence, there were built a number
of fortified manor houses of stone. It is quite probable that these
buildings embodied in permanent materials a type of plan that had long
prevailed in a less durable form. The keep was contrived so as to be as
economical of space as possible; the rooms were piled one on the top
of the other. But where defensive precautions were not so imperative,
and space was not so valuable, the rooms were placed alongside of each
other on the ground. The manor house, therefore, followed a type of
plan somewhat different from that of the keep, but in both cases the
hall was the principal apartment; it was the sleeping, eating, and
living room of the household. As years went by the keep type of plan
fell into disuse; its singular lack of comfort may easily account for
this. The manor house type, on the contrary, survived, and it is this
type which has been developed, through century after century, into
the house of modern times. It is, however, curious to find a few late
survivals of the keep, some of them built long after the necessity for
castles had disappeared; others, owing to their geographical position,
being the natural expression of the wants of the district. Among the
former is Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire, built by Lord Treasurer
Cromwell in the fifteenth century, the same who built the great manor
house of South Wingfield in Derbyshire. Both of these houses will be
more fully mentioned in their chronological order. Among the latter are
many of the peel-towers of Northumberland, which continued to be built
with the ancient restricted arrangements until the accession of James
I. Cocklaw Tower, near Hexham, is a fairly late example (Figs. 11,
12); it was built in the sixteenth century and contained hardly more
accommodation than the Peak Castle. At the ground level was a cellar
entered from the outside by a doorway protected by machicolations.
Above the cellar was the hall, entered by an external door several
feet above the ground, and above this was another room of the same
size. Each of these rooms had a fireplace, and a few small windows,
unglazed. A small chamber also led from each of them; that on the
principal floor retains traces of painted decoration. In its floor is
a square hole which afforded the only access to a blind chamber or
vault beneath, which may have been a dungeon or may have been merely a
_garde-robe_ pit. A circular staircase led from the cellar to the
upper floors and thence to the battlements. The fact that so small and
uncomfortable a house was built at a time when further south there were
already large and commodious mansions, is an eloquent commentary on
the disturbed state of the Border. This is further illustrated by the
fact that almost immediately after the two kingdoms were united under
one sovereign, many of the old peels were enlarged by the addition of a
Jacobean wing of considerably greater capacity than the original house.
Chipchase Castle is one of the most striking instances, as the new work
took the form of a fair-sized manor house to which the peel became a
mere antiquated adjunct. Other instances, some of rather later date,
are to be seen at Belsay Castle, Halton Castle, and Bitchfield Tower.
[Illustration: 11. Cocklaw Tower, Northumberland (16th cent.).
Plan of Principal Floor.
D, Door, several feet above the level of the ground;
H, Hole in floor; F P, Fireplace.]
[Illustration: 12. Cocklaw Tower, Northumberland (16th cent.).]
Another notable example of the survival of the keep is that at
Warkworth Castle in the same county (Fig. 45, p. 82). This is of
peculiar interest inasmuch as it was built about the year 1440, and
exhibits a great amount of skill in packing into a small compass the
various rooms which, by that period, had become necessary to the
comfort of the more wealthy. But in spite of the ingenious planning,
this keep was deserted within thirty years of its erection in favour
of a new hall built on the ground floor with contiguous kitchens in
the usual fashion. These places are mentioned here before taking leave
of the keep, to show how its influence survived long after it had been
generally abandoned.
CHAPTER III.
THE FORTIFIED MANOR HOUSE OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY--THE DOMINANCE OF THE HALL.
Although the first germ of the house of to-day is to be found in the
Norman keep, its more direct ancestor was the fortified manor house.
The chief room here, as in the keep, was the hall; indeed it was of
greater relative importance in the manor house than in the castle. In
the latter it had rooms of equal size above and below it, rooms which
must have helped to lessen the pressure on its space. In the former
it was not so much the heart of the house as the house itself. It was
often the only considerable room in the building, supplemented by a
kitchen and a “chamber” or two. So overmastering was its importance
that the house was called “the hall,” a designation which, to this day,
is applied to the principal house in a parish. There were, however,
supplementary rooms, some for the master, and some for the servants; in
the earlier examples, indeed, the plural is hardly admissible; there
was one for the master, called the “solar,” and there was a kitchen,
or a kitchen department, which was the headquarters of the servants.
The hall lay between the two; at one end was the kitchen with whatever
it had of pantry and buttery; at the other was the solar, a small room
for the private occupation of the lord--a room generally upstairs, and
over a cellar or store place. Other rooms there were none. The hall was
the house; everybody lived there when indoors, everybody ate there,
everybody slept there.
Knight, and page, and household squire,
Loitered through the lofty hall,
Or crowded round the ample fire.
The household stores, if put away anywhere, went to the cellar; the
food was cooked in the kitchen, there was a pantry where it was kept
when not in the kitchen, there was a buttery where the drink was
served: the lord, when he desired privacy, sought his solar. The rest
of the household presumably never had privacy even if they desired
it. It was an elementary state of things, and the story of domestic
architecture is made up of the efforts to obtain greater privacy and
more comfort. It was a long and gradual development. The hall remained
for centuries the centre and kernel of the house; but at one end of it
the solar gradually swelled into suites of apartments for the family;
at the other, the kitchen grew into the servants’ wing, with scullery,
larders, pantry, and many other subdivisions. When we remember this
primitive type of plan and then look at the plan of an Elizabethan
manor house (usually quite simple in its arrangements), it becomes less
difficult to imagine the stages through which it must have passed since
the time of the hall, solar, and kitchen; and it is easy, on the other
hand, to see how the simple Elizabethan plan grew into the complicated
arrangements necessary for our comfort to-day.
The hall, then, being pre-eminently the principal room, requires our
first attention. It was necessarily of large size, and it was lofty.
In the majority of instances it was of one storey with an open timber
roof, and consequently it completely separated from each other the
subsidiary rooms built at either end of it. This is observable down
to Elizabethan days, when the family apartments and the servants’
quarters had each grown into a considerable wing of at least two
storeys in height. Each wing had to have its own staircases, and on the
upper floor the hall interposed an impassable barrier between the two
ends of the house.
The hall was planned so that the entrance was at the servants’ end,
where most of the traffic was. The bulk of the floor space was thus
left clear for the tables, and for the purposes of daily life. The lord
and his family sat at the “high table” at the upper end, farthest away
from the draughty entrance. There was at this end a raised platform
some 6 inches high, called the daïs, and it was on the daïs that the
high table was placed. Judging from the floor levels of the earliest
houses, there would not seem to have been a daïs, unless it were a
movable platform. Through the wall at the upper end a doorway led to
the family room or rooms. The two long sides of the hall were usually
free from any buildings, and were occupied by the windows. At Minster
Lovel in Oxfordshire, however--a splendid house of the Lovels, now in
hopeless ruin--the lofty hall was flanked on one side with a building
of two storeys. The windows on the opposite side were large and long,
set fairly high up in the thick wall, of fine Perpendicular design, and
finished at the top with the usual simple tracery. Those on the side
flanked by the two-storey building were so much curtailed by it as to
retain nothing below the tracery.
The entrance was generally cut off from the rest of the hall by a
screen (at any rate in later years). The screen did not extend the full
height of the hall, but stopped short some 10 or 12 ft. high, and was
connected to the end wall by a floor, which thus at once served as a
ceiling to the entrance passage, and formed a gallery, usually called
the minstrels’ gallery, though indeed it may well be doubted whether
in many of the smaller houses it was put to regular use, inasmuch as
there was no convenient means of access. The fire was frequently,
though not by any means always, placed on a hearth in the middle of the
floor, yet not exactly the middle, but rather towards the end where the
family sat. There are plenty of instances where the hall was warmed
by a fireplace even in fairly early times. There are also instances
as late as the sixteenth century of hearths being constructed on the
floor. At Deene Hall in Northamptonshire, built in the time of Edward
VI., there was no fireplace in the hall until the father of the late
Lord Cardigan (of Balaclava fame) caused one to be made. The roof shows
by the absence of cross-braces in one of its bays where the louvre for
the escape of smoke used to stand.
These general dispositions were, of course, subject to variations in
particular instances, but the main idea of entering the hall at its
lower end, of the kitchens being at this end and the solar or family
rooms at the other, is so universal as to furnish a clue to the
unravelling of the mysteries of many a complicated ruin.
The finest example in England of an early hall is to be found at
Oakham Castle in Rutland. It is of such a large size, 65 ft. long by
43 ft. wide, that it serves for the Law Courts of the county, the
Assizes, Quarter Sessions, and County Court being all held within its
four walls. The fittings necessary for these purposes rather obscure
its original appearance, which was as spacious as a good-sized parish
church, and very much of the same character. It is divided into what
may be termed nave and aisles separated by fine bold arcades (Fig. 13).
[Illustration: 13. Oakham Castle.
Interior of the Hall.]
This disposition is extremely interesting, as it at once raises the
question of the resemblance between ecclesiastical and domestic
architecture, and takes us immediately to the root of the matter,
namely, that architecture is essentially a noble form of construction,
embellished suitably to its purpose. It follows, therefore, that church
and house architecture are only likely to differ in so far as their
purposes differ. Here at Oakham was a space to be covered of much the
same area as a church, and it was covered in the same way. The means at
the disposal of the builders forbade very wide spans, therefore they
divided the width of the building by two walls carried on a series of
arches. The middle space (or nave) was of no greater width than could
be covered by a timber roof resting on the arcaded walls. The two outer
spaces (or aisles) were covered by narrower roofs leaning against the
walls of the nave. This simple solution of a constructional problem
was applied equally to churches or houses, but it so happens that
there were many churches of a width demanding such a treatment and but
few houses. The churches have survived, while the houses have mostly
disappeared; and consequently the disposition which is in reality
constructional, has become associated with church architecture. So too
with various features, such as doors and windows. These were treated,
broadly speaking, in the same way whether in churches or houses, but in
the former they were, as a rule, more elaborately embellished. Their
general forms were the same; that is to say, when arches were round
in churches they were round in houses; when pointed in the one they
were pointed in the other. When mullions, tracery, and cusping became
the fashion in churches, they became also, though in less degree, the
fashion in houses. This, however, is to be observed that, as a rule,
more elaboration and more fancy were bestowed upon ecclesiastical work
than upon domestic. So far as windows are concerned the practical
necessity of having some means of opening and closing those in
houses led to the dividing of them into manageable sizes by means of
horizontal cross-bars or transomes, which are much more frequent in
houses than in churches.
This similarity of treatment between the two classes of buildings,
although only what might be expected on reflection, has led to much
confusion in the popular mind, and has resulted in many an old hall
being looked upon as a chapel.
But to return to Oakham Castle. Strictly speaking it was not a
castle, but merely a strongly defended manor house. It lies in a
large enclosure surrounded by the ruins of a wall. The wall shows no
signs of having been guarded by the towers customary in a castle,
but is built on the summit of an embankment, which may be the remains
of an extremely ancient stronghold. The height and steepness of the
bank, increased by the height of the wall, although the latter was
ill-constructed, must have rendered attack difficult. The enclosure
was entered through a gatehouse, which has entirely disappeared and
only lives in a record of the fourteenth century. This record is an
Inquisition of the year 1340, and is interesting as enumerating the
accommodation of the place at the time. It says that the castle was
well walled, and contained one hall, four chambers, and one kitchen;
there were also two stables, one grange for hay, one house for
prisoners, one chamber for the porter, and one drawbridge with iron
chains (this indicates the gatehouse). There was also a free chapel
within the castle. Such was the accommodation of an important house in
the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: 14. Oakham Castle, Rutland (_cir._ 1180).
The Hall.]
The hall is the only building left, and it is clear from its
architectural features that the four chambers and the kitchen could
only have been of one storey in height, at any rate so far as they were
contiguous to the building. The overpowering importance of the hall is
thus further established. Its plan is of the usual type (Fig. 14). The
entrance door was at the end of one of its sides, although many years
ago it was removed, for greater convenience in relation to modern uses,
to its present position in the middle.
[Illustration: 15. Oakham Castle, Rutland (_cir._ 1180).
The Hall.
The door was originally at the right-hand end of the front.
The original window in the gable is shown as blocked up; that
immediately above the doors is of late date.]
In the end adjacent to the entrance were two doors (there are also
indications of a third at the end of the north aisle) which led to the
kitchen, the pantry, and buttery. At the upper end was a door which
led to the solar and subsequently, no doubt, to the four chambers,
mentioned in the Inquisition, which replaced it. At the time when the
hall was built, about 1180, the probability is that there were not so
many as four chambers, but merely the solar. There is no fireplace, so
the fire must have been on a central hearth, with a louvre over it in
the roof; but the present roof having been rebuilt affords no evidence
on this point. The lighting was from small windows in the side walls,
supplemented by a larger one in the gable over the doors to the kitchen
(Fig. 15). The side walls are necessarily not very lofty, and the
light from the small windows had a long way to travel, consequently
the place must have been but ill-lighted although far more cheerful
than contemporary keeps. The lighting was wholly inadequate for modern
purposes, and has therefore been increased by means of dormers.
The style of the work is such as marks the buildings of the later years
of the twelfth century. The four arches of the arcades are semicircular
and of about 15 ft. span; they rest on massive round pillars (Fig.
13), and where they spring from the end walls they rest on corbels of
unusual and quaint design. The entrance door is round-headed and of
two orders, the outer being carried on a shaft and cap. The windows
are of two lights, with pointed heads, the mouldings carried on shafts
externally; the tympanum is filled in solid, thus making the actual
light square-headed. Internally each window is set in a deep recess
under a round-headed arch carried down to the floor, thus differing
from church windows which usually have a sill the full thickness of
the wall. The angles of the windows inside and out, as well as the
outer angles of the doorway, are ornamented with the dog-tooth. The
illustrations make this short description plainer than many words,
and they show how in general treatment the door and windows closely
resemble contemporary work in churches.
There are no indications of a screen at the entrance end, nor of a daïs
at the upper, inasmuch as the ornament of the window-recesses goes down
to the floor in all cases, whereas had there been a permanent daïs, it
would have stopped short to accommodate it.
[Illustration: 16. Oakham Castle.
Pier cap.]
The pillars of the arcade have vigorously carved caps admirably
designed (Fig. 16), and they support, between the springing of the
arches, quaint figures of musicians. Two of the heads which support a
corbel on the wall near the entrance are supposed to represent Henry
II. and his queen. The whole of the work is excellent in design and
execution, and the hall, both in its arrangement and its building, is
the most valuable example left of its period.
The hall at Oakham is typical, as to its main features, of all others
down to the end of the sixteenth century. That is to say, the hall
was the principal room; it was entered through the screens; at the
lower end were the kitchens, at the upper the family rooms. It was
nearly always a lofty apartment of one storey with an open timber
roof. The principal changes that took place in the room itself were
the elimination of the pillars and the contriving of a roof to cover
it in one span from wall to wall; the provision of larger windows, and
especially of a bay window at the daïs end; the addition of a porch to
protect the front entrance from the weather. The other changes which
affected it were those which took place in the rooms at either end;
the growth of the solar into a suite of rooms, and the provision of
separate sleeping accommodation for the servants. By the end of the
sixteenth century these changes had very materially affected the size
and plan of the house, and they ultimately led to the extinction of the
hall as a living room; but this development will be further considered
in a later chapter.
[Illustration: 17. Cothele House, Cornwall (time of Henry VII.).
The Great Hall.]
An illustration of a late hall (of the time of Henry VII.) is given in
Fig. 17, from Cothele House in Cornwall. It shows the large window, the
fireplace, and the start of the open roof. The daïs has disappeared,
as it has in most old houses, but the door leading to the family rooms
is visible in the corner. It gives a good idea of the appearance of a
mediæval hall.
All the changes which took place in the treatment of dwellings tended
towards the increase of comfort. The growth, it is true, was slow, and
if a modern critic were compelled to dwell in them, the difference to
him between a house of the twelfth century and one of the thirteenth
would hardly be perceptible; both would be intolerable. But gradually
the number of rooms increased both at the upper and lower ends of the
hall. The keep still survived in a modified form, and often formed
the nucleus round which the rest of the house grew. At Stokesay in
Shropshire, which dates from about 1240, or sixty years later than
Oakham, there is still a keep, but it is almost detached from the
actual house, and may have served as the final stronghold to which
the inhabitants could retreat in times of stress. At Longthorpe in
Northamptonshire, some two miles to the west of Peterborough, there
is a very interesting though small example of a keep or peel-tower
attached to the house, and forming an integral part of it. The house
was built in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and has
undergone many alterations; but the tower remains in good preservation,
as also does a contemporary gable adjacent to it, the only remnant of
the original house.
The most usual method of protecting these manor houses was to surround
them with a moat, across which a drawbridge led to a strongly defended
gateway. Bodiam Castle in Sussex, on the borders of Kent (Fig. 18), is
an excellent example of a moated structure. It was built in 1386 as a
place of defence, rather than as a dwelling-house. In hilly districts
moats were impossible, and in such cases advantage was taken of a
precipitous piece of ground which might furnish natural protection on
as many sides as possible. Aydon Castle in Northumberland is a striking
instance of the latter kind of defence, being situated on the edge of
a ravine. Although inhabited, it still retains much of its original
appearance, and many of its original features.
[Illustration: 18. Bodiam Castle, Sussex (1386).
Showing the Moat.]
[Illustration: 19. Stokesay Castle, Shropshire (_cir._ 1240–90).
Ground Plan.]
Stokesay (about 1240–1290) was defended by a moat, crossed no doubt by
a drawbridge, and entered through a gatehouse. The original fortified
gatehouse, however, has been replaced by a picturesque half-timber
structure of Elizabeth’s time, and the drawbridge by a solid approach.
The gateway led into a large courtyard, on the opposite side of which
stood, and still stands, the house (see plan, Fig. 19). The chief
apartment, as usual, is the hall, not so large as that at Oakham,
but still of fair size, 52 by 31 ft., that is to say large enough to
contain, with plenty of space to spare, two complete houses such as
now form the streets of a growing town. It is covered with a simply
designed open timber roof (see section, Fig. 20), the principal rafters
of which rest on plain built-out corbels. There were no buttresses to
counteract its thrust, until it was found necessary to build some on
the courtyard side. Unlike Oakham, the hall at Stokesay has rooms
attached to it at each end. At the lower end they are of three storeys,
at the upper of two. Applying the usual rule the three-storeyed part
(marked on the plan “North Tower”) ought to have been for the servants’
or retainers’ use; and it is possible that in early days it was. The
lowest storey was doubtless a cellar, the upper ones, however, are
furnished with large fireplaces, which point to their occupation by a
superior class of persons. In later years the topmost room was enlarged
and made more cheerful by adding some overhanging half-timber work in
which plenty of windows were introduced (Fig. 21). The kitchen must
have stood at this end, but there are no remains of it left. There was
at one time a return wing running east from the north tower; it was
built of wood, and contained kitchens, probably of a date subsequent
to the hall. These rooms at the lower end were approached by a wooden
stair within the hall, a rather unusual arrangement. From the upper end
of the hall access was obtained by an external flight of stone steps
to the solar, or lord’s chamber, which had a large fireplace, and on
either side of it a small window looking into the hall, so that the
lord--or more probably, considering the immutability of human nature,
the lady--could overlook that apartment after retiring from it. The
solar was embellished in later times with panelling and a fine wood
chimney-piece, and thus rendered a very pleasant room. Beneath the
solar was, as usual, a cellar or store place on the ground floor, and
beneath that another cellar underground. Outside and beyond the solar
stands the massive south tower or keep of three storeys, with one room
on each floor. They have fireplaces, but the windows are small, and
were never glazed, but merely closed with shutters.
[Illustration: 20. Stokesay Castle.
Section of Great Hall.
In the end wall are two small windows opening from the solar.]
[Illustration: 21. Stokesay Castle (General View).
The hall and adjoining rooms are to the right; the south tower is in
the centre; the Elizabethan gatehouse to the left.]
[Illustration: 22. Stokesay Castle.
Window and Doorway of the Hall.]
It must be borne in mind that hitherto windows had not been glazed.
They were usually of small size for purposes of security, and no doubt
their smallness was an advantage so far as the inlet of cold air was
concerned. But they rendered the rooms gloomy to the last degree, and
the unlucky people of the time must often have had the choice of two
evils, icy draughts, or the darkness which followed the closing of the
shutters. No wonder the fireplaces were made large, yet even with a
blazing fire in the middle of the hall, none of its heat being lost up
the chimney, the plight of the household must have resembled that of
travellers round a camp fire who complain of being roasted on one side
and frozen on the other.
In the hall at Stokesay, however, the windows are large, and the lights
are of such ample width as to offer but little protection against
attack. They are two lights wide and two lights high, the upper ones
being pointed and cusped, and surmounted by a circular eye (Fig. 22).
This eye and the upper lights were glazed, but the lower ones were
merely closed with shutters. This amount of glazing is a decided
advance in comfort, and so is the size of the windows, which must have
rendered the hall quite a cheerful place, in striking contrast to the
gloom of the tower, where the small windows provide a patch of light
which only renders the general darkness more pronounced (Fig. 23).
[Illustration: 23. Stokesay Castle.
Window in South Tower--Showing shutter and stone seats.]
The glazing of windows was carried out in a fitful way. Some windows
in buildings as early as Stokesay were already glazed, others even
so late as the end of the fifteenth century were not so treated. In
the scanty remains of Abingdon Abbey the so-called Prior’s Room has
never had glass in its windows. This room is of the early Decorated
period (_c._ 1300) and whether devoted to the prior or not, it
was of sufficient importance to have a fine fireplace and plastered
walls ornamented with coloured lines. The windows of the adjoining
guest-house (if such were its purpose) have likewise never been glazed.
These are of much later date--towards the end of the fifteenth century.
They, too, lighted rooms of some importance, 30 ft. long, warmed by a
large fire, handsomely roofed, and decorated in places with elaborate
ornament.[1] Horn was occasionally used as a material for glazing prior
to the general use of glass.
The improvement in domestic arrangements which is observable in the
actual buildings at Stokesay is also noticeable in such contemporary
accounts of building works as have been preserved. The Liberate Rolls
of Henry III.’s time (1232–1269) contain many orders issued in respect
of the king’s houses which were scattered up and down the country in
almost every southern county from Kent to Hereford, and northwards to
Northamptonshire and Nottingham. They nearly all point towards making
the houses more comfortable. Windows were to be glazed to prevent
draughts; porches were to be built to external doors; passages of
communication were to be made from one building to another; roofs and
walls were to be wainscoted; windows were to be enlarged; fireplaces
were to be built; _garde-robes_ were to be made less offensive;
in some cases drainage was to be executed as a protection to health.
Everything goes to show that Henry’s aim was to make his houses more
convenient and more comfortable. In addition to structural alterations
there are many orders for decoration. Buildings were to be whitewashed
inside and out; windows were to be filled with painted glass, either
heraldic or setting forth some scriptural subject, notably the story of
Dives and Lazarus; shutters were to be painted with the king’s arms;
and most frequently of all, rooms were to be painted green spangled
with gold stars. It is quite clear that houses were gradually becoming
not merely places of safety and of shelter from winter and rough
weather, but places of pleasure and delight; not merely lairs but
homes.
CHAPTER IV.
THE COURSE OF MEDIÆVAL BUILDING IN THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The king, of course, may be supposed to have had unlimited means at his
disposal for the improvement of his houses, and to have been better
able than less exalted personages to gratify his wishes; but his
subjects were also actuated by the same desires, and an examination
of the large houses of the fourteenth century shows a considerable
advance in the provision of rooms for special purposes, and indicates
that the old restricted accommodation was no longer sufficient for the
changing habits of the time. This expansion of the house was general,
and was not confined to any particular district. To mention a few
instances, there are in the North Alnwick Castle, built by the Percys
about 1340, of which all but the external walls has been modernised;
and Raby Castle, the home of the Nevills, Earls of Westmorland, built
about 1378, also largely modernised. In the Midlands are Kenilworth
Castle, almost rebuilt by John of Gaunt in the closing years of the
fourteenth century; Warwick Castle, also almost entirely rebuilt by
Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, a few years earlier; Broughton
Castle in Oxfordshire, built by the De Broughtons about the beginning
of the fourteenth century; Drayton House in Northamptonshire, by Simon
de Drayton in 1328; and Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, where the greater
part of the work is of this period. In the South is Penshurst Place for
which a licence to crenellate was granted to John de Pulteney in 1341.
The smaller houses of this period do not, of course, show such
extensive improvements as the large places just mentioned, nevertheless
in them may be seen the same tendency towards greater civilisation.
Even in the far North, where the disturbed state of the Border retarded
the development of household comfort, we have the commodious house of
Naworth in Cumberland, and the smaller house of Yanwath in Westmorland.
In Yorkshire is Markenfield Hall; in Cheshire, Baguley, of which little
besides its timber hall is left; in Northamptonshire the small but
fine house at Northborough; in Berkshire is Sutton Courtney, so much
altered, however, as to have lost its original character; while in
Somerset is the very curious “Castle” of Nunney, where the rooms are
placed over each other more after the fashion of the earlier keeps than
of the long and low manor houses which were by this time the prevailing
type.
In all these houses the hall was still the chief apartment, but it is
supplemented by more subsidiary rooms than are to be found in earlier
examples. The references in contemporary literature and documents
are not numerous, but we have already seen that at Oakham in the
Inquisition of 1340 the house consisted of a hall, four chambers, and
a kitchen. If we turn to Chaucer, who lived during a large part of
the fourteenth century, dying in 1400, we find in the few incidental
references to domestic arrangements which occur that the hall was by
far the most important room, although it had “chambers” and a “bower”
to supplement it.
It is perhaps from the “Cook’s Tale of Gamelyn” that the best idea of
a house may be gained, with its gatehouse, courtyard, and turreted
hall. He tells us how his muscular hero Gamelyn, the prototype of
Shakespeare’s Orlando, came with his friends to his ancestral home,
held by his false brother, and how the gate was shut and locked against
them by the porter, who resolutely refused them admission to the
courtyard. Gamelyn, however, smote the wicket with his foot, broke the
pin and effected an entrance. The porter he chased across the yard,
broke his neck and threw him into a well. He and his friends then made
merry with the brother’s meat and wine, while the latter hid himself
in a “little turret,” for which we owe him our thanks, as showing that
such features had a use. Meanwhile the gate had been flung open to
admit all who cared to go in “or ride,” a touch which brings home to us
the fact that hardly any of these gatehouses were wide enough to admit
wheeled vehicles, which of course were somewhat rare in those days;
the entrances were contrived only for foot passengers and horsemen.
Presently the fortunes of the day changed, Gamelyn was overpowered and
bound to a post in the hall, and the false brother emerged from the
“selleer” (solar) to taunt him. For two days and nights Gamelyn stood
bound without meat or drink, but then, thinking he had fasted too long,
he besought Adam the “spencer” to free him. Adam hesitated to let him
go out of “this bour,” but ultimately consented, and took him into
the “spence” and gave him supper. The spence was the pantry, and the
spencer the presiding genius of that place. It would be beside the mark
to enter into the details of Gamelyn’s further adventures, suffice it
to say that by Adam’s advice he let himself appear to be still bound
to the post; the hall presently filled with his brother’s guests who
cast their eyes on the captive as they came in “at hall door.” At a
preconcerted signal, Gamelyn and Adam possessed themselves of some
stout cudgels which the good spencer had provided, and between them
they cudgelled the whole company, taking especial delight in dealing
with the “men of holy Church.”
This glimpse into a fourteenth-century mansion is the longest which
Chaucer vouchsafes; we read elsewhere of “halls, chambers, kitchens,
and bowers,” and the “chamber” is occasionally mentioned as the
alternative room to the hall so far as the owner and his wife are
concerned. The difference between a “bower” and a “chamber” does not
emerge very clearly. Adam, as we have seen, speaks of the hall as
“this bour,” but as a rule the term is applied to a room in order
to distinguish it from that apartment. It seems quite clear that to
Chaucer the hall was the chief room, almost synonymous with the house,
the other rooms he mentions being the merest accessories.
The most complete and most interesting house of this period is the
well-known Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. It consists of two courts (Fig.
24), the hall being placed in the wing which divides them. It is thus
protected on both of its long sides and is thereby enabled to have
larger windows than if it had been on an outside wall. The exterior
walls of the earlier parts of Haddon have comparatively few windows
in them, and these of small size; and as the kitchen is one of the
rooms so lighted it is dark, in spite of a larger window inserted
in the sixteenth century, to a degree which horrifies housewives of
the present day. Haddon being built on the slope of a hill could not
be protected by a moat, hence it was more than ever necessary to be
careful about external apertures. Some parts of Haddon are of the
twelfth century, including much of the west wall, portions of the
chapel (at the south-west corner), and the lower parts of the south
and east walls and of the Peverel or Eagle tower; the licence granted
to Richard de Vernon to fortify his house of Haddon with a wall 12
ft. high without crenellations is still preserved. This licence was
granted by John, Earl of Morteigne, who, in 1199, became King John. The
extent of this early work shows that already in the twelfth century
there was a large house here, its area being little less than at the
present day. But during the fourteenth century it was practically
rebuilt on the lines which now remain, inasmuch as work of this period
is to be found over the whole building. The extent of the house, and
particularly the multiplicity of rooms, go to show how vastly the
desire for comfort had increased by this time. Much other work was done
in later years; the chapel was either enlarged or altered, and a range
of rooms was added or rebuilt in the fifteenth century. In the early
part of the sixteenth many of the rooms were embellished and modernised
by Sir George Vernon, “the King of the Peak”; and yet later his
daughter Dorothy and her husband Sir John Manners built the beautiful
long gallery on the top of earlier rooms and laid out the garden with
its picturesque terraces and noble flight of steps.
[Illustration: 24. Plan of Haddon Hall, Derbyshire.]
It is of great interest to see here the work of various hands, and to
realise how, generation after generation, the owners did what they
could to bring their ancient home up to the prevailing standard of
comfort and beauty. But the particular point which is of interest now
is that although much of the existing work is of later date, yet it
is clear that in the fourteenth century Haddon was of almost the same
extent as we see it to-day. Civilisation had taken many strides since
its little neighbour, the Peak Castle, had been built.
It is curious to observe on a plan of the house how much thicker
the external walls are than the internal, and how few windows look
outwards; they nearly all look into the courts, and of those that look
out over the country most are of later date. The plan also shows
very clearly how the disposition of the hall follows the orthodox
lines. It is entered through a porch at the end of one of its sides;
the porch leads into the “screens”; on the right is the hall entered
through a panelled wood screen with two openings. On the left are
three doorways--one to the buttery, one to the kitchen passage, and
the third to the pantry. At the end of the screens is a door leading
into the upper court. The kitchen department is large, rambling, and
ill-lighted, but when the house was in full occupation an enormous
amount of work had to be done here, and doubtless the fire itself
sufficiently supplemented the scanty daylight.
At the upper end of the hall is a range of rooms of two storeys,
devoted to the use of the family; and doubtless in the fourteenth
century it was already of two storeys, although apparently it only
extended at that period from the front or west side of the hall as
far eastwards as to overlap the east side of the upper court. It is
difficult to disentangle these rooms from the additions and alterations
of later years, for in the early part of the sixteenth century the
rooms immediately contiguous to the south end of the hall were
improved, and a new range was built on the top of the curtain wall,
which ran from the hall wing westwards to the chapel. Again, towards
the close of the same century, the long gallery was built over the
ground floor rooms forming the south side of the upper court, and
apparently this wing was prolonged in order to give that extreme length
to the gallery which was so characteristic of Elizabeth’s time. This
prolongation carried the south front beyond the line of the east front,
an arrangement very unlikely to have been adopted while the house was
still fortified.
Another curious and instructive feature is the gallery or gangway which
is carried along the east side of the hall. This is not an original
gallery, but was erected in order to connect the south rooms with
those on the north, which previously had been completely severed from
each other by the lofty hall.
Haddon Hall, therefore, taken as a fourteenth-century dwelling, shows
that protection from casual attack was still essential, but that there
was a great amount of separate accommodation for the members of the
household. The rooms, however, were arranged without much regard to
convenience. They were placed in long and somewhat straggling ranges
of single apartments leading one into the other. Privacy was much
more studied than it had been in the preceding centuries, but it was
provided to a degree that falls far short of modern requirements.
The fact that the only entrance through which a wheeled vehicle could
enter the place was a secondary archway up the hill beneath the Eagle
Tower, brings home to us again the fact that the usual means of
locomotion was at that time either on foot or on horseback.
The view (Fig. 25) is taken in the lower courtyard, looking towards
the great hall. The entrance door is placed in a projecting porch,
over which a low tower is carried up. The staircase to the upper part
of the tower is in an octagonal turret, which rises in picturesque
fashion sufficiently high above the roof to give access to the leads.
To the right of the porch is the great chimney-stack of the hall, now
deprived of its original tall shaft. Beyond the chimney is one of the
fourteenth-century windows of the hall with simple but characteristic
tracery. Then comes the projecting end of the dining-room with its
early sixteenth-century window of many lights in width, but only one
in height; above this is a later window, not so wide, but divided into
three lights as to its height. The return wing on the right contains
the rooms built early in the sixteenth century over the original wall
of the twelfth century. The interest of the composition is increased by
the absence of large windows on the ground floor of this wing, where,
as the plan indicates, there was no need to have them.
[Illustration: 25. Haddon Hall, Derbyshire (View in the Lower
Courtyard).]
Another great house, dating largely from late in the fourteenth
century, is Kenilworth Castle, which, though primarily a place of
strength, has much that is interesting purely as domestic architecture.
It has been held by kings and great nobles; some of the most celebrated
names in English history are linked with its story; it has withstood
sieges, when its walls enclosed despairing and disease-stricken men; it
has witnessed the most gorgeous pageants of a gorgeous age. Reality and
romance have vied to make it famous. It is worthy of far more careful
study than can be bestowed upon it here, where it can only be briefly
used to throw its light on the progress of domestic architecture
through some four centuries. As a fortified place of dwelling it goes
back to Saxon times; as a stone house it was occupied between four
and five hundred years; it has been a ruin for nearly three hundred.
In extent the site is very considerable, embracing some eight or nine
acres of fortified enclosure (Fig. 26), but the walls, the towers, and
the gateways which made its defences; the ditches, the moat, and the
pool or lake which further secured it, do not fall within the range
of the present inquiry; it is only the inner or upper ward which need
detain us. The earliest of the buildings which form this ward is the
great keep, situated at the north-east corner, the home of the family
in Norman times. In its main characteristics it resembled the other
large keeps which have been already described (Chapter II.), and its
date may be placed at the end of the third quarter of the twelfth
century. There must have been other contemporary buildings somewhere
in the vast enclosure, mostly of wood, but some also of stone: they
have, however, all disappeared, and it is only from scattered fragments
of early work that their character can be surmised. Doubtless during
the next two centuries the descendants of the builders, the Clintons,
or those who displaced them--the king, Simon de Montfort, Edmund, Earl
of Lancaster, son of Henry III., Roger Mortimer, and the rest--added to
the meagre and comfortless accommodation of their predecessors. Indeed
it is on record that large sums were expended on buildings and repairs
during the reigns of John and Henry III. But anything they may have
built must have been swept away in the great rebuilding undertaken by
John of Gaunt towards the end of the fourteenth century, about 1392;
and it is not improbable from the irregular shape of the plan that his
new buildings followed the main lines of those they superseded. By far
the greater part of the upper ward is of this date. Starting from the
west end of the keep, the kitchens on the north (now almost entirely
gone), the great hall on the west, the white hall and other chambers
on the south, are all John of Gaunt’s work. Where he left off, Dudley,
Earl of Leicester, began, nearly two hundred years later; and although
Leicester’s buildings are fairly large in themselves, they are small in
comparison with those of “time-honoured Lancaster.”
[Illustration: 26. Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire.
Ground Plan.
1. Site of Kitchens.
2. The Strong Tower.
3. The White Hall.
4. Garde-robe Tower.
5. Leicester’s Buildings.
6. Henry VIII.’s Lodgings.
7. Elizabethan Gatehouse.]
The range of chambers built by John of Gaunt shows how enormously
domestic requirements had increased since the days when the restricted
accommodation of a keep had sufficed for the housing of the lord and
his family; or those when the subsidiary rooms attached to so fine a
hall as that at Oakham were merely four “chambers” and a kitchen. The
great hall, 90 ft. long by 45 ft. wide, occupied nearly the whole of
the west front. It stood on a vaulted undercroft (see section, Fig.
27), and was entered at the north end of its east side up a flight of
steps, which eventually led into the “screens.” To the right or north
of the entrance were the buttery, the kitchen, and other servants’
quarters. Beyond them, and projecting on the west front, was a tower
called the Strong Tower, used as a place of detention for persons
of consequence, some of whom have here, as others in the Tower of
London, left melancholy mementoes of weary hours in the shape of their
coats-of-arms scratched upon the walls.
[Illustration: 27. Kenilworth Castle. The Great Hall (_cir._ 1392).
The upper figure shows the plan of one side: the lower is the
longitudinal section through the hall and undercroft.]
[Illustration: 28. Kenilworth Castle.
A Window of the Great Hall.]
The hall itself was a noble apartment, admirably built in the best
period of the Perpendicular style, lighted by large and lofty windows
(Figs. 27, 28), and covered with an open timbered roof, which has long
since disappeared. It must have been one of the finest halls of its
time. At the upper or daïs end there is, on the east side, an octagonal
bay window, with a fireplace in the south-west corner; while on the
west is a tower, used on this floor as a buffet, and giving access by
a passage to the range of rooms on the south front which were rooms
of state and family apartments. About midway along their south front
stood a large _garde-robe_ tower. The two towers which project
from the west front and balance each other at either end of the hall
are a foretaste of the symmetry which was, in later years, to play
so important a part in the disposition of great houses. The general
arrangement of the hall, with the kitchens at one end and the family
rooms at the other, conforms to the usual type so frequently mentioned,
which may also be seen very clearly at Haddon. The bay window at the
daïs end is an early example of an arrangement which afterwards became
universal. The hall fire was not placed on the floor in the middle of
that apartment, but in two fireplaces, one in either side wall about
half way between the screen and the daïs.
The planning is, as usual, wasteful; the same accommodation might have
been obtained with far less outlay and much more convenience, and a
study of Elizabethan plans shows how far more surely and much more
cheaply the designer of that day obtained his effects than did his
predecessor of the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: 29. Kenilworth Castle--View from the North-west.
(The keep is on the left; the great hall on the right.)]
There can be no doubt that the Elizabethan designer aimed at effect as
well as at convenience of arrangement. But it is doubtful how far the
designer of the fourteenth century had both these objects in view. No
doubt he sought for effect in each building; that is to say, he strove
to produce a noble hall, an impressive tower, a pleasant range of minor
buildings. But his general arrangements were mostly haphazard; he built
as circumstances dictated, either following the lines of previous
buildings, or hurriedly placing his new rooms where at first sight they
seemed to be wanted, without much caring whether they came awkwardly
or not. He probably had an eye for the picturesque, for it is doubtful
whether all the towers and turrets which broke his sky-line were built
for necessity. Here at Kenilworth he displayed, as already remarked,
some feeling for symmetry on the west front. When Leicester came to
build his addition on the east, towards the end of the sixteenth
century, there can be little doubt that considerations of symmetry
dictated the form of the buildings, for instead of adopting the long
and low fashion then so much in vogue, he piled his rooms up in order
to balance the lofty mass of the ancient keep. This is very apparent
on a view made in 1620,[2] where these two large blocks are joined by
a low range of buildings called “Henry VIII.’s Lodgings,” which have
since then been entirely destroyed.
The view (Fig. 29) shows the Norman keep on the left, and the range
containing the fourteenth-century hall on the right. The difference
of treatment between the two periods is plainly visible. The keep is
massive and stern with but few windows; the hall is lighter and more
graceful, partly owing to its lofty windows, and partly to the vertical
lines of its turrets and projections.
So far the hall has been the principal room that has claimed attention,
although at Haddon and Kenilworth we find it supplemented by other
chambers for the use of the family and servants. The latter, however,
had not yet assumed any special architectural importance; in this
respect the most notable building, next to the hall, appears to have
been the kitchen.
In early times the kitchen, as already said, was detached from the
house, and often of so temporary a nature that no examples have
survived; but in later years it became one of the most important and
substantially built parts of the house. It was still frequently a
detached or outlying building of one lofty storey, connected with the
house, as at Raby Castle in Durham, the Abbot’s kitchen in Durham
itself (1368), the Abbot’s kitchen at Glastonbury (_c._ 1400),
that at Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire (_c._ 1470), and that at
Burghley House, Northamptonshire (_c._ 1550). But more often it
was incorporated with the house itself, and had rooms over it as at
Haddon Hall (fourteenth century), and South Wingfield (1435–40).
[Illustration: 30. The Kitchen, Glastonbury Abbey.
Plan and Section.]
At Glastonbury the kitchen is square, each corner being occupied by
a fireplace the arch over which carries a wall, converting the space
above into an octagon (see plan, Fig. 30). The octagon is carried up to
a height of some 20 ft., and is then vaulted on eight stone ribs up to
a ventilating shaft (see section, Fig. 30). The height from the floor
to the bottom of the ventilating shaft is 41 ft.; the kitchen itself
is 33 ft. 10 in. square. The flues from the fireplaces were apparently
carried up into chimney-shafts, which stood on the triangular space
between the square corners of the building and the octagonal roof, but
the shafts have entirely disappeared (Fig. 31). The remains of the
walls which connected this kitchen with the adjacent buildings are
still visible.
Illustration: 31. The Kitchen, Glastonbury Abbey (_cir._ 1400).]
The kitchen at Stanton Harcourt is not quite so elaborate. It is
nearly square on plan, being 25 ft. 9 in. one way, by 25 ft. 6 in. the
other--considerably smaller, therefore, than the Glastonbury example
(see plan, Fig. 32). There seems to have been no special flue from the
fireplace, which must have been on an open hearth, the smoke finding
its way up to the roof, and thence through louvred openings. The height
here is nearly as great as that at Glastonbury, being 39 ft. to the
bottom of the roof. The roof is octagonal on plan, the four corners
of the square building being gathered over on squinches. It is of
wood covered with stone slates, and is carried on eight curved half
principals which meet in the centre. The lower part of the roof is
vertical, and is filled with windows and louvre boards for the escape
of the smoke on alternate forces of the octagon (see section, Fig. 32).
Above the vertical part, it slopes up to a great heraldic finial. The
top of the stone walls is battlemented, the space between the parapet
and the octagonal lantern forming a kind of parapet walk, access to
which is obtained up a circular staircase placed in a square projecting
turret at one corner (Fig. 33). There are the usual two ovens (one
large and one small) in the thickness of the wall, and there is also
a recess probably used as a cupboard. There is a door in each corner,
three for access from other parts of the building, and one leading to
the staircase. So much of the original building has been destroyed that
its exact connection with the kitchen cannot now be traced. As a rule
this connection was fairly direct to the lower end of the hall.
[Illustration: 32. The Kitchen at Stanton Harcourt--Plans, Elevation,
and Section.]
The great kitchen at Burghley House is constructed after the old
manner, and is vaulted in stone. This has led to the statement that it
is part of a pre-existing abbey, but there is no reason to suppose that
it antedates the early parts of the house, which were in building about
the year 1550.
[Illustration: 33. Sketch of the Kitchen at Stanton Harcourt.]
There is not much to be said about the other type of kitchen, such as
remains at Haddon and South Wingfield. It was a large apartment, and
usually furnished with several vast fireplaces. At South Wingfield
there were three, two of which are shown in Fig. 34. At the back of one
of these are the two ovens. None of the examples quoted have windows
of any great size, a fact which points to the fire itself having
been depended on to supplement the scanty daylight. As in many other
respects so in the kitchens, the great colleges at Oxford and Cambridge
afford the best existing illustrations of the internal economy of a
mediæval house. They still have to cater for some hundreds of people
daily, and so it was in the abbeys and great houses of the Middle
Ages. In an abbey kitchen the number for whom cooking was required was
sometimes as much as seven or eight hundred. In a nobleman’s house,
such as Lord Burghley’s, the number was less, it is true, but it must
have amounted to one or two hundred. In smaller houses the requirements
were not nearly so great, and kitchens of more modest dimensions were
sufficient.
[Illustration: 34. Fireplaces in the Kitchen, South Wingfield Manor
House (_cir._ 1435–40).]
CHAPTER V.
THE LATER MANOR HOUSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
During the fifteenth century a further advance was made in the
amenities of house planning, and although considerable attention was
still paid to defensive precautions, there was nevertheless a great
expansion in accommodation, and a more determined effort towards
obtaining a distinct architectural effect. A certain symmetry of
treatment is almost inherent in architecture. It is to be found in the
early keeps, where the shallow buttresses or piers and the windows are
to a large extent symmetrically placed. But no attempt was made at that
time, nor indeed for some centuries, to give a symmetrical disposition
to the buildings as a whole. Ranges of rooms were either built entirely
new or added to existing buildings as convenience seemed to dictate,
and it has already been observed that this haphazard method of planning
was extravagant and wasteful. In the fifteenth century there was a
noticeable tendency towards symmetry, which easily led in the sixteenth
to that very exact balance of part with part so characteristic of the
Italian manner, which was to exert an overpowering influence on English
designers. Examples of this tendency are to be seen in the beautiful
keep at Warkworth in Northumberland (1435–40, Fig. 45, p. 82); in the
ruins of Kirby Muxloe in Leicestershire, built by Sir William Hastings
about the year 1460 (Figs. 47, 48, pp. 84, 85); and at Cowdray in
Sussex, also built in the later years of the same century.
The endeavour to achieve effect by an ordered grouping of the masses
of a building is a higher proof of architectural skill than merely to
ornament with attractive detail its various parts. Such an attempt,
although not very determined, had been made at Kenilworth in the
closing years of the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth not only
was this idea still further pursued, but a softer and more refined
appearance was given to the detail of ornament. The somewhat gaunt
character which accorded so well with sterner times often gave way to
a pleasant play of fancy, and to that careful and painstaking design
which is observable in the Perpendicular style. Men began to desire to
have fine houses, the fear of damage and destruction was growing less,
and the whole tendency was towards increased refinement. The change
is visible in the great manor house of South Wingfield in Derbyshire,
where there is not only much charming detail, but an obvious attempt to
obtain effect by the handling of masses of building, notably in boldly
projecting the _garde-robes_ and chimney-stacks from the faces of
the walls. Irregularity is still the prevailing characteristic, but
among it may be observed a certain striving after rhythmical treatment.
South Wingfield rivals its more famous neighbour, Haddon, in extent;
but in some respects it is less interesting, inasmuch as it is more
ruinous, and has not the same variety of work to link it up with all
periods from the thirteenth century onwards. Wingfield is practically
all of one date, having been built by Ralph Cromwell, Lord Treasurer
to Henry VI., about 1435–40. A glance at the plan (Fig. 35) shows how
ample the accommodation must have been before the house was destroyed.
There are two large courts, the outer (or southern), formed of barns,
stables, guard-houses and other inferior buildings, the inner (or
northern), of the hall, kitchen, and the chambers occupied by the
family. This arrangement is an advance in classification, and it is one
which controlled the planning of some of the finest of the mansions
of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Here, however, the courts are
irregular in shape and disposition; there is no attempt at symmetry,
nor much at alignment. The outer court is entered at the south-east
corner, and although the gateway to the inner is fairly central, and
is placed almost opposite to the porch of the hall, there is little of
that accuracy of planning which marks the great houses of a hundred and
fifty years later. Some attempt at alignment there is, for standing
in the south court, the eye obtains a vista through the large arch of
the gatehouse, across the north court, through the porch and the doors
beyond, and so on to the distant woods. There is a curious variation
from the customary relation of the great hall and kitchens, caused by
the insertion on the upper floor of a large state apartment between the
hall and the servants’ quarters. This is an arrangement not usually
found either before or after this period. It does not mark the first
step in a new departure. The hall stands on a vaulted undercroft,
and must have been a fine room; it measures 71 ft. 7 in. long by 36
ft. 5 in. wide, and is considerably larger than the hall at Haddon,
which is 43 ft. by 28 ft. It is now roofless and ruinous, but the bay
window (Fig. 36), and porch, which still survive, are fine examples of
late Perpendicular work, as also is the adjacent gable of the state
apartment (Fig. 37). There is nothing to indicate where the hall
fireplace was situated. The probability is that it was in one of the
long side walls, but even as late as a hundred years after this time
fires were sometimes placed upon central hearths, and it may have been
so here.
[Illustration: 35. South Wingfield Manor House, Derbyshire (_cir._
1435–40).
_Ground Plan._
1, 1. Porter.
2. Guardroom.
3. Site of buildings destroyed.
4. Serving-place.
5. Wing traditionally said to have been occupied by Mary, Queen
of Scots.
The state apartments at the west end of the hall were on the
upper floor: on the ground floor were the buttery, passage to
kitchen, &c.]
The apartments devoted to the use of the family, which we should
expect to find at the upper end of the hall (in this case the east
end), did in fact once exist, as may be seen by various indications
on the building itself and the adjacent ground, but they have all been
destroyed, leaving their extent and nature as a matter for conjecture.
They were reached by means of the circular staircase at the north-east
corner of the hall (see plan, Fig. 35), which still retains the
doorways that led into them.
[Illustration: 36. South Wingfield Manor House.
Bay Window of Hall.]
[Illustration: 37. South Wingfield Manor House.
Porch of Great Hall and Gable of State Apartments.]
[Illustration: 38. South Wingfield Manor House.
Undercroft beneath Great Hall.]
The undercroft beneath the hall is one of the finest pieces of work
left (Fig. 38). It is vaulted with heavy stone ribs springing from
columns down the middle, and responds on the walls. The ribs meet
at the summit on large traceried bosses, and the junction of the
ceiling-ribs with the wall-ribs is emphasised in certain cases by
carved grotesques. In spite of the care bestowed upon the work, there
is no reason to suppose that the undercroft was put to noble uses;
it was in all probability merely a cellar and store place. It is
approached from four directions--externally from under the porch, and
through the east wall, whence there is easy access to the north-east
stair-turret: and internally from one of the rooms beneath the state
chamber, and from the bay of the hall (Fig. 39); as the buffet often
stood in the hall bay, this staircase gave easy access for replenishing
the buffet from the cellar. The kitchen department is well supplied
with rooms and with large fireplaces. A straight passage led from the
middle of the lower end of the hall direct to the kitchen. It passed
beneath the state apartment, and along the side of a small room which
was probably the “survaying-place” or serving-room, since the wall is
pierced with two large openings, through which the dishes would be
passed, and thence carried to the hall. The kitchen itself has three
huge fireplaces, in two of which there are ovens. In later years it
became customary to place the ovens in a room by themselves, called the
“pastry.” Some of the walls and fireplaces in this part of the house
are clearly after-insertions, and point to the fact that the original
means of cooking were inadequate for the needs of the large household,
which found accommodation in the long ranges of rooms most of which are
now destroyed.
[Illustration: 39. South Wingfield Manor House.
Interior of Bay Window of Hall; showing Door to Undercroft.]
The wing on the west of the inner court is traditionally assigned to
the use of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was detained in confinement
here from 1569 onwards, under the care of George, sixth Earl of
Shrewsbury, whose ancestor, the second earl, had purchased the estate
from the builder of the house. An interesting light is thrown upon the
sanitary habits of the time by the fact that three weeks after her
installation at Wingfield she fell ill; two physicians deputed by the
Privy Council reported that the sanitary conditions of her quarters
were bad, whereupon her custodian, the Earl of Shrewsbury, retorted
that the evil state of her rooms arose from the uncleanly habits of her
own retinue. There seems to be little doubt that in Elizabeth’s time
the care bestowed upon sanitary arrangements was not nearly so great as
in the preceding centuries. An examination of house plans of the end of
the sixteenth century shows that the isolation of _garde-robes_
or the grouping of them together in separate towers was no longer
carried out; they were often placed with a view to convenience of
access regardless of their unsavoury characteristics. In the case
of the particular complaint at Wingfield, however, the inference is
that they were not sufficiently convenient for the views of Mary’s
household, and yet the west wing, which she is said to have occupied,
is well furnished with _garde-robes_ placed in the large square
projections on this face, two in each on each floor.
The gatehouses have each a large and a small archway (Fig. 40), the
large one for vehicles, the small for foot passengers. This double
archway was now coming into vogue, and was very generally adopted in
gatehouses of the fifteenth century. It indicates, among other things,
that vehicles had come into more general use. Adjoining the outer
gatehouse is a barn, still in excellent preservation, and offering an
interesting example of this kind of building.
Although the accommodation at Wingfield is more elaborate than in
houses of earlier date, it is still rather roughly and unscientifically
thrown together, involving much waste both of space and material.
It is also worthy of note that in spite of its great extent and its
magnificent rooms, the only staircases were the old-fashioned circular
turret stairs of no great diameter. There was indeed as yet no other
fashion to follow, for the ancient newel stair held its own until the
time of Elizabeth, when it was suddenly and without any transitional
form replaced by wide wooden staircases in straight flights. England
has no examples of the magnificent development of circular staircases
which are to be seen in so many of the great châteaux of France.
Wingfield, it is also to be noted, was carefully built for defence.
It stands nearly at the end of a spur of land, and the ground on
three of its sides slopes steeply away, rendering access difficult.
At the north end, where the ground is in part rather flatter, it is
protected by a deep dry moat and a wall. The south side is the most
level, and consequently the outer and inferior court was placed on
this side. Even supposing that an attacking force gained possession
of this court, there was still the mass of its north wing (Fig. 40)
between them and the principal part of the house. The only internal
communication between the two courts was through an exceedingly narrow
doorway leading to a narrow crooked passage. The external walls of the
north court are practically devoid of windows on the ground floor;
those of the hall and adjoining rooms looked out on to a garden which
lay between them and the high wall overhanging the moat. Here, then,
as in other houses, the hall was placed in a secure position, and one
in which it was possible to make use of large windows. That this part
of the house was tolerably secure is proved by the fact that so much
of it remains; for when the place was besieged and captured during the
Civil Wars, it was the south court through which the breach was made
and entrance was effected. It is to the Civil Wars that Wingfield owes
its destruction, for, having caused some trouble to the Parliamentary
forces, it was ordered to be “slighted,” and was so far destroyed as to
be rendered uninhabitable. It passed from the descendants of the Earl
of Shrewsbury, and the hall was for a time patched up as a dwelling.
Subsequently it was further dismantled in order to build a new house at
the foot of the hill. Since then time, as destructive as siege-guns,
has wrought further havoc, for no more than “summer’s honey breath” can
an unprotected building
“hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days.”
But fortunately in recent years the owners have realised this, and have
taken what steps they can to arrest further decay.
[Illustration: 40. South Wingfield Manor House.
The North Side of South Courtyard.]
[Illustration: 41. Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire (_cir._ 1440).]
Another interesting and remarkable house of this period is Tattershall
Castle in Lincolnshire, which was built by the same Lord Treasurer who
built Wingfield. In Elizabeth’s time several of her great officials
built more than one large house, and the fact that Ralph Cromwell did
so in the fifteenth century, seems to indicate that house-building
had already begun to be a pleasure for the great and wealthy, and
was not merely undertaken of necessity. It is difficult to say for
certain how large the house at Tattershall was originally, or of what
its accommodation consisted. There are considerable remains of walls
extending over a large area, but the only habitable portion left, if we
except the small house now occupied by the caretaker, is the splendid
brick tower built after the fashion of a luxurious keep. The reversion
to the earlier type is curious, and it seems tolerably certain that,
whatever the buildings may have been which have disappeared, the tower
was the chief part of the house (Fig. 41). It rises sheer from the
ground to a vast height--some 120 ft. to the top of the turrets, and
more than 100 ft. to the battlements. It can only be called “vast”
speaking in terms of English architecture of the time; dwellers in
American cities of to-day where buildings soar to 400 ft., would regard
it as puny. It contained, in addition to the cellar, four lofty storeys
(of which the second and third are shown on Fig. 42), and above them a
flat roof with a rampart walk. Each floor consisted of one large room
about 38 ft. by 22 ft., supplemented by small chambers in three of the
turrets, and by one or two others in the walls, which are some 12 ft.
thick. There are _garde-robes_ on each floor (except the first)
and on the battlements; each of the large rooms has a fireplace, and
access from floor to floor is obtained by a circular staircase, 10 ft.
in diameter. The rooms are approached from the stairs through vaulted
lobbies, and on the third floor through a long vaulted passage in the
thickness of the wall.
[Illustration: 42. Tattershall Castle.
Plans of Second and Third Storeys.]
[Illustration: 43. Tattershall Castle.
The Staircase.]
The accommodation is of much the same character and extent as in the
early keeps, and although the windows are larger, there are but three
two-light windows to the large rooms, except to that on the ground
floor, which has four. The workmanship is excellent. The passages and
window-recesses are vaulted in brick and are adorned with many shields
of arms, as also are the chimney-pieces. Everything tends to show
that the amenities of life were respected, and it is not a little odd
that so much care should have been spent upon the embellishment of a
dwelling which, although lordly in character, must have been gloomy and
uncomfortable, much more so than the spacious manor house at Wingfield.
It is, of course, possible that among the buildings which have
disappeared, there may have been more commodious and cheerful rooms,
but there is no record of them; and it is clear from the amount of care
spent upon the tower, that it was intended for ordinary occupation.
The jambs of the doors and windows and the tracery of the latter, as
well as the machicolations and the coping of the parapet, are all of
stone; so too are the chimney-pieces. But the walls are of brick, and,
as already mentioned, so is the vaulting of the passages; the whole
work being a curious mixture of wrought stone and brick. The brick
staircase has stone steps and a stone handrail built into the wall
(Figs. 43, 44).
[Illustration: 44. Tattershall Castle.
The Stone Handrail.]
The whole place is an interesting example of a reversion to out-of-date
arrangements leading back to the past, combined with a desire for
beautiful embellishment which points the way to the magnificence which
was to become prevalent in the future.
Another interesting mixture of the ancient and the modern is to be seen
at Warkworth Castle in Northumberland. This was a very old foundation
retaining much early work in its walls and gatehouse, but about the
same time when the Lord Treasurer was building Wingfield, _i.e._,
1435–40, one of the Percies, Henry, the son of Hotspur, rebuilt the
keep at Warkworth. It stands on a steep mound at one end of the castle
enclosure, overlooking the little town (Fig. 45). It is planned in the
form of a large square with a great bay projecting from the middle of
each side, and within this symmetrical outline are ingeniously packed
all the rooms which then went to compose a complete house (Fig. 46).
It has cellars and a great hall, with buttery and kitchens at one
end, while from the other, access is obtained to the chapel and great
chamber. On the same floor, occupying odd spaces where they could be
contrived, are a few smaller rooms suitable for bedrooms. Numerous
small staircases, mostly circular, but some comprised of straight
runs in the thickness of the walls, lead up and down in a bewildering
fashion. In the centre of the building is an open shaft giving a
modicum of light and air to the adjacent rooms. The whole building
is a triumph of ingenuity, but a glance at the plan shows that the
lighting must have been bad; the great hall, for instance, has only two
windows on an outside wall (one being over the fireplace), and one,
almost valueless, into the central shaft; the kitchen has but one. It
is not therefore surprising to find that after some thirty years had
elapsed, a new great hall and kitchen were erected on another part of
the castle close. Most of these latter buildings have perished, but
enough remains to show that this second hall had the large windows of
the late Perpendicular period, and must consequently have been a far
more cheerful apartment than anything in the keep.
[Illustration: 45. Warkworth Castle, Northumberland.
The Keep (_cir._ 1435–40).]
[Illustration: 46. Warkworth Castle, Northumberland.
Plan of the Keep.
1. Vestibule (leading from entrance in basement).
2. Hall.
3. Chapel.
4. Great chamber.
5. Kitchens.
6. Pantry and buttery.]
The “worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,” as Rumour designates Warkworth
Castle in the Second Part of King Henry IV., hardly deserves that
description so far as the keep is concerned, for the stonework is in
a state of excellent preservation, and the lion of the Percies is
still rampant in full vigour high up on the wing facing the town. The
view (Fig. 45) indicates how careful the builders were to place no
large windows near the ground, while showing at the same time that
they paid great attention to the appearance and careful execution
of their design. The side illustrated faces into the castle yard,
where most secure from attack, and is more cheerfully lighted than
those which face the town. It is obvious in all these illustrations
of fifteenth-century buildings that the old haphazard methods are
gradually giving way to a desire for more rhythmical arrangement.
[Illustration: 47. Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire (_cir._ 1460).
Plans of remaining Buildings.]
One of the last houses to be built with any serious intention to have
it strongly fortified must have been the “Castle” at Kirby Muxloe
in Leicestershire, of which some interesting ruins remain. It was
surrounded by a moat, and had a gateway protected by a drawbridge, a
portcullis, and two projecting towers (Fig. 47). The recess into which
the drawbridge fitted when drawn up, is plainly visible (Fig. 48) as
are the holes in the wall through which the chains worked. When thus
elevated it completely closed the gateway. Behind it was the portcullis
which slid up and down in a groove. There is a recess in the wall
of the room over the gateway into which it fitted when raised. The
projecting towers are furnished with circular openings of about 6 in.
diameter for the purpose of admitting the muzzle of a cannon, thus
replacing the long vertical openings or oillets which were in vogue
when arrows were the principal missiles. There are not many examples
of such provision for the use of artillery, but among them may be
mentioned Hurstmonceux Castle in Sussex, of about the same date.
[Illustration: 48. Kirby Muxloe. The Entrance Gateway.]
The remains are not extensive, but they are enough to show that the
building was arranged with strict symmetry round a courtyard (Fig. 49);
another curious instance of the mixture of ancient methods of defence
with modern effort after architectural effect. The chief material
employed is brick, but the dressings are of stone with bold, simple
mouldings. Ornament is very sparingly introduced; there are indications
of diaper work in darker bricks, and these are also employed to trace a
heraldic maunch in the walls of the towers, this being the cognizance
of the Sir William Hastings who built the castle about the year 1460.
Owing to its ruinous condition the place throws but little light on the
domestic arrangements of the times. The gatehouse was clearly occupied
by the guards; the corner tower evidently contained living rooms; both
buildings are well supplied with latrines, or _garde-robes._
In all probability the great hall stood in the side opposite to the
entrance. The chief interest of the house lies in its symmetrical plan
and in its well-marked means of defence.
[Illustration: 49. Kirby Muxloe.
Block Plan.]
With the close of the fifteenth century the necessity for anything like
strong fortification disappeared; a new era was approaching in which
men were to build for pleasure, comfort, cheerfulness, magnificence.
The dark ages were past, the Renaissance was at hand. This, therefore,
will be a convenient point at which to break off for a time the
story of the growth of the house, and turn our attention to some of
the features which lend interest to such dwellings as we have been
considering.
CHAPTER VI.
MEDIÆVAL DOMESTIC FEATURES--DOORWAYS,
WINDOWS, FIREPLACES, CHIMNEYS, ROOFS AND
CEILINGS, STAIRCASES.
The treatment of special features in domestic buildings was (as
already pointed out) generally simpler than that of similar features
in churches, although it followed much the same lines in both cases.
On the whole, such things as doorways, windows, fireplaces, roofs
and ceilings were handled in houses with much simplicity during the
prevalence of the Gothic or mediæval styles. In this respect they
present a striking contrast to the elaboration bestowed upon them in
later years when houses were built for comfort and splendour, and
when a study of the methods of the artists of the Renaissance enabled
our English designers to indulge in determined efforts at magnificent
design.
It may be that in house-building the work was purposely subordinated
to that adopted in church-building: it may be that the fact of houses
being subject to attacks from which the sacred character of churches
preserved them, led to an avoidance of costly or elaborate ornament.
But, whatever the reason, the richest of domestic doorways and
windows cannot compare in splendour with the finer specimens of such
features in churches or cathedrals; and, as a rule, their richness
was restrained within severe and narrow bounds. In some of the more
important dwellings, especially in the earliest times, considerable
attention was bestowed upon doorways, and the employment of several
“orders,” or shallow arches placed in receding fashion one behind
the other, led to striking and even noble effects. Windows are such
vulnerable points that they were in early times almost always small
and plain. Ceilings were merely the constructional expression of the
floors of which they formed the under side. Fireplaces were only so
far ornamented as their construction seemed to suggest, especially in
the earlier examples. It was not until the time of Elizabeth that the
chimney-piece as a stately and predominating feature came into fashion.
[Illustration: 50. Warkworth Castle.
Entrance Gateway (late 14th cent.).]
* * * * *
During the mediæval period, throughout the whole of which it was
necessary to guard against assault, EXTERNAL DOORWAYS were
simple in treatment, and were protected either by being placed in
a recess commanded by openings through which arrows could be shot
(called oillets), or by being surmounted at greater or less height by
projecting stonework which concealed openings (called machicolations)
through which missiles of various kinds could be hurled upon the
heads of those attempting to force an entrance. In many cases, as
at Warkworth Castle (Fig. 50), both these methods of defence were
adopted. An oillet can be seen on the canted face to the left of the
doorway; the machicolations are carried across between the two turrets.
Frequently the entrance was further protected by a portcullis, or
massive grille of wood, which slid up and down in a groove in the
stonework. Nearly every castle and many of the fortified houses were
thus defended, and there are innumerable instances in which the grooves
may still be seen. These defensive arrangements are an interesting
subject, but are outside the present purpose, except in so far as
they affect the architectural treatment. Machicolations are sometimes
found over doors in dwelling-houses, but more generally in connection
with the gatehouse. They not infrequently occur at the summit of
towers, and impart the characteristic appearance produced by the heavy
projection which they necessitated. One result of the universal need
for protection was that doorways were generally small; small, that is,
in comparison with those that came into use in the seventeenth century.
Even the principal doors of a house were restricted in size, and were
generally in one sheet, not divided down the middle and hung on either
hand. The commonest form of fastening was a stout oak bar, which when
out of use was pushed back into a long recess in the wall, and when
wanted was drawn across the door far enough for its end to fit into a
shallow recess in the opposite jamb.
[Illustration: 51. Doorways.
(_a_) From Prebendal House, Nassington, Northamptonshire.
(_b_) Doorway (right) and Window (left), Rochester Castle,
Kent (_c._ 1130).]
[Illustration: 52. Hedingham Castle, Essex.
Entrance Doorway, with grooves for portcullis.]
[Illustration: 53. Hedingham Castle.
(_cir._ 1130).
Archway from Stairs to Gallery.]
Early doorways are usually round-headed; sometimes the sweep of the
arch was not fully semicircular but segmental. In important buildings
like Rochester Castle and Hedingham, the arches were either of several
orders or were richly ornamented with the zigzag or spiral mouldings
characteristic of the period (Figs. 51, 52, 53). In houses of less
importance, such as the prebendal house at Nassington, the treatment
was simpler (Fig. 51_a_). In this case, although the arch is
round, the label terminations show it to be of somewhat later date,
probably early in the thirteenth century, or nearly a hundred years
after those at Rochester and Hedingham.
[Illustration: 54. Aydon Castle, Northumberland (_cir._ 1280).
Doorway to Hall.]
[Illustration: 55. Bishop’s Palace, Mayfield, Sussex.
Doorway to Hall (early 14th cent.)]
[Illustration: 56. Northborough Manor House, Northamptonshire.
Doorways in the Screens (mid. 14th cent.).]
[Illustration: 57.
(_a_) Norrington Wilts (late 14th cent.).
(_b_) Eltham Palace, Kent (15th cent.).
(_c_) Lenham, Kent (late 15th cent.).
(_d_) Lacock, Wiltshire; from the Angel Inn (early 16th cent.).]
[Illustration: 58. Doorway from Harrietsham, Kent (late 15th cent.).]
Early in the thirteenth century arches became pointed, and doorways
followed suit; accordingly the example from Aydon Castle in
Northumberland (_c._ 1280), shows the later form (Fig. 54). It
is a good instance of the very general practice of entering the upper
floor through an external door approached by a flight of steps. The
marks where the protecting roof abutted against the wall are plainly
visible. As this doorway opened from an interior courtyard, special
measures of defence were not considered necessary. Of still later
date is the doorway of the Bishop’s palace at Mayfield, in Sussex
(Fig. 55). This charming little drawing not only shows the unusually
wide doorway, but also affords a glimpse into the great hall, with
its Decorated window and the springing of one of the stone arches
which carried the roof timbers. The Decorated period delighted in ogee
arches, ball-flowers, and crockets, and it bestowed them upon the
three doorways at Northborough (Fig. 56), which led from the screens
of the hall to the buttery, kitchen, and pantry. The illustration is
sketched from a point within the screens, and shows the inside of the
front door on the extreme right. The manor house at Northborough is
of very considerable interest in spite of the alterations which have
been found necessary to adapt it to modern uses. It retains its old
hall, now divided into two storeys; and the rather elaborate tracery
of its windows can still be detected, although built up in order to
accommodate the inserted floor. The house is approached across a court
into which access is obtained through a vaulted gatehouse, which has
suffered much mutilation. Most of the other buildings which form the
court are of the seventeenth century, and the whole group is full of
the suggestions prompted by time-worn buildings, especially where they
reveal themselves to the traveller in some remote village. It became
customary in the Perpendicular period to surround the pointed arch
with a rectangular frame, as shown in the various examples in Fig. 57.
The first step is taken in the doorway at Norrington in Wiltshire;
the idea is more resolutely carried out in the others. The Norrington
archway is boldly moulded, and it leads into a vaulted porch, a feature
less frequently found in houses than in churches. The doorway from
Eltham Palace has the spandrels, formed by the curved arch and the
rectangular frame, filled with tracery, and it is surmounted by a
bold square-headed label. The Lacock example shows a later type, in
which the pointed head is flattened in the manner customary in Tudor
times, a manner which lingered on, with variations, until well into the
reign of James I. The fourth example, from Lenham, is of wood, unlike
the others, which are of stone. It shows that the same treatment was
applied to both materials alike. There is another good example of a
late doorway in wood at Harrietsham, in Kent (Fig. 58). This sketch is
valuable as affording a glimpse into the screens of the hall, with
doorways on the right, leading to the servants’ quarters. The doorway
from the excellent half-timber house at Eastington, in Worcestershire,
is another good example in wood (Fig. 59). The beautiful doorways from
South Wingfield (Fig. 60, _a_, _b_) are specimens of the best
work of the Perpendicular period: that from Stanton Harcourt (Fig. 60,
_c_) is a good example of a small stone doorway with its original
oak door and iron hinges; it has a worthy companion in the little
door at Lacock. The last example in Fig. 60, _d_, shows a more
elaborately designed oak door from the school at Ewelme in Oxfordshire.
The fittings of the doors are worthy of attention; the wood handle
and iron knocker at Lenham, the knocker at Lacock, and the wood bolt
at Stanton Harcourt. When the doorways were of stone, the doors were
not hung in wood frames, but on stout hooks let into the stonework. It
was impossible, therefore, to shut them tight; there was always space
enough between the door and the stone to admit draughts and copious
piles of snow. In later years, as we shall see, door frames become
universal, but if found in mediæval houses they may be regarded as
insertions, unless the whole construction is of wood as in the examples
from Lenham and Harrietsham.
[Illustration: 59. Eastington Hall, Worcestershire.
Entrance Doorway (late 15th cent.).]
[Illustration: 60.
(_a_) Doorway of Porch, Wingfield Manor, Derbyshire (1435–40).
(_b_) Door from Hall to Garden, Wingfield Manor.
(_c_) Door in “Pope’s Tower,” Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire (late
15th cent.).
(_d_) Door to School, Ewelme, Oxfordshire (_cir._ 1440).]
[Illustration: 61. Hedingham Castle, Essex (_c._ 1130).
Window in Fourth Floor.
Plan.]
[Illustration: 62. Chacombe Priory.
Window (late 12th cent.).]
WINDOWS.--In all early houses the windows were small, owing to
the necessity for defence. On the ground floor they were little more
than narrow slits, three or four inches wide; but in the rooms less
directly exposed to attack, they were somewhat enlarged, although still
far short in area of the minimum required by modern by-laws, namely,
one-tenth of the floor space. They were unglazed, except in important
houses, such as those belonging to the king. Indeed, examples are not
infrequent, even in the fifteenth century, of windows never having
been glazed. Sheets of horn were sometimes used in order to keep out
the wind, without absolutely excluding the light. From the earliest
times windows were closed by shutters, which sometimes covered the
whole window, when it was not too large; and sometimes were provided
for each subdivision; for as already remarked, domestic windows were
often divided by cross-bars or transomes in order to obtain lights
of reasonable size in regard to the shutters. Tracery was sparingly
employed, and was usually not covered by the shutters; the openings
thus left formed useful outlets for the smoke, but must have been
considered by reflecting minds to be only a crude method of ventilation.
[Illustration: 63. Alnwick Castle, Northumberland.
Window (13th cent.), showing Window-seats and Recesses for Shutters.
The glazing is of later date.]
[Illustration: 64. Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk (13th cent.).
(_a_) Window on Upper Floor.
(_b_) Window between Hall and Chapel.]
[Illustration: 65. South Wingfield Manor.
Window in Porch (1435–40.)]
The treatment of house windows corresponded with that adopted in
churches. First they were round-headed, as at Castle Hedingham (Fig.
61), and Rochester (Fig. 51, _b_). Then they became pointed,
with, perhaps, a dividing mullion, as at Little Wenham Hall (Fig.
64, _b_). The plain pointed heads were then bent into a trefoil
shape, as at Chacombe Priory (Fig. 62), or were made with a flat summit
and curved shoulders, as at Alnwick Castle (Fig. 63). Tracery was
occasionally introduced, as at Little Wenham (Fig. 64, _a_). This
illustration and that from Chacombe, as well as the view of Oakham
Castle (Fig. 15), show that the forerunner of the mullion was a shaft
dividing the lights. In subsequent examples the mullion will be found
fully established.
[Illustration: 66. Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire.
Window in Guest-house (late 15th cent.).]
[Illustration: 67. Brympton D’Evercy, Somerset.
Bay Window (late 15th cent.).]
[Illustration: 68. Fawsley, Northamptonshire.
Bay Window of the Hall (late 15th cent.).]
The stone window frame itself was placed at the outside face of the
wall, and as the latter was of great thickness, the space inside
was furnished with stone seats, which are well shown in the example
from Alnwick Castle (Fig. 63), where also the sinking to contain the
shutters is plainly visible. The shutter itself is shown in the Little
Wenham example (Fig. 64, _b_), and in the window at Stokesay (Fig.
23). The glazing of all these windows may be considered as inserted in
later years; but whether glazed or not, the lights were protected by
iron bars down to the end of the sixteenth century.
A Decorated window of the fourteenth century is given in the
illustration from the palace at Mayfield (Fig. 55), and again in
that of Penshurst (Fig. 71). The charming window from the porch at
South Wingfield of the Perpendicular period (Fig. 65), has unusually
elaborate tracery, but it serves to emphasise the resemblance between
domestic and ecclesiastical architecture, as also do the larger windows
from the same house--the bay, and the window in the gable of the state
apartment shown in Figs. 36 and 37.
An excellent example of the late fifteenth century is to be seen
at Abingdon Abbey, in the very interesting guest-house (Fig. 66).
These lights were not glazed, but were furnished with iron bars and
shutters. During the fifteenth century, owing to the less urgent need
for defence, windows increased in size, and by the end of that century
windows of six or eight lights, or even long ranges of lights, were not
infrequent.
One of the most striking features of domestic architecture, and one
which in the hands of Elizabethan designers often dominated the
composition of their façades, was the BAY WINDOW. By the later
architects it was repeated symmetrically so as to help the rhythm of
the design. But in mediæval times, with which we are now dealing, it
was treated as an isolated feature, and was seldom used except to add
to the amenities of the daïs in the great hall. In this position it
gave a little extra space, conveniently situated for the reception
of a sideboard. Its lights were brought down low enough to afford an
outlook, whereas the other windows of the hall were kept up some 10 or
12 ft. from the floor. Even when used singly and without any idea of
symmetrical repetition, the bay window was a commanding feature, and
was frequently the occasion of such happy architectural grouping as may
be seen at Brympton D’Evercy, in Somerset (Fig. 67).
[Illustration: 69. Sherborne, Dorset.
Oriel Window (15th cent.).]
It is not easy to say when bay windows were first introduced, but
apparently not earlier than the middle of the fourteenth century;
they were, however, generally adopted during the fifteenth, and the
Perpendicular style affords many beautiful examples. Among them may be
mentioned South Wingfield (Fig. 36), and Fawsley in Northamptonshire
(Fig. 68). The ceilings of these bays were not infrequently vaulted in
stone, with elaborate tracery and cusps, as is the case in this fine
window at Fawsley, the Deanery at Wells, the oriel at Great Chalfield
in Wiltshire, and many others. The great bay at Fawsley is of unusual
interest, inasmuch as there is a small chamber above it, which was
originally approached by a narrow newel staircase. Owing to its remote
position, tradition has assigned this chamber as the secret place
where the celebrated Martin Marprelate tracts were printed.
Bay windows were occasionally introduced on an upper floor,
being corbelled out from the face of the wall; such windows are
called oriels. There is a good example at Sherborne in Dorset, of
Perpendicular date (Fig. 69). The earliest known example of an oriel
window is at Prudhoe Castle, in Northumberland; it is not actually
corbelled out, however, but rests on a crosswall below.
[Illustration: 70. Glastonbury, Somerset.
Front of Wood House, showing Window and Doors.]
The construction of wooden houses, formed of stout uprights placed at
short intervals, lent itself freely to the introduction of long ranges
of window lights such as those in a street front at Glastonbury (Fig.
70), where the framing of the walls served also as the frame of the
window.
* * * * *
FIREPLACES occur in some of the earliest buildings; that
is, large recesses specially contrived in the walls, with an outlet
for the smoke carried up for some distance in the masonry. This
arrangement appears to have been adopted very generally, and was by no
means a luxury of later times. It is true that the alternative method
of a central hearth in the middle of the floor was also of frequent
occurrence. But both ways of heating were in vogue at the same time.
The wall fireplace is not the successor of the central hearth, but
if anything its predecessor. When it is remembered that in the early
keeps the various rooms were placed one over the other, it is clear
that the facilities for the escape of smoke from the lower rooms would
have been but small had the fire been on a central hearth. There would
indeed have been no exits for it but the small windows. Accordingly
most keeps are provided with fireplaces in the walls. A good example is
furnished at Castle Hedingham (Fig. 6). On the other hand, in the great
halls of the fortified manor houses, which were usually of one storey,
it was an easy matter to contrive an opening in the roof immediately
over the central hearth. This opening was protected by a ventilating
turret called the louvre, which kept off the rain, but allowed the
smoke--or as much of it as was not wafted about the room--to escape
through it. As the roofs were constructed of wood, so too of necessity
was the louvre, and owing to the lapse of time and to other destructive
agencies, both roofs and louvres of the early periods have perished.
In some houses, such as Stokesay, the central hearth of the great hall
still remains, while in the smaller rooms fireplaces of contemporary
date are also to be seen. It is clear that the central hearth was not
considered an intolerable nuisance, inasmuch as it survived until the
end of the fifteenth century and later: the great hall at Richmond
Palace, built for Henry VII., had one; so too had Deene Hall, already
referred to, which was built in the reign of Edward VI. The louvre
for the central hearth had a direct successor in the lantern light so
often seen in Georgian houses; the connection between the two may be
seen in some of the halls of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge,
where it is evident that the lantern light stands in the same place as
the ancient louvre, and is but a modernised version of that feature. An
excellent example of a central hearth in a great hall may still be seen
at Penshurst Place in Kent (Fig. 71). This, although of later date,
about 1350, is typical of all such cases.
[Illustration: 71. Penshurst Place, Kent.
The Great Hall.]
[Illustration: 72. Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire.
Chimney-shaft and Chimney-vent (13th cent.).]
[Illustration: 73. Abingdon Abbey.
Orifice of Chimney-vent.]
Although the early keeps were usually warmed (if warmed it may be
called) by fireplaces, there are exceptions such as the Peak Castle,
where there are no signs of such accommodation. How these places
were heated is not apparent, but as flues of lath and plaster were
occasionally used, and the hoods of fireplaces were sometimes formed
of wood, it is probable that a perishable expedient of this nature was
adopted.
[Illustration: 74. Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire.
Fireplace (13th cent.).]
* * * * *
CHIMNEYS.--It has already been pointed out that in quite early
times, as at Castle Hedingham, the fireplace flue was not carried up
to any great height, but was shortly conducted to an orifice in the
face of the wall (see Fig. 6). There is a fireplace of even earlier
date, similarly contrived, at Colchester Castle. It is doubtful whether
any example of a chimney-shaft of Norman times is to be found. One
of the earliest remaining chimney-shafts is at Abingdon Abbey on the
Thames in Berkshire (Fig. 72), a well-known river landmark. The large
square stack contains a single flue, which rises from the fireplace of
the upper room, and delivers its smoke through the vertical openings
at the summit. In the fireplace of the lower room the earlier method
was adopted, and the smoke emerged from the little projection in the
wall to the left of the base of the large stack: a plan of the orifice
is given in Fig. 73. The date of this work is about the middle of the
thirteenth century. The fireplace which is served by the large flue is
shown in Fig. 74. Of much the same date are the fireplaces at Stokesay,
of one of which the remains are shown in Fig. 75. The wooden kerb or
frame supported by the corbels appears to be of the original date, and
must have carried a wooden hood. But as a rule these hoods were of
stone as at Abingdon Abbey. The earliest fireplaces were flush with
the wall, but it was soon found necessary to introduce a projecting
hood in order to catch the smoke--a contrivance familiar to us, though
on a small scale, in many modern fire-grates.
[Illustration: 75. Stokesay Castle, Shropshire.
Fireplace in North Tower (13th cent.).]
[Illustration: 76. Aydon Castle, Northumberland.
Chimney-shaft (_cir._ 1280).]
A sort of compromise between a wall orifice and a chimney-shaft is
to be seen at Aydon Castle (Fig. 76), where there are also several
simple fireplaces with stone hoods, of about 1280 (Fig. 77, _a_,
_b_). The wall orifice was, no doubt, found to be insufficient for
its purpose, and the chimney-shaft was further developed. It should
be borne in mind that not every room was provided with a fireplace;
consequently the chimney-shafts were nearly always isolated features;
chimney-stacks combining several flues grouped together followed in
later years, when it became customary to warm more rooms. As in all
other mediæval work, the ornamental treatment of chimneys varied
with the changes of style. Of the late Decorated period is that at
Northborough (Fig. 78); of yet later date are those in the Vicar’s
Close at Wells (Fig. 79), and that at Harringworth (Fig. 80).
[Illustration: 77. Fireplaces.
(_a_, _b_) From Aydon Castle (_cir._ 1240).
(_c_) From Sherborne Abbey (15th cent.).
(_d_) From the Church House, Salisbury (15th cent.).]
[Illustration: 78. Northborough, Northamptonshire.
Chimney (14th cent.).]
[Illustration: 79. Vicar’s Close, Wells.
Chimney (15th cent.).]
Fireplaces in the meanwhile changed with the progress of years. The
hood which had been adopted in order to catch the smoke when the recess
for the fire was shallow, was in turn abandoned when the recess was
made deeper, and it became no longer necessary. The hoods had been
rather plain, gaunt features, devoid of superfluous ornament. As the
amenities of life increased with the diminishing need of defensive
precautions, so also did the desire for embellishment, and during the
Perpendicular period, a great amount of attention was bestowed upon
the decoration of fireplaces. The stone work which surrounded the
recess was panelled and cusped, and enclosed by shafts supporting a
cornice--the forerunner of our familiar chimney shelf (Fig. 77, _c_,
_d_). Heraldry began to play an important part in the decoration.
At Aydon may be seen (Fig. 77, _a_) the first uncertain step in the
direction to which Tattershall (Figs. 81, 82) and Fawsley (Fig. 83)
subsequently led. The richness to which the fifteenth century attained
was, however, far outdone by that which the Elizabethan designers
achieved a century later.
[Illustration: 80. Harringworth, Northamptonshire.
Chimney (15th cent.).]
There are no remains extant of quite early domestic ROOFS OR
CEILINGS; but from the appearance of the stone walls, it is
tolerably certain that they were built of wood. Stone vaulting very
seldom occurs except in a few rooms on the ground floor, and in such
cases it was probably adopted as a safeguard against fire. The little
keep or tower at Longthorpe in Northamptonshire has its ground floor
stone-vaulted: so, too, have many of the peel-towers of Northumberland.
But the great keeps at Rochester, Hedingham, and elsewhere, had roofs
and floors of wood. The huge beams which carried the floors no doubt
showed in the room below, but there is no evidence that in early times
any special attention was devoted to ornamenting the ceiling. In the
fifteenth century the constructional beams were moulded and arranged
with some regularity, as plenty of examples prove; and this, if any,
was probably the method adopted in early times.
[Illustration: 81. Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire.
Chimney-piece on Upper Floor, showing Heraldic Decoration.]
[Illustration: 82. Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire.
Chimney-piece on Ground Floor (1430–40).]
[Illustration: 83. Fawsley, Northamptonshire.
Chimney-piece in Great Hall (15th cent.).]
The great halls of manor houses, which, as already said, were usually
of one storey, were covered with fine open timber roofs, and although
no early examples are left, there are plenty of the fifteenth century
and even earlier. The construction of such roofs is probably more or
less familiar to most people. The outer covering of lead, slates, or
tiles rested on the rafters, which were supported on longitudinal
beams called purlins; these in their turn were carried by strongly
framed supports called principals (_i.e._, principal rafters),
which spanned the hall from side to side at intervals of twelve feet
or thereabouts. Sometimes, though rarely, as at Mayfield Palace (Fig.
55) and Ightham Mote in Kent, the principal was a great stone
arch.[3] But as a rule, it was of massive timber framed together,
and it was in the construction of this feature that the most obvious
opportunities for ornamental treatment occurred. In churches it was
carried occasionally to the most astonishing lengths; but in houses
this exuberance was restrained, and as a rule the open timber roofs
of houses, although extremely handsome, were quite soberly treated.
A fairly early example of the thirteenth century is to be seen at
Stokesay (Fig. 20). Of the fourteenth century may be mentioned Drayton
House in Northamptonshire (Fig. 84), now quite hidden by a ceiling
of much later years, and Penshurst Place (Fig. 71). Of the fifteenth
century is Little Sodbury (Fig. 85), while of the late fifteenth is
Eltham Palace (Fig. 86).
[Illustration: 84. Drayton House, Northamptonshire.
Roof of the Great Hall (_cir._ 1328).]
[Illustration: 85. Little Sodbury, Gloucestershire.
Roof of Hall (15th cent.).]
[Illustration: 86. Eltham Palace, Kent.
Roof of Great Hall (late 15th cent.).]
The Drayton example is interesting inasmuch as there are two types of
principal: the main principals carry the purlins, which in their turn
carry the intermediates; they are strengthened and supported where
this additional load comes, by curved braces or struts, which rest on
the wall at the foot of the main principals. Curved braces were very
commonly employed; they occur both at Little Sodbury and Eltham, and
in the latter case the curves are so designed as to form a feature in
the decorative effect. In this example it will be seen that a more
determined effort at design has been made, the whole work has been
more carefully thought out than in the others. It is, moreover, of the
hammer-beam type; that is, the main arch of the principal does not
spring from the wall itself, but from a projecting piece of timber (the
hammer-beam), which is supported by a curved strut springing from the
wall.
[Illustration: 87. Crowhurst Place, Surrey.
Ceiling with Moulded Beams.]
[Illustration: 88. Lavenham, Suffolk.
Ceiling with Carved Beams.]
[Illustration: 89. Lyddington, Rutland.
Hall of Bede House, showing Panelled Wood Ceiling and Traceried Cornice
(early 16th cent.).]
[Illustration: 90. Lavenham, Suffolk.
Part of Panelled Ceiling, showing Boss at the Junction of the Wood Ribs
(early 16th cent.).]
The open timber roof survived in places down to the early years of
the seventeenth century. But the fashion of having lofty halls then
gradually fell into disuse; halls were surmounted by a room above them,
and the need for a handsome roof disappeared, its place being taken by
a flat, decorated ceiling.
Ceilings, such as we conceive the word, were not known in mediæval
work, at any rate not until late in the fifteenth century. The ceiling
was, in fact, the underside of the floor above, and its ornamental
character was obtained by a regular disposition of the constructional
timbers, and by working mouldings on the latter. The effect was massive
and handsome, the ceiling (for want of a better word) being divided
into large deeply recessed squares or oblongs by heavily moulded beams.
Crowhurst Place in Surrey has a good example of this treatment (Fig.
87). In some instances the underside of the floor joists (_i.e._,
the smaller timbers which rested on the beams and carried the floor
boards) was carved, as in the curious example from a house at Lavenham
in Suffolk (Fig. 88).
The origin of the ceiling as distinguished from the underside of the
floor, appears to be found late in the fifteenth century, or early in
the sixteenth, when the practice was introduced of covering the lower
sides of the floor joists with flat boarding and dividing the level
surface into panels by means of applied mouldings. Such a ceiling is
found in the Bede House at Lyddington in Rutland, formerly a country
house of the Bishops of Lincoln (Fig. 89). The junction of the ribs was
sometimes ornamented with a carved boss such as is shown in Fig. 90,
also from a house in Lavenham. This simple method of treating ceilings
was developed in course of time into the elaborate plasterwork of
Elizabethan houses. The room at Lyddington has a very remarkable wood
cornice fashioned after the manner of the fan tracery prevalent at the
end of the fifteenth century (Fig. 91). But this kind of ornament was
not at all general, and it may be doubted whether any other instance of
it can be cited.
[Illustration: 91. Lyddington Bede House.
Traceried Cornice in Wood.]
* * * * *
STAIRCASES.--There is little to be said about mediæval staircases.
They were almost universally of the corkscrew type, the steps winding
round a central newel, as at Tattershall Castle (Fig. 43). There was
but little opportunity for embellishment, and accordingly none is
to be found, the nearest approach being the treatment of the stone
handrail already shown in Fig. 44. The steps were usually of stone, the
undersides being sloped off to afford as much head room as possible
below them. In some instances when the summit of the staircase was
reached, the roof of the enclosure was vaulted with some attention to
appearances, but beyond this the ornamental treatment did not go. There
are a few instances of these staircases being vaulted all the way up
in brick, the steps themselves being then built up on the top of the
vaulting. This was a clever and ingenious piece of brickwork, but was
not especially ornamental. Indeed we have to wait until the time of
Elizabeth for any display of fancy in the treatment of staircases; up
to that time they were strictly utilitarian in character.
* * * * *
The WALLS of mediæval houses were frequently left bare, but
when they were covered three methods seem to have been adopted. The
earliest was to apply a thin layer of plaster, a method which has
survived to the present day. But whereas nowadays the plaster is of
sufficient thickness to cover all the irregularities of the wall and
to be brought to a perfectly true and even surface, in early times it
was quite thin, and although it stopped all the crevices, it retained
the main irregularities of the wall, and produced a pleasant variety
of effect. The plaster was frequently decorated with coloured lines or
simple patterns, and occasionally with figure subjects. The next method
was to cover the walls with wainscot, that is, with oak panelling.
Of this treatment few, if any, examples survive; but, judging from
other Gothic woodwork, the panels must have been of considerable
size set in framing of large scantling. This work was also frequently
painted in colours and patterns. The third method and the last in
point of date, was to cover them with hangings--tapestry or arras,
as they were generally called, from the town where they were chiefly
manufactured--“the costly cloths of Arras and of Tours,” as Spenser
calls them.
CHAPTER VII.
EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY--COMING OF THE
ITALIAN INFLUENCE.
It was during the sixteenth century that took place the most remarkable
development in domestic architecture which occurred in England until
the middle of the nineteenth century; and especially during the
second half was this extraordinary advance particularly noticeable.
Several causes produced this effect, chief among them being that great
upheaval in thought which gave rise to the wonderful movement known
as the Renaissance. The Renaissance stands not only for a revival of
ancient forms in architecture, sculpture, and painting, but for a
vast awakening in all departments of human enterprise, and the final
abandonment of mediævalism with all its crude and crabbed methods
and ways of thought. New ways were followed in science, in learning,
in religion, in art; and the knowledge of these new ways was widely
disseminated by the new invention of printing. So far as architecture
was concerned, Italy was the fountainhead of the new stream of thought;
and so far as England was concerned, it was in the reign of Henry VIII.
that the stream first reached our shores, and affected our traditional
methods of design.
The dissolution of the monasteries was another cause of the change
which came over building, inasmuch as it transferred into private and
secular hands much of the vast possessions hitherto held by the Church.
The confusion into which religion was thrown put an effectual stop to
church building, and consequently opened the way to increased house
building. The abatement of civil strife and the general security of
life and property under the strong and sagacious rule of Elizabeth was
a further inducement towards the erection of comfortable homes. The
rise of the new nobility which sprang from her recognition of talent in
persons of comparatively obscure origin, led to the founding of some of
the finest houses of which the country can boast. Finally, the desire
for magnificence, which has already been noticed in a few instances in
the preceding century, became general, fostered as it was by rivalry,
the possession of wealth, and the sense of security from internecine
strife.
Italy, being the home of the new manner in art, communicated her
methods in course of time to her neighbours. Out of her superabundant
craftsmen she spared some for other lands. They settled in France, they
settled in England; at least they hardly settled here, but they visited
us for longer or shorter periods, and left us a legacy in design.
Our own craftsmen gradually, and with some reluctance, adopted their
methods, and having become accustomed to the strange forms brought from
the far south, they turned in later years with increased eagerness to
their near neighbours the Dutch, who had themselves learnt the new
lesson in their own stolid and unimaginative way.
The early steps in the change of design are of great interest. They
appear at first infrequently and tentatively in insignificant ornament;
then rather more freely; after a time they affect prominent features
such as cornices; then the pediment appears; the pointed arch gives way
to the semicircular, windows become square-headed; classic pilasters
are introduced, sparingly at first, but afterwards with more freedom;
symmetry of disposition in the plan of the house becomes more frequent.
Yet beneath all these Italian adornments the body of the house is
of the old English type; with all its foreign variations, the melody
itself is native. It is an endless delight to watch the struggles
of the English craftsman with his novel ornament. Sometimes they
resulted in quaint applications of misunderstood features; sometimes in
proportions which would have pained the eye of Palladio; but frequently
in charming little bits of design, refreshingly simple and unobtrusive.
Meantime the plan of the house was continued on the old lines,
and Henry VIII.’s reign saw no great or general development of
accommodation. A large number of houses were built during his reign
and that of his predecessor, and it is to this period that may be
attributed a great proportion of the domestic work of late Gothic or
Tudor character.
[Illustration: 92. Plan of Horham Hall, Essex.]
Horham Hall, in Essex, is a good example, moderate in size, of this
period. It was built in the early years of the sixteenth century by Sir
John Cutt, who died in 1520. The plan (Fig. 92) follows the ancient
lines, the great hall being in its traditional relationship to the rest
of the house. The old indifference to regularity is well illustrated
by the passage, treated as a kind of bay window, which leads from the
hall to the north wing. The windows in general have but one range of
lights, but in the bay of the hall and in the passage, the lingering
reluctance to adopt large windows is thrown away (Fig. 93), and we
get a foretaste of that vast array of lights which was presently to
become a distinguishing feature of domestic architecture. There is a
large fireplace in the hall and a contemporary louvre in its roof; a
somewhat curious combination, inasmuch as the louvre would be needless,
either for the escape of smoke or (in view of the large bay window) for
the admission of light.
[Illustration: 93. Horham Hall, Essex (early 16th cent.).]
[Illustration: 94. Kirtling Hall, Cambridgeshire.
The Gatehouse (early 16th cent.).]
There is a strange craving among dwellers in old houses to exaggerate
the antiquity of their dwellings. Imagination is fond of peopling with
monks halls which were built subsequently to the suppression of the
monastic orders, and probably with the wealth acquired in consequence
of that event. King John has been made to sleep upon a bed which was
constructed when King James was on the throne. A cusped window light
will carry its enthusiastic proprietor back two centuries earlier than
the facts warrant. But domestic work of a date earlier than Henry
VII. is not abundant, and it is probably within the mark to say that
nine-tenths of the Gothic stonework of ancient houses and ninety-nine
hundredths of the Gothic woodwork are attributable to the time of Henry
VII. and Henry VIII.
These new houses were evidently built for pleasure more than for
security, although defensive precautions were not entirely omitted.
They often occupied the site of an earlier house; but whether this were
the case or not, they were generally surrounded by a moat, crossed no
longer by a drawbridge, but by one of permanent character. Permanent by
comparison, that is to say, for even where moats still remain, bridges
of this date are rare; but as a rule the moats have been filled in and
the bridges removed, or in any case the moats have been so much filled
in as to give easy access to the front entrance.
Some sort of courtyard was contrived in the majority of instances, and
as a rule it was surrounded by buildings rather than by a simple wall
of defence. The entrance was through a gateway, generally emphasised
with a tower over it; indeed one of the characteristic features of
large Tudor houses is the lofty tower in which the entrance is set.
The bold projecting turrets which usually flank the gateway on each
side are a peaceful reminiscence of the defensive towers of earlier
times. These gatehouses sometimes rose to a great height. At Oxburgh in
Norfolk, Kirtling in Cambridgeshire (Fig. 94), and Cowdray in Sussex,
they are from four to six storeys; and the splendid tower at Layer
Marney in Essex has as many as eight. The gates were massive, and there
was a porter to keep guard, who passed his time in a room adjoining
the entrance. In smaller houses where there was no porter there was
sometimes a little window or opening commanding a view of the entrance
from an adjoining room. It is evident that the household was jealous
of strangers, but it was less the bold marauding neighbour whom they
feared, than the sturdy beggars who caused no little anxiety to those
responsible for the public peace, especially in the years succeeding
the suppression of the monasteries, where hitherto mendicants had found
shelter and help.
The old reluctance to have large windows in outside walls still
lingered; indeed most of the windows of this period (_i.e._, the
first thirty years of the sixteenth century) are composed of only
one row of lights; the majority of Tudor windows have no transome or
cross-bar. In many cases, it is true, the height of the rooms did not
call for an upper row of lights. Where, however, there was no reason
to restrict window space, particularly in the bay windows of the hall
or the principal living rooms, fine lofty windows of many lights were
introduced. The bay window and the oriel--by which is here meant a bay
window to an upper floor, springing from the wall and not carried down
to the ground, of which Kirtling has a fine example (Fig. 94)--were
very considerably developed, and may be reckoned among the most
striking characteristics of English domestic architecture of this and
the Elizabethan periods.
The window heads were still cusped, and, although tracery was very
seldom introduced, the upper part was sometimes emphasised by a row of
quatrefoils or some similar elaboration (Fig. 91). This obstructing of
the top of the window with solid stonework, where the greatest amount
of light is to be obtained, was gradually relinquished; then the simple
cusps, which also diminished the light, were dropped, and finally the
curved heads gave way to straight ones, and thus the maximum amount of
light was secured.
[Illustration: 95. Layer Marney, Essex.
Windows (_cir._ 1520).]
The upper range has cusping formed by floriated dolphins, and mullions
ornamented with arabesques. The lower range is treated in the customary
manner of the Tudor period. There is a row of egg-and-tongue ornament
above the cusped corbels over the lower windows.]
The new fashion in ornament which came in with the Italian influence
led to quaint adaptations of ancient features. At Layer Marney, for
instance, the cusping is obtained not by bending out a portion of the
mullion, a growth springing naturally from its parent stem, but by the
introduction of little floriated dolphins “counter-hauriant”--to
use a heraldic term. The mullions, too, are not the splayed or
moulded shafts of English tradition, but rectangular shafts with
faces elaborately carved with arabesques (Fig. 95). The effect at a
distance, where the eye cannot detect the detail, is very like that of
a cusped window. So, too, in still later years, where traceried windows
were used, as in some of the college halls, the forms of the tracery
were ingeniously contrived to accord with the new Italianised detail
rather than the old Gothic. At Layer Marney the mixture of the ancient
and the modern is further exemplified by the presence of the classic
egg-and-tongue ornament above a cusped corbel table, below which are
windows with the flat pointed heads characteristic of the Tudor style.
At Sutton Place in Surrey, the mixture is again seen. The windows with
their pointed and cusped heads are thoroughly Gothic, while the amorini
over the door and in the parapet are equally Italian in feeling, though
not in delicacy of modelling. The diamond-shaped panels are likewise
of southern origin (Fig. 96). Both these houses were built about 1520
to 1525. East Barsham in Norfolk (Fig. 97), which preceded them by
about ten years, and resembles them in general style, just misses the
Italian detail, although at first sight some of its ornament appears
similar to that at Sutton Place. All three houses are of brick with
terra-cotta embellishments, and are fine specimens of the brickwork
which was used with such excellent effect during the first thirty years
of the sixteenth century. A very prevalent custom at this period was to
diversify the red brickwork with a diaper of darker bricks.
But, as already said, the new Italian fashion, although it affected
the embellishment of the house, was long before it affected the plan.
In the reign of Henry VII., indeed, it is nowhere apparent, either in
plan or ornament. A few prominent dates are useful in fixing on the
mind important changes of style; and the advent of the Renaissance
manner into England can be fixed by remembering that it made its first
appearance in the tomb of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, which was
erected by the order of Henry VIII. in the year 1516. Any work with
Italian or Italianised detail, may safely be dated subsequent to that
year. There is a considerable amount of work of this kind to be found
up and down the country, but chiefly in the southern and eastern
counties. The only building which it actually dominated appears to
have been Henry VIII.’s house of Nonsuch in Surrey, now entirely
destroyed; but in such isolated features as screens, panels, tombs, and
doorways, it frequently occurs.
[Illustration: 96. Sutton Place, Surrey.
Part of the Courtyard (1523–25).]
[Illustration: 97. East Barsham, Norfolk.
The Gatehouse (_cir._ 1500–15).]
During the reign of Henry VIII., who was a munificent patron of the
arts, the new style did much to establish itself, but houses were
still arranged on the traditional plan, and were rather haphazard in
their disposition. The hall continued to be the principal room; it
lay between the family rooms and the servants’ quarters. But it was
supplemented by retiring rooms of greater size, greater comfort, and
greater number. East Barsham (_c._ 1500–15), Thornbury Castle
(_c._ 1511), Compton Winyates (_c._ 1520), the enlargement
of Lytes Carey manor house (_c._ 1525), Hengrave Hall (c. 1538),
Little Moreton (_c._ 1559), all these, and others that might be
named, show the same free and irregular disposition, which had always
been distinctive of the English house.
Hengrave Hall (Fig. 98) is a stepping-stone from the mediæval to
the Elizabethan type. It is full of irregularity, but it is planned
on much more regular lines than South Wingfield, for instance. The
entrance front is symmetrical, although not absolutely so; it has a
large central doorway flanked by turrets, and is broken at intervals by
other turrets--features quite familiar in sixteenth-century houses. It
has a courtyard, encircled on three sides by a corridor, and the hall
looks out on to the limited area of the court. The windows are small in
comparison with the blank wall spaces, and the detail is Gothic, except
for some quasi-Italian amorini supporting the oriel over the front
door. While many of the old haphazard arrangements are retained, there
is a certain attempt at orderliness and symmetry which points the way
to the more regular planning of later years.
[Illustration: 98. Hengrave Hall, Suffolk (_cir._ 1538).
Ground Plan.]
Wolsey’s great palace at Hampton Court, although planned with
considerable attention to symmetry round several rectangular courts,
and with an eye to an axial line--arranged, that is to say, with a
view to noble and dignified effect, was still very irregular both in
disposition and in grouping, with roofs of different heights, lofty
towers, turrets, and chimneys. Spenser incidentally sketches such
palaces in the “Faerie Queene.” The house of Pride was “a stately
Pallace built of squarèd bricke,” where
“High lifted up were many loftie towres,
And goodly galleries far over laid,
Full of fair windowes and delightful bowres:
And on the top a Diall told the timely howres.”
The red-cross knight passing through the gates which “stood open wide,”
although in charge of a porter, came to the hall, “which was on every
side with rich array and costly arras dight.” The house of Temperance,
too, was entered through a porch of hewn stone fairly wrought, provided
with a “fayre portcullis” and a gate, likewise under the charge of a
porter, who, unlike the careless guardian of the house of Pride, duly
kept watch and ward and saw that every one passed in good order and due
regard. The gateway passed, the visitors came to
“a stately Hall
Wherein were many tables fayre dispred.”
Thence their hostess led them to see the kitchen,
“A vaut ybuilt for greate dispense
With many raunges reard along the wall,
And one great chimney, whose long tonnell thence
The smoke forth threw”;
and later,
“Thence backe againe faire Alma led them right,
And soone into a goodly Parlour brought
That was with royal arras richly dight.”
The only other part of her house to which Alma took her guests was a
turret,
“Therein were divers rowmes and divers stages,
But three the chiefest and of greatest powre.”
No other rooms are particularly mentioned, but these glimpses at the
palaces of Spenser’s days bring before our vision their gatehouses,
their towers and turrets, their long galleries, and their many windows.
It is both interesting and curious to find that even to Spenser, who
wrote in the latter part of the sixteenth century (the “Faerie Queene”
was being written in 1580), the hall, the kitchen, and the parlour were
still the principal apartments. Except for the sumptuous hangings and
the other embellishments with which he adorns his rooms, and except for
the parlour and gallery, the houses which he pictures resemble those
of Chaucer. The parlour, however, stands for a good deal; it typifies
the extension which had taken place in the family apartments. Spenser’s
descriptions, too, although indicating no great advance in the
classification of rooms, point to a much more magnificent furnishing
and adornment than anything to be found in Chaucer’s.
During Spenser’s life, however, a very great advance was being made
in domestic architecture, and in particular the planning of houses
was receiving especial attention, and was being undertaken by trained
experts. Doubtless the growth of Italian ideas had something to do
with this. Symmetry of disposition, instead of being occasionally
adopted, had become universal, and it required more than the skill of
a home-bred mason, such as hitherto had devised houses, to arrange the
increased accommodation now necessary, within the requisite symmetrical
outline, and at the same time to ensure a workable relation of rooms
one to the other. In addition to this a considerable acquaintance with
the new fashion in detail was required of designers, and accordingly
not a few of them made tours abroad to France and even as far as Italy
in order to familiarise themselves with foreign methods and to bring to
their work the most novel ideas of the time.
CHAPTER VIII.
LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--SYMMETRY IN
PLANNING.
The best known of the designers of this period is John Thorpe, who
lived in the reigns of Elizabeth and James; and his collection of
drawings, preserved in the Soane Museum, is of great value from the
light it throws on the house design of the time. Houses themselves
have generally undergone many alterations, from which it is difficult
to disentangle their history, or to tell with certainty what their
original plan may have been. But Thorpe’s drawings show what the
designer actually had in his mind as he worked. From them we learn
that in most cases the hall was still the chief apartment, and that it
still occupied its ancient situation between the family rooms on one
side and the servants’ rooms on the other. In the great majority of
examples the daïs is also shown, indicating that the ancient usage was
maintained of the family occupying the head of the hall at meals, while
the servants were ranged at tables in the body. But we know from other
sources that some families had already taken to dining in a separate
room, and that guests had complained of being set to dine with the
steward in the hall instead of with the family in the parlour. On some
of Thorpe’s plans a “dining parlour” is provided; on many of them there
is a “winter parlour,” placed within easy distance of the kitchen.
There is also an instance of a “servants’ dining-room,” and of a “hall
for hynds.” These all tend to show that the hall was losing its old
importance as the centre of life in the house. Such a fate was only
natural considering by how many other rooms it was now supplemented.
There were the “great chamber,” the “withdrawing-room,” and the “long
gallery” among the larger rooms; the “parlour,” the “breakfast-room,”
and the “study” among the smaller. In addition to these, which were
day rooms, were many “bed-chambers” and “lodgings,” which were in fact
bedrooms. The accommodation for the family and guests was therefore as
complete as could be desired--as complete, in fact, as at the present
day, if we except the very important item of bath-rooms and other
sanitary conveniences. The drawback is that the rooms, although far
more skilfully planned than of old, were subject to an almost rigidly
symmetrical outline, preventing that compactness which is now aimed
at; and as the various wings of the house were as a rule only one room
wide, it followed that some of the rooms had to be thoroughfare rooms.
This arrangement cannot have been held to be vastly inconvenient in
those days, nor for many days to come, for it continued until well into
the eighteenth century.
The subdivision in the servants’ quarters was as ample as in those
of the family. The “kitchen” was still, as it always had been, the
principal room on this side. The “buttery” and the “pantry” were also
of long standing. But the “pastry” had come in almost every instance
to supplement the kitchen, being the place where the baking was done,
and being furnished almost invariably with two ovens. The “dry larder”
and “wet larder” were equally frequent, and so was the “survaying
place,” or serving-room. There are also to be found in the larger
houses a “scullery,” a “meal house,” “bolting-house,” “spicery,”
“trencher,” “pewter,” and “brush.” The steward, his clerk, the butler,
the pantler, and the waiters are all found to have their own separate
rooms. How widely different is all this from the ancient custom of the
whole household living by day and night in the great hall!
The need for the great hall, indeed, was passing away. Already in a
few of Thorpe’s plans it is found to be arranged in a manner no longer
suitable for its old purposes. In some it is placed out of its central
position. By the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century it
had practically lost its ancient character of the chief living room,
and had become little more than a fine vestibule leading to the actual
living rooms and the rest of the house.
Reproductions of a few of Thorpe’s drawings will serve to illustrate
the Elizabethan and Jacobean type of plan even better than plans of
actual houses. They link themselves at one end to the mediæval type,
and they lead at the other to that altered treatment of the hall which
marks the definite break with mediævalism. It is unfortunate that there
is no means of fixing their various dates; the sequence in which they
are placed is therefore not necessarily chronological. They represent
types of arrangement of which many other instances may be found in
Thorpe’s collection. First, there is the courtyard plan (Fig. 99),
the modernised version of the defensive court of earlier times. Here
all thought of defence is abandoned, save that the main entrance is
through an archway overlooked by the porter. Visitors are not repelled
by frowning gateways, a grim portcullis, and blind walls pierced with
nothing but hostile slits. On the contrary, access is made easy and
inviting. A flight of steps leads on to a terrace, and thence direct to
the main door; cheerful windows fill the walls, arranged not only to
give light within and a view without, but also to enliven the structure
itself with the ordered rhythm of their glittering panes. The
courtyard is handsomely furnished with stately bays running the full
height of the walls; a long range of arches faces the entrance, and
forms a loggia beneath which is the door to the screens. The external
façades are designed with equal care. At each corner there is a massive
pavilion, and from one to the other stretch the main walls sparkling
with windows, which are relieved from monotony by the introduction of
further bays.
[Illustration: 99. Ground and Upper Plans of an Unnamed House.
_From the Thorpe Collection._]
There is no haphazard planning about this house; everything is
carefully thought out; the effect of every projection, every window,
and every chimney is considered. Yet with all this symmetry and
formality, the underlying arrangement follows the old lines. The
hall is entered through the screens; it has its daïs, its bay, and
its fireplace near to its upper end; from this end are approached
the family rooms--the parlour, the chapel, and the principal stairs,
leading to the great chamber, the withdrawing-room, and the long
gallery. On the other side of the house, but downstairs, lie the
kitchens in the basement.
The next plan (Fig. 100) is that of a house with a fore-court, only
(as explained on the drawing itself) the court, with its diagonally
placed entrance lodges, should have been drawn on the front of the
house instead of being detached and at the back. But this correction
made--and it will be easier done by looking at Kip’s view (Fig.
101)--it will be seen that a reminiscence of the old jealousy of
approach is still found in the walled court and its entrance lodges;
otherwise the house is obviously built without a thought of protection.
It is contrived for display combined with convenience. Its terraces
and long symmetrical fronts are the means towards the first, while
the second is greatly helped by the passage, or “longe entry throughe
all,” which runs the whole length of the house. This is a feature
quite new in house planning, so far. Otherwise the ancient dispositions
are adopted; the hall lies to the right of the screens, and beyond
it the parlour and chapel; to the left the buttery, pantry, and (at
some distance) the kitchen. Kip’s view shows the dignified but simple
treatment of the exterior, and the surrounding courts and gardens. The
plan is not named in Thorpe’s drawing, but it agrees so closely with
Kip’s view as to leave little doubt that it is the same house--namely,
Beaufort House in Chelsea, built by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury,
during the closing years of the sixteenth century, by way either of
enlarging or replacing an earlier house, which had been the home of
Sir Thomas More.
[Illustration: 100. Ground Plan (unnamed).
_From the Thorpe Collection._
It is probably Beaufort House, Chelsea.]
[Illustration: 101. Beaufort House, Chelsea, Kip’s View.]
[Illustration: 102. Ground Plan (unnamed).
_From the Thorpe Collection._]
The next plan is of the =H= type, which was widely employed at this
period (Fig. 102). Without entering into minute detail it will suffice
to draw attention to the maintenance of the time-honoured position of
the hall between the family rooms and the servants’ quarters; to the
provision of a winter parlour near the kitchen; to the strict symmetry
of the general plan, and to the many windows, arranged not only to give
light to the rooms, but also by their ordered disposition to impart a
distinctive character to the appearance of the building. To such an
extent is this symmetrical treatment carried, that in the “lodging”
near the winter parlour, two of the window’s are crippled by the
fireplace, with the result that they become in part shams. This is a
striking testimony to the change which was coming over house design.
Hitherto windows had been provided for the sake of light within; now
they are regarded as means of obtaining effect without. The other
characteristic features to be observed are the balustraded terraces on
the front and back; the arcades on either side of the porch; and the
court at the back with a fountain placed on each side of the central
paved walk. There is no elevation corresponding to this plan, but the
general effect of the front may be gathered from a view of old Somerset
House in the Strand, although this is on a rather more important scale
(Fig. 103). Here also is a central porch flanked by arcades which stop
against square projecting windows in the corner of the courtyard.
[Illustration: 103. Old Somerset House, in the Strand. (Now demolished.)
End façade of Courtyard.]
[Illustration: 104. Elevation and Plan of a House (unnamed).
_From the Thorpe Collection._]
The last of the series (Fig. 104) shows the beginning of a change in
the hall. The screen is no longer a continuous partition cutting off
a passage. It has shrunk to something that is a mere projection from
the side walls, affording no shelter from the cross-traffic of the
front door. Indeed the front door, which formerly had been the common
entrance for the whole household, was gradually being reserved for the
family and the guests, the servants being provided with a separate
entrance of their own. The elevation is an interesting specimen of
Elizabethan design in half-timber.
The arrangement of the hall shown in this example greatly detracts from
its comfort as a living room, in spite of the fact that the retention
of the daïs (indicated by the hatched line across the hall) points to
its use as such. It is a first step in the direction of using the hall
as a vestibule and not as a room. A more striking instance of this
change is to be found at Aston Hall near Birmingham (finished in 1635).
Thorpe’s plan of it shows the great hall following the ancient lines
with the entrance at one end into the screens. But when built the front
door was placed centrally at once with the façade and the hall. This
new position, delivering the traffic into its centre, wholly precluded
the use of the hall as a living room; it became in fact a vestibule.
With this change the link with mediævalism was severed. It marks in a
striking manner the parting of the ways; the change from the old to the
new; the closing of the long chapter of domestic planning which began
in the early days of the twelfth century; the final abandonment of the
principle which had dominated house planning for five hundred years.
Overlapping Thorpe in point of date, but out-living him by a good many
years--so far as the uncertainty surrounding the lives of such simple
persons enables us to judge--was the John Smithson whose drawings[4]
have been preserved with as much care as those of Thorpe. He died in
1634, and was buried at Bolsover: he left a son, Huntingdon Smithson,
who also was an architectural designer. The Smithson collection
rivals the other in interest. It does not afford quite so vivid an
insight into the methods of the house planner; but it contains a
greater variety of subjects. It shows equally clearly the change
which was taking place in the disposition of the chief rooms: how
the hall was being deposed from its pre-eminence; and how corridors
were becoming more frequent. The principal apartments include no new
names: they consist still of the hall, the parlour, the great chamber,
the withdrawing-room, the chapel, and the long gallery. The houses
still have terraces and arcades, and are still flanked by courts. The
courtyard type and the =H= type are the most prevalent. The elevations
are less full of fancy than those of Elizabeth’s time; the detail is
more ponderous and may even be regarded as clumsy. There are many
features--doors, windows, gateways--described as “Italyan,” showing how
the demand was increasing for detail which was more strictly Italian
in character than anything that had hitherto been produced. Thorpe,
it must be remembered, was in the heyday of his career in Elizabeth’s
time; Smithson in James I.’s. The earliest date connected with Thorpe
is 1570, in which year he tells us he laid the first stone of Kirby in
Northamptonshire. The latest date on the Smithson drawings is 1632.
The two collections afford an admirable panorama of house-building
during a period of sixty years--a period which saw architecture free
itself from the slackening grasp of mediævalism; which witnessed the
new birth of Science, and beheld Poetry gain the sublime heights to
which Shakespeare led it, and whither it has never quite succeeded in
ascending again.
[Illustration: 105. Montacute House, Somerset (1580).
The two-storey screen between the wings is of earlier date (_cir._
1520) and was brought from Clifton Maybank.]
During this remarkable period were built some of the largest houses
which England ever possessed. Holdenby (1580), so far as the house
itself went, was larger than the great palaces of Blenheim and Castle
Howard. Its fronts were 360 ft. and 224 ft. long, as against 320 ft.
and 220 ft. at Blenheim, and 324 ft. and 210 ft. at Castle Howard. But
in both the later houses there were subsidiary courts attached which
greatly lengthened the total extent. Audley End (1610) covered even
more ground than Holdenby, its frontages extending to 470 ft. and 280
ft.; but more than half its area was occupied by a subsidiary court,
whereas almost the whole of Holdenby consisted of important rooms. But
rivalry in dimensions apart, it must be remembered that the designer of
Holdenby had no precedent to look to, no great house to outvie. Hampton
Court excepted, his was the first mansion, built for pleasure and for
state, which had been conceived on so large a scale. There were also
many other houses which, though smaller, were of the first importance.
Such were Buckhurst House in Sussex; Burghley House and Kirby Hall
both, like Holdenby, in Northamptonshire; Theobalds in Hertfordshire;
Knole in Kent. The reason for erecting these large houses, or at any
rate for making them so extensive, was stated by at least two of their
builders. Lord Burghley and Sir Christopher Hatton both said that it
was in order to accommodate the Queen that they were led to so much
extravagance.
[Illustration: 106. Lyveden Old Building, Northamptonshire.
(Early 17th cent.)]
But the building fever seems to have been in the air. Almost every
nobleman and squire in the country either rebuilt, enlarged, or altered
his house. Sheldons manor house in Wiltshire is a charming example of
alteration (see Frontispiece). The original house, of which the porch
is a part, was built by the Gascelyns in the fourteenth century. The
sixteenth-century addition with its rectangular, mullioned windows, was
built over earlier walls by the Hungerfords, and to their successors
may be attributed the eighteenth-century gate piers. Like many old
manor houses, Sheldons has ceased to be the home of the squire, and has
become a farmhouse. In half the villages of England there is either a
house of the Elizabethan period or the memory of one. Not only did the
landed gentry build, but also rich merchants in London and many of the
provincial towns. A vast number of these houses have been swept away,
but happily a great many still remain of all degrees of importance,
from great seats like Montacute in Somerset (Fig. 105), or Burton Agnes
in Yorkshire, down to the unpretending manor houses to be found among
the steep declivities of the Cotswolds or the gentler undulations
of Northamptonshire (Fig. 106). A proof (were it wanted) of the
disappearance of many fine houses of this time is to be found in the
Thorpe and Smithson drawings, for it is but a small proportion of the
houses there shown that is known to be still in existence.
CHAPTER IX.
ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES--EXTERIORS.
The characteristic feature of Elizabethan and Jacobean houses is the
square-headed mullioned windows (see Fig. 110). Previous to the time
of Elizabeth, the plain square head hardly ever occurs; it is always
pointed. Down to the end of the fifteenth century it was usually cusped
(see Fig. 66). In the early part of the sixteenth century, that is, in
Tudor houses, it became flat pointed and the cuspings disappeared. This
form lingered on until it was superseded by the square head. It may,
however, be found in a few instances as late as the second decade in
the seventeenth century, but the cases are not many.
The use of the bay window was greatly developed in Elizabethan and
Jacobean times. It was, as already stated, frequently utilised as one
of the most important architectural features of a façade. This may be
observed on some of Thorpe’s plans (Figs. 99, 100, 104), in Kip’s view
of Longleat (Fig. 107), as well as in nearly all the illustrations
given of the houses of this period (see Figs. 116, 119, 124, 125,
126). Besides the simple and dignified forms which were chiefly used,
there were a few cases in which the plan was more complicated, and in
which it took one shape on the ground floor and another on the floor
above. Thorpe has several instances of this quaint treatment; an actual
example exists at Thornbury Castle (Fig. 108) where the result is not
very happy. A more successful attempt was made at Sir Paul Pindar’s
house in Bishopsgate Street, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum
(Fig. 109). Here the different planes of the straight lights combined
with the circular projection in the middle, the busy pattern of the
glazing, and the carved panels, produce an extremely rich effect.
[Illustration: 107. Longleat House, Wiltshire (_cir._ 1550–80),
Kip’s View.]
[Illustration: 108. Bay Window at Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire.]
Another characteristic of the Elizabethan house is the employment
of the classic cornice. In Gothic buildings the horizontal
“string-course,” or projecting moulding of stone, was very frequently
used. It served to bind the design together and to give it unity and
coherence. It was usually of small depth and slight projection. But
with the invasion of Italian fashions, came the Italian profiles of
stonework, and the string-courses of the old days were replaced by
cornices, more elaborate in section, of greater depth and greater
projection. The old thin string-courses were not entirely abandoned,
but they received a slightly different section, more in harmony than
the old forms with the new classic profiles. Pilasters were also
introduced with the cornices, and some of the grander buildings were
adorned with several of the “orders” placed one over the other.
In time it became “correct” to use the Doric order on the first
storey, the Ionic on the second, and the Corinthian on the third.
These pilasters were generally of no practical use: they were merely
ornamental features, and were sometimes carried up not with a view
to supporting a crowning cornice, but to finish with a finial--a
heraldic animal or what-not--altogether out of scale with what it
stood on. Such pilasters and cornices were never employed previous to
the reign of Henry VIII., and did not come into general use until the
time of Elizabeth. The courtyard at Kirby Hall is furnished with them
(Fig. 110); nevertheless, however wrong they may be judged from the
academic stand-point, it cannot be denied that they materially help the
composition, and combine with the many lights of the mullioned windows
to produce a picturesque and romantic effect.
[Illustration: 109. Window from Sir Paul Pindar’s House, Bishopsgate.
_Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: 110. Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire.
A Corner of the Courtyard (1575).]
[Illustration: 111. Tudor Chimneys from Aston Bury, Herts.]
[Illustration: 112. Tudor Chimneys from Droitwich, Worcestershire.
(Now destroyed.)]
[Illustration: 113. Pilton Manor House, Northamptonshire. (Now the
Rectory.)]
The chimneys of Elizabethan houses are far simpler than those of Tudor
times. It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that chimneys assumed their
most elaborate forms, whether in stone or brick. They were twisted,
counter-twisted, minutely panelled, or surrounded by spiral bands of
various profiles (Figs. 111, 112), with a profusion of complication
that must have taxed the skill of the craftsman of the time, as it
certainly does the skill of the draughtsman of to-day. But with the
more “regular” feeling which came with Italian detail, this excessive
play of fancy died out, and chimneys became simpler in their design,
often consisting merely of straight shafts standing on a good base
and covered with an ample cap (Fig. 106). Sometimes this plain form
was Italianised into a complete column with its appropriate base and
cap, and crowned with a short length of the corresponding classic
entablature. But whatever form their detail may have taken, the
designers of the time ordinarily used the mass of their chimneys as an
important architectural feature. They grouped two or three fireplaces
together, carried up a great stack of stone or brickwork, and placed
their flues in single shafts upon it, thus combining solidity below
with a pleasing lightness against the sky.
[Illustration: 114. Sydenham House, Devonshire (_cir._ 1600).]
In the larger houses these various features--mullioned windows,
cornices, pilasters, and chimneys--were used with a lavish hand. The
mullioned windows of many lights were framed in pilasters furnished
with their appropriate pedestals, bases, and caps; at every floor
level a great entablature with architrave, ornamental frieze, and far
projecting cornice made the circuit of the building: above all rose the
gables, often straight of outline, but not infrequently fashioned into
graceful curves; from gable to gable extended a balustraded parapet;
at due intervals along the walls projected great chimney-stacks
carrying slender shafts separated from each other by narrow spaces of
daylight. The whole was a serious and determined effort at design,
widely different from the simple and often fortuitous arrangement of a
mediæval house, where the various parts, beautiful though they were in
themselves, were not coordinated in the same resolute manner.
In the smaller houses effort was not so conspicuous. The designers
drew upon the same sources for their effects--mullioned windows,
classic string-courses, steep gables, and fine chimney-stacks--but they
were more modest in their use of them, and refrained from employing
pilasters, except perhaps to a doorway. Between the simplicity of the
small manor house and the magnificence of the nobleman’s mansion lay
every degree of elaboration, and a series of examples might be brought
together forming a continuous _crescendo_ from a squire’s home
like Pilton Manor house in Northamptonshire (Fig. 113), through such
houses as Sydenham in Devonshire (Fig. 114), or Moyns Park in Essex
(Fig. 115), up to splendid mansions like the home of the younger branch
of the Cecils at Hatfield (Fig. 116).
[Illustration: 115. Moyns Park, Essex.]
[Illustration: 116. Hatfield House, the North Front (1611).]
[Illustration: 117. Derwent Hall, Derbyshire.]
Moyns Park has a special interest, inasmuch as it is one of the fairly
numerous cases in which a house of the first half of the sixteenth
century was superseded by a finer one in the second half. Here the
low, gabled, half-timber building is of the earlier date, and the lofty
one, with its row of fine brick chimneys, is of the later. There could
hardly have been forty years between the two buildings; the earlier has
some excellent detail, especially on the long front not shown in the
illustration: it was a fine house of its kind; and yet such was the
passion for new houses that it was soon superseded by its loftier and
more monumental neighbour.
The general appearance of houses of this time may be gathered from
the illustrations, which comprise examples from various districts
of England, and serve to show, among other things, that the same
treatment was adopted over the whole country, varied according to local
circumstances. Where stone was abundant, the houses were of stone,
with more or less elaborate detail according to the hardness of the
material. On the great beds of easily worked Oolite which stretch
from Somerset and Wiltshire through Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire
and Northamptonshire into Lincolnshire, the work is often both rich
and delicate, and has acquired through time and weather a soft grey
tint enlivened by the partial incrustation of many-hued lichens. In
Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire where the stone is much harder,
the work is of a plainer and more severe type, such as may be seen at
Derwent Hall (Fig. 117), and the colour is more sombre. In the eastern
counties brick is frequently the chief material, with stone where
wrought detail is required, such as quoins, cornices, parapets, and
pilasters. Felbrigge Hall in Norfolk (Fig. 118), probably built by
Thomas Windham, who died in 1653 at the age of eighty-two, is a good
example. In some instances where stone was not easily to be had, the
detail which would otherwise have been in that material, was worked in
plaster to imitate it.
[Illustration: 118. Felbrigge Hall, Norfolk.
(Early 17th cent.)]
[Illustration: 119. Marton Hall, Cheshire. (Now destroyed.)]
In the western counties timber and plaster were freely used; Cheshire,
Lancashire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire afford the finest and
most ornamental examples of this method of construction, while Kent,
Surrey, and Sussex in the south have a fair amount of plainer work
of the same kind. In these houses the main walls are formed of stout
timber framed together, with the interstices filled in with lath and
plaster. The structural timbers are left visible; most of them are
vertical, but they are braced together at intervals by horizontal
timbers, and are occasionally further strengthened by sloping struts.
This framework itself makes a pleasing pattern and satisfies the eye as
to the strength and stability of the fabric. The timbers are always of
large scantling, and are nearly equal in their total area to the spaces
that are left between them. These characteristics are common to all
the examples illustrated (Figs. 119–123). But whereas in the southern
counties, and to a great extent in Worcestershire, the designers
were satisfied to leave their work in this simple form, in Lancashire,
and more particularly in Cheshire, they added interest and richness to
the effect by placing curved braces within some of the panels, thus
producing patterns of more or less intricacy. Variations in the shape
of the curves resulted in variations of pattern, and the variety of
effects thus obtained is quite remarkable. A simple example is Marton
Hall, near Congleton, now destroyed (Fig. 119); a more elaborate one
is the well-known Little Moreton Hall in the same district. But the
finest specimen of a half-timber house is Bramhall Hall, near Stockport
(Fig. 120), which is not only quaint and picturesque, but in places
approaches as near to stateliness as such homely materials allow.
Lancashire at one time fell little short of Cheshire in attractive
examples, but before the constant spread of its manufacturing
centres they are rapidly disappearing. Throughout large districts of
Worcestershire such black-and-white houses as that at Shell Farm (Fig.
121) may be seen. They are quite simple, but they give a cheerful
aspect to the countryside, especially when the spring time surrounds
them with bright green foliage and the pink and white blossoms of the
orchards. In Sussex and Kent the use of half-timber work was not so
general, nor was there nearly as much play of fancy as in Cheshire,
the design being seldom of more elaborate character than that at
Sedlescombe (Fig. 122) and Brad Street (Fig. 123).
[Illustration: 120. Bramhall Hall, near Stockport, Cheshire.]
[Illustration: 121. Shell Farm, near Droitwich, Worcestershire.]
[Illustration: 122. The Manor House, Sedlescombe, Sussex.]
[Illustration: 123. House at Brad Street, Kent.]
In Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, too, occurs in its perfection the quaint
and picturesque custom of hanging external walls with tiles, the
relative softness of which is favourable to the growth of lichens, and
results in those brilliant bits of colour so dear to the water-colour
sketcher. Every district has its own character, and the wise man will
enjoy each in turn; no more expecting to find the brilliance of Surrey
among the greys of Northamptonshire, than lamenting the absence of the
soft tones of the Midlands among the wild moorlands of the North.
One great charm of the houses of this period is their marvellous
variety of treatment, although nearly always subject to a symmetrical
arrangement and a general similarity of plan. A central porch between
projecting wings of greater or less length is almost universal,
although there are not a few instances of square houses, such as
Felbrigge (Fig. 118) or Heath Hall (Fig. 124). The windows, too, are
practically always composed of numerous rectangular lights. But some
houses had turrets; some had gables either straight or curved; some
had flat lead-covered roofs as at Longleat, Quenby in Leicestershire
(Fig. 125), or Temple Newsam in Yorkshire; and some combine both
treatments, as at Gayhurst in Buckinghamshire (Fig. 126). This house
is said to have been built by a Mulsho in 1597, and to have been
much improved a few years afterwards by William Mulsho. This double
period of building may, perhaps, account for the combination of the
flat roofs and the gables. It subsequently passed by marriage to
Everard Digby, and is one of the innumerable places where, tradition
says, the Gunpowder Plot was hatched. There was a marked desire for a
picturesque sky-line, which led, in some flat-roofed houses like Heath
Hall, Barlborough in Derbyshire, and Hatfield House (Fig. 116), to the
carrying up of bay windows to form turrets above the parapet. Chimneys
were most frequently taken up in separate flues, but occasionally in
solid stacks. Parapets were sometimes solid as at Gayhurst and Quenby;
more frequently balustraded as at Longleat, and occasionally formed
of stone letters making a sentence. Felbrigge Hall has a short one,
“Gloria Deo in excelsis”; Temple Newsam in Yorkshire and Castle Ashby
in Northamptonshire bear long sentences which make almost the complete
circuit of the roofs.
[Illustration: 124. Heath Hall, near Wakefield Yorkshire.
(Early 17th cent.)]
[Illustration: 125. Quenby Hall, Leicestershire (_cir._ 1620).]
[Illustration: 126. Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire (1597 and later).]
[Illustration: 127. Entrance Gateway at West Burton, Sussex.]
[Illustration: 128. Brome Hall, Suffolk (_cir._ 1580).]
Every house of any importance was surrounded with some kind of lay-out.
The external courtyard, which originated from a desire for protection,
was converted into a place of pleasure or state, yet still retaining
the advantage of preventing unrestricted access. Small manor houses,
such as that at Cold Ashton in Somerset, or Eyam Hall in Derbyshire,
had at least a walled garden in front with a terrace approached up a
flight of steps. Large houses had several courts in front, which had
each to be traversed in turn before the front door was reached, as well
as side courts and walled gardens. Many of them had a small entrance
archway in the wall of the courtyard, generally of simple design, but
imparting a touch of interest and romance to an otherwise unpretentious
home, as is the case at West Burton in Sussex (Fig. 127). Nearly all
these characteristic adjuncts have now been cleared away from our
English houses, to their grievous detriment; and it has been remarked
that had we but retained the shelter of our ancient garden walls, we
should be under much less necessity to seek the warmth of the Riviera
during the cold winds of spring. No better idea of the ancient aspect
of Jacobean houses can be gained than from the views of Knyff and Kip;
and although the accuracy of every detail cannot be guaranteed, there
can be no doubt that the general disposition is fairly true to the
facts. At Brome Hall in Suffolk (Fig. 128) the approach to the entrance
front is across at least two courts, and if the outermost enclosure
is anything more than the end of an avenue, there would be three.
The other fronts are surrounded with walled gardens which extend a
considerable distance on every side, and are backed up by plantations
and a wide avenue. The house itself is plain in character, depending
for its effect largely upon its symmetrical arrangement. There is a
certain amount of richness about the porch and the tower over it;
elsewhere the prominent chimney-stacks and the dormer windows are the
dominating features. It will be observed that the sides of the first
garden court (beyond the avenue) are formed of subsidiary buildings,
the range on the left being one side of the stable court. It was quite
customary to give architectural importance to the principal approach
by means of inferior buildings, which in the present day are kept
out of observation. At Longleat (Fig. 107) the lay-out is confined
to three sides of the house; the approach lies along a raised paved
walk. The “regular” and symmetrical fronts, which here also depend
upon bay windows for their interest, enclose buildings which are less
severely treated and which blossom out into many turrets. Much of this
inside work is of somewhat earlier date, for Longleat was the result
of several different building efforts which extended over a period of
about thirty years, and concluded about 1580. In these descriptions it
is Kip’s views which are referred to, not the present buildings, which
have in most cases undergone alterations, especially in respect of
their lay-outs.
[Illustration: 129. Plan of the Lay-out of Lord Exeter’s House and
Garden at Wimbledon, 1609.
_From the Smithson Collection._]
[Illustration: 130. Powis Castle, Wales.]
The grand period of garden design was to come later, in the early years
of the eighteenth century, at the time when Knyff and Kip published
their book. But if proof were wanted that the later draughtsman did
not invent the elaborate surroundings of his houses, it is to be found
among the Smithson drawings which were made in the first quarter of
the seventeenth century. There are several plans of lay-outs in the
collection, the most notable being the survey of Wimbledon House,
made in 1609 (Fig. 129). This was a Cecil house, having been built in
the year 1588 by either Lord Burghley or his son, afterwards Earl of
Exeter. It stood on the edge of a high hill with a splendid prospect
towards the north. The steepness of the ground on this side led to
the formation of two courts, approached by fine flights of steps,
and leading to a terrace off which the front door opened. Behind the
house, to the south, lay the great garden, and on the east was a small
sunk garden, called in later years the Orange garden. Smithson’s notes
indicate the principal features: a banqueting house, hedges of thorn
and quick-set cut very finely, quarters set with knots of flowers, rows
of cherry trees, rows of lime trees, “both for shade and sweetness,”
and various orchards. Here again we have striking evidence of how far
we have travelled from the enclosures which surrounded the castles of
two centuries earlier, even the largest, such as Kenilworth.
Everything, indeed, points to the new delight which people were taking
in their homes; how they loved not only fine houses but fine gardens,
seizing upon every change of level to introduce a terrace, and charmed
with any opportunity to form a handsome flight of steps, such as that
at Heath Hall (Fig. 124), or Powis Castle in Wales (Fig. 130). It is
quite clear that the days were past when men merely ornamented what
was essential to safety: they now revelled in their freedom from
restriction, and indulged themselves in attractive design for its own
sake.
CHAPTER X.
ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES--INTERIORS.
The same impulse which brought about so great a change in external
treatment, led also to corresponding developments in the internal
decorations: magnificence and comfort went hand in hand. The great
chimneys which have been referred to as forming such conspicuous
features outside, implied a considerable increase of fireplaces
within. Harrison, in his contribution to “Hollinshed’s Chronicles”
(1577), mentions “the multitude of chimneys lately erected.” Every
room of importance by this time had at least one, and the large rooms
frequently had two. It was this multiplication of flues which led to
their striking external treatment. The increase was only one of the
effects of the continual pursuit of comfort which underlay all the
changes in domestic arrangement. In other directions the pursuit was
successful owing to the changed condition of the times, which no longer
demanded security against attack. Elizabethan houses were built for
comfort, and many of them for magnificence. Being no longer hampered
by the need for precautions against forcible entry, designers laid
themselves out to obtain a convenient disposition of rooms so far as
that was compatible with a dignified, and often splendid, treatment,
and the demands of a symmetry which grew more and more insistent.
The accommodation of the larger houses of that time suffices for the
present day, although its disposition is often at variance with our
wants. The actual decoration of the rooms is still frequently taken as
a model for imitation and even reproduction.
[Illustration: 131. A Linen Panel.]
[Illustration: 132. Wood Panelling at the Bishop’s Palace, Norwich
(_temp._ Henry VIII.).]
[Illustration: 133. Panel at Layer Marney, Essex.]
[Illustration: 134. Wood Panel in the Victoria and Albert Museum.]
The bare walls of mediæval houses had already been plastered in the
better rooms, and the plaster had been ornamented in various simple
ways by painted patterns. This custom was still retained to a certain
extent in Elizabeth’s time. But the old fashion of wainscoting rooms,
that is, panelling with oak, was considerably extended, and all the
principal rooms were thus treated. The development of panelling is
of much interest, but is of rather too intricate a nature to be
traced here in any detail: suffice it to say that the earliest form
of ornamental panels appears to be what is called the linen pattern,
in which the surface of the panel itself was so carved as to bear
a resemblance to a piece of stiffly and symmetrically folded linen
(Fig. 131). This fashion was in vogue from the latter part of the
fifteenth century, throughout the reign of Henry VII. and well into
that of Henry VIII. With the advent of the Italian manner, the panels
became carved with large and somewhat coarse arabesque work, fantastic
animals were introduced, and, notably, human heads set in circular
frames (Fig. 132). Another pattern peculiar to this period, and one
which can neither trace a certain origin from anything before it, nor
be traced through any direct descendant, is partly shown in the same
illustration. It is formed of two curved ribs set back to back, but
in this particular instance the circular panel is interposed between
the upper and lower halves of the pattern. A panel from Layer Marney
(Fig. 133) shows it more clearly, and it is just possible that in
the panel at South Kensington (Fig. 134) we have the origin of this
curious and fleeting form. Elizabethan panelling is less fanciful in
treatment, its effect being obtained, when anything more elaborate
than oblong moulded panels was introduced, not by carving, but an
increased intricacy of framing, and occasionally by an inlay of
coloured wood. This intricacy became more pronounced in Jacobean work,
which on the whole is more complicated than Elizabethan. A fine example
of early seventeenth-century panelling is to be seen at Calgarth Old
Hall in Westmorland (Fig. 135), where the main panels are subdivided
by an insertion of diamond shape, and the topmost tier is in every
case arched. An invariable characteristic of panelling down to about
1630 is the comparatively small size of the panels, which seldom
exceeded 2 ft. in their longest dimension. They offer in this respect
a complete contrast to those which came into vogue about the middle
of the seventeenth century. But, although the great amount of panelling
which still survives in all parts of the country shows that it was
universally adopted, yet the old-fashioned tapestry played an important
part in the clothing of the walls, from the splendid pieces, brought
from all parts of Europe, with which Cardinal Wolsey adorned his great
palace of Hampton Court, down to the “smirched worm-eaten tapestry” of
Borachio’s illustration, or the arras of the inn where Falstaff soaked
himself in such an intolerable deal of sack.
[Illustration: 135. Calgarth Old Hall, Westmorland.
(Early 17th cent.)]
The plasterer’s art blossomed out into wonderful results. Founding his
designs at first on the wood-ribbed ceilings of his youth, he gradually
elaborated them into the amazing richness which characterises the end
of the sixteenth century. The variety of his patterns is wonderful,
and, considering the number of ceilings which are left, it is
surprising how seldom two instances of the same design are found. As a
rule great judgment was shown in the choice of patterns: simple designs
of slight projection being used in low rooms, and more elaborate
ones of heavier section in lofty rooms. Frequently in the latter the
principal points in the design were emphasised by pendants, which broke
the monotony and added greatly to the richness of the effect.
[Illustration: 136. Parham, Sussex. The Great Hall (1593).]
At Parham in Sussex (Fig. 136) is an example of this treatment, which,
indeed, would be almost meagre, were it not for the pendants. This
room is the great hall, and, it will be observed, is covered with
a flat ceiling instead of an open timber roof. The latter form of
covering, which had been customary from the earliest times, was giving
place, in the early part of the seventeenth century, to the ceiling,
inasmuch as the height of houses was increasing, and an upper storey
was formed over the hall. In some cases, where vacant space permitted,
plaster ceilings, instead of being flat, were carried up and formed
into a large cove as is the case at Herringstone in Dorset (Fig. 137),
which is one of the most notable of its kind. The pattern is of the
simplest, but gains much character from being on the curve; the main
ribs are bent down at intervals, where they intersect, to form the
root of pendants which vary in their forms. The tympanum on the end
wall, resulting from the curves of the ceiling, is also ornamented
with a suitable pattern, and the cornice, making the circuit of the
room, binds the whole together with its strong horizontal lines. There
is another fine coved ceiling at Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire,
differing in treatment from this at Herringstone by reason of its being
curved all four ways, the point of intersection being furnished with a
large, open pendant. The work in these old ceilings is generally too
irregular to suit the correct taste of the modern workman, yet the
effect is softer and more pleasing than that of the mechanical accuracy
of the present day.
[Illustration: 137. Herringstone, Dorset.
Coved Plaster Ceiling.]
The variety of ornament in the ceilings of this period is
extraordinary; sometimes it was merely a geometrical pattern duly
repeated; sometimes a flowing pattern so varied that not a single
portion of it occurs twice, save that the two halves of the ceiling
are repeated in reverse fashion. Then, again, there is a strong simple
framework with all the interspaces decorated either with floral
ornament or subjects of natural history, or, still oftener, heraldic
devices. As Gray says, in those days they employed the power of fairy
hands
“To raise the ceiling’s fretted height,
Each panel with achievements clothing.”
This, it is true, is a poetic licence, for the panels seldom exhibited
more than the family cognizance or coat of arms. The achievement, that
is the shield, crest, mantling, and supporters, was reserved for very
special cases, such as is shown in the fine panel of the royal arms of
James I. from Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire (Fig. 138).
[Illustration: 138. Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire.
Plaster Panel, from Ceiling, with Arms of James I.]
[Illustration: 139. Wolveton House, Dorsetshire.
Interior, showing Doorway, Chimney-piece, and Ceiling.]
In spite of the elaboration of the detail, the general effect of
these ceilings was quiet; and the same may be said of the wall
panelling. To prevent monotony or tameness of appearance, a handsome
treatment was often bestowed on special features, such as doorways
and chimney-pieces, more particularly the latter. The doorways were
frequently emphasised by pilasters and cornice; in the great hall
the screen was elaborately decorated with panels, pilasters, and
cornice. Heraldry was again brought in to aid the effect, thus at once
gratifying the foible of family pride, and imparting an air of dignity
and splendour to the room. The chimney-piece was nearly always finely
treated, whether it was of wood or of stone. Columns, pilasters, or
grotesques supported a lofty shelf above the vast fireplace; over the
shelf the design extended itself upwards with large panels, fantastic
pilasters, and elaborate ornament till it was crowned with a cornice
supporting, or seeming to support, the ceiling itself (Fig. 139).
Heraldry, mythology, pedantry, sententiousness, all went to adorn the
chimney-piece. The family arms, or incidents from a classic tale,
or virtues personified, supplied the chief interest, while pithy
inscriptions, generally in Latin, added a touch of that learning which
was supposed to be the possession of all the well-to-do.
Shakespeare draws a picture of an Elizabethan room when he makes
Iachimo describe Imogen’s chamber:--
“It was hanged
With tapestry of silk and silver; the story
Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman,
And Cydnus swell’d above the banks, or for
The press of boats or pride: a piece of work
So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive
In workmanship and value.
“Her chimney
Is south the chamber; and the chimney-piece
Chaste Dian, bathing; never saw I figures
So likely to report themselves.
“The roof o’ the chamber
With golden cherubims is fretted; her andirons
(I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids
Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely
Depending on their brands.”
The drawing is true, with its tapestry, its chimney-piece, and its
ceiling, all taking their inspiration from Italian sources. The
“golden cherubims” are but a poetical version of the winged amorini of
Italy.
[Illustration: 140. Stone Chimney-piece from Deene Park,
Northamptonshire (1571).]
The chimney-pieces of that time are as numerous as the fretted
ceilings, and as varied in design. Many of them are of stone, still
more of wood, and a few are of coloured marbles. In a large number the
portion above the fireplace contains two panels, filled more often
than not with shields of arms. One of these would bear the family coat
simply; the other the quarterings of the owner at the time, or his own
arms impaling those of his wife; these arms are frequently useful in
identifying the builder of the house and in fixing its date. Sometimes
the date itself was carved in a subsidiary panel, as is the case in the
example from Deene Park (Fig. 140), which not only presents a fine
display of heraldry, but bears the sententious inscription, “Amicus
fidelis protexio fortis,” and the date 1571. This chimney-piece is in
stone; a smaller one from a house in King’s Lynn is in wood, and is
dated 1623 (Fig. 141). The work, both in the panelling and carving, is
excellent. Another example in wood, of great elaboration, is from the
hall of the butchers’ guild in Hereford (Fig. 142).
[Illustration: 141. Wood Chimney-piece from a House at King’s Lynn
(1623).]
[Illustration: 142. Wood Chimney-piece from the Hall of the Butchers’
Guild, Hereford.]
[Illustration: 143. Staircase, Crewe Hall, Cheshire.]
[Illustration: 144. Staircase, with Dog-gate, Cold Overton,
Leicestershire.]
Another of the special characteristics of houses of this period is
the staircase. It has already been said that no examples are found
previous to Elizabeth’s time of anything but extremely simple stairs,
generally of the corkscrew type, but sometimes consisting of straight
flights in the thickness of a wall. These forms were still in use in
the latter part of the sixteenth century: Rothwell Market House in
Northamptonshire (1577) was to have had a circular stair; and Hardwick
Hall in Derbyshire (1576) has nothing but plain flights of steps,
nothing which can be considered an ornamental staircase. But these
were the exceptions; the rule was to have a broad staircase, generally
of wood, with short runs of steps leading from landing to landing:
the newel posts were stout and tall, and carried up well above the
handrail, their tops being either wrought into striking shapes, or
crowned with heraldic animals. When the staircase extended to many
flights, the effect was very fine, as may be seen in the example from
Crewe Hall (Fig. 143). The handrail was massive, and the space between
it and the stout string was filled with thick turned balusters, or
occasionally with wood pierced in patterns. In a few instances a gate
is to be found across the stairs, placed there to prevent dogs from
roaming over the whole house. There is a good example at Hatfield
House, and another at Cold Overton in Leicestershire (Fig. 144). At
Rawdon House near Hoddesdon, there is a good staircase with heraldic
newels and a pierced balustrade. It leads up to a landing on which
is an elaborate doorway of one of the principal chambers (Fig. 145).
Innumerable other fine staircases might be mentioned, but these
examples will suffice to indicate the style prevalent in the time of
Elizabeth and James.
[Illustration: 145. Staircase and Doorway, Rawdon House, Hoddesdon,
Hertfordshire.]
[Illustration: 146. Astley Hall, Lancashire.
The Long Gallery.]
These staircases led up to important rooms: to the great chamber and
the long gallery, as well as to the bedrooms. The great chamber was a
room of state, and answered somewhat to the drawing-room of the present
day. It was, of course, decorated in the usual way with panelled
walls, fretted ceiling, and a large chimney-piece. So, too, was the
long gallery, perhaps the most characteristic room of an Elizabethan
house. The earliest instance of a long gallery seems to have been at
Hampton Court, of a date about 1540. It continued in fashion, designers
vying in their endeavours to give it extraordinary length, until the
time of Charles I., when, under the changed ideas as to household
arrangement which then prevailed, it disappeared. Its precise object
is not quite clear. At Apethorpe it was intended as a music-room, as
testified by the inscription on the chimney-piece:--
“Rare and ever to be wisht maye sownde heere
Instruments w^{ch} fainte sprites and muses cheere,
Composing for the Body, Sowle, and Eare,
Which Sickness, Sadness, and Fowle Spirits feare.”
Sir Henry Wotton, in his “Elements of Architecture,” implies that it
was a place for indoor exercise, for he says, in advising as to the
aspect of the principal rooms of a house, that on the north side should
be placed “all that are appointed for gentle motion, as galleries.” It
can hardly have been meant for pictures, as the fashion of collecting
them and _articles de vertu_ had not yet arisen. Galleries were
generally lighted all down one side and at one or both ends; indeed,
continuous lighting was necessary, for their immense length would have
rendered lighting from the ends only utterly futile. The illustration
from Astley Hall, Lancashire (Fig. 146), gives a good idea of one of
these rooms: it is probable, however, that its interest was originally
enhanced by an elaborate plaster ceiling.
Most of the bedrooms, at any rate those of any importance, were
decorated in the same way as the living rooms; panelled walls, heraldic
ceilings, and good chimney-pieces are still to be found in many
bedrooms even of moderate size.
CHAPTER XI.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--PERSONAL DESIGN--TRANSITIONAL
TREATMENT.
With the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century there
opens a new chapter in English Architecture. Hitherto it had been
largely impersonal; now it began to be personal, and its finest
manifestations were henceforth to be linked with great names, with
Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, and others.
The main cause of the change is to be found in the pursuit of the
Italian ideal. Up to this time the erection of houses and churches
had not been thought of as “architecture,” but merely as “building.”
The processes employed, both in regard to design and to construction,
were the outcome of tradition. We have already seen how tradition had
been modified in the sixteenth century by the introduction of Italian
features, and the imperfect study of Italian models, in obedience to
the prevailing fashion of the day, which demanded that particular
form of decoration. But it must have been obvious to all instructed
eyes that the efforts of English designers, so far as they aimed at
a faithful transcript of the foreign copy, had been very wide of the
mark. This was only to have been expected from the nature of the
circumstances. There was no single mind at work controlling the whole
of the design in all its branches. It is true that surveyors were
employed to give a general superintendence. These men usually supplied
a plan of the house, and not infrequently an elevation. This, at any
rate, was the case during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, although
there is little evidence that it had been the custom in earlier times.
To the surveyors, of whom John Thorpe was the most remarkable, must
accordingly be attributed the credit of the houses as a whole; of their
arrangement, and of their general appearance. But the details of the
treatment were left to artificers in the various trades, to the masons,
the carpenters, the plasterers, and the plumbers. It is obvious that
these men could not all be equally skilful, or equally conversant with
the foreign fashion; and we may well be grateful that it was so, for
from their diverse limitations sprang the quaint, piquant, and charming
work of the period, endless in its variety yet throughout essentially
English; in no other country is just the same development to be found.
But the tide of fashion was flowing strongly in the Italian direction.
This can be gathered not only from the appearance of the work itself,
and from subsequent developments, but from the drawings of Smithson,
the surveyor (or architect), made about 1618, among which are designs
for “Italyan wyndowes,” “Italyan gates,” an “Italyan grate,” and
a “pergular.” Thorpe, although he had studied foreign books on
architecture, and had made careful drawings of the “orders,” makes
no reference to “Italyan” features, nor do his details show anything
like the same striving after “correct” design that is evident in
Smithson’s. A considerable number of young men travelled to Italy for
the express purpose of studying the buildings of that country, some
being sent thither by wealthy noblemen. A few of their names have been
preserved, either through their having, like John Shute, published
the results of their labours, or through their having written, as
Charles Williams did to Sir John Thynne at Longleat, to offer their
services in doing work “after the Italian fashion.” But among all
those who went none made such good use of his opportunities or was so
gifted by nature to take advantage of them as Inigo Jones. It is to
him that we owe the establishment of the matured Renaissance manner
in England, the handling of Italian features with real knowledge and
skill, the introduction of the full “Classic” style as distinguished
from the tentative “Renaissance.” With him, too, started the personal
architecture of the designer who controlled the decoration throughout,
as opposed to the impersonal architecture of the independent craftsmen
who preceded him. The change was a momentous one; whether it resulted
in a more pleasing type of building will probably always remain a
matter of individual taste.
One notable result of the change was the dividing of house design
into two streams: one academic and stately, the other traditional and
homely. The one dealt with great mansions and public buildings, and
was guided by men of eminence, who studied architecture as a fine art.
The other dealt with the smaller houses, with schools, almshouses,
and other buildings of less importance, and was guided by men of no
especial culture, who probably underwent no more training than could
be obtained in a builder’s yard. Hence in out-of-the-way places houses
may be found dated in the early years of the eighteenth century
closely resembling those built in the early years of the seventeenth.
But gradually the early traditions died out; the new classic manner
permeated the whole of the building world, and even the smallest
houses, so far as they had any pretensions to design at all, complied
with the prevailing classic taste.
In the larger buildings there was a tendency to become more and more
academic, to design more and more according to rule. Men of genius,
like Inigo Jones and Wren, bent these rules to their own purposes;
but their successors of the eighteenth century found it easier to let
the rules have the mastery, with the result that much of their work
is tame and insipid. At the same time they pursued architecture in
the abstract, without due regard for its application to house design.
The consequence was that most of their efforts, although striking
as architectural compositions, are inconvenient as dwelling-houses.
This point will be more fully dealt with in its chronological order,
meantime we must return on our steps and take up the story where it was
left at the close of the reign of James I.
[Illustration: 147. Plan of Raynham Park, Norfolk (_cir._
1630–36).]
[Illustration: 148. Raynham Park, Norfolk, The West Front.]
[Illustration: 149. Plan of Coleshill, Berkshire (1650).]
The two tendencies in design just mentioned may already be observed
during the lifetime of James, for in 1622 was built the Banqueting
Hall at Whitehall, designed by Inigo Jones as part of a vast palace
for the King, of which the rest was never undertaken. It is perhaps
the most classic building of that century, quite devoid of any trace
of Elizabethan detail. At the same time, and indeed for another ten or
twelve years, were being built houses which still retained all the old
characteristics. Such is Aston Hall, near Birmingham, which has the
curved gables, the turrets, the chimneys, the mullioned windows, the
ribbed ceilings, the busy staircase, which had been customary in fine
houses for the last fifty years. Yet Aston Hall was not completed till
1635. The most significant sign of change at Aston is the disposition
of the hall, which, as already stated, is no longer intended as a
living room, and is entered in the middle of its length instead of
at one end through the customary screens. The change of habits which
this alteration implies, coinciding as it did with the advent of more
accurate knowledge of Italian ways, undoubtedly helped forward their
establishment. It was no longer necessary to provide on the ground
floor a great hall suitable for a living room, and dividing the family
apartments from those where the servants worked and lived. The whole
ground floor was devoted to the family, who were provided with a suite
of salons surrounding the hall, which itself became a large vestibule
leading to them. The servants were relegated to the basement; not
indeed for the first time, for Smithson has several plans in which this
arrangement was adopted, and so has Thorpe; but these were exceptions
to the general rule. The long gallery and the great chamber went out
of fashion. These rooms had been upstairs, the long gallery sometimes
on the topmost floor, while not a few of the rooms on the ground floor
had been “chambers” or “lodgings,” that is in effect bedrooms. It now
became more customary to devote the ground floor to the day-rooms, and
the upper floor to bedrooms, especially in houses of medium size. In
great mansions complete suites of living and sleeping rooms were still
provided on the same floor. The plan of Raynham Park (Fig. 147), built
according to various authorities either in 1630 or 1636, and attributed
to Inigo Jones, shows the change that had taken place in domestic
habits. So too does the plan of Coleshill in Berkshire (Fig. 149),
built in 1650 from designs by the same master; but in this case some
of the ground-floor rooms are still intended to be used as bedrooms,
and the dining-room is upstairs.
[Illustration: 150. Coleshill House, Berkshire.]
These two houses illustrate equally well the new methods adopted in
treating the exterior. Elizabethan and Jacobean houses were picturesque
and busy in their appearance owing to the varied outline of their
plan, and to their irregular and broken sky-line caused by the gables,
turrets, and chimneys with which they were furnished. The many lights
of the mullioned windows also added much to their lively effect, while
bay windows were used with great skill to give rhythm and interest to
the design.
[Illustration: 151. Houses in High Street, Southwark.
(Now destroyed.)]
The two most distinctive characteristics of the new style were the
absence of gables and the substitution of sash windows for the old
mullioned form. Both these changes had a sobering effect on the
appearance of a house. In the absence of gables roofs had to be hipped,
thus compelling a greater simplicity in their plan, and a much plainer
sky-line. The sash window was more stubborn of treatment than the
mullioned window. The latter could be either lengthened or widened by
a row of lights and yet be in harmony with its neighbours; the sash
window was not susceptible of such variation; it had to be of the same
width and height as others of the same range. For these reasons it lent
itself ill to the forming of bay windows; it was too wide and too high,
and altogether too large a feature to be adapted to the purpose, and
accordingly bay windows went out of fashion. The elements of design
being thus greatly restricted, they required much skilful handling,
and a keen sense of proportion to render the result satisfactory. It
was just in these points that Inigo Jones’s natural gifts and careful
training enabled him to succeed.
Raynham Park (Fig. 148) is a link between the two styles; its
projecting wings, finished with gables, are reminiscent of the past;
its sash windows and its bold, carefully profiled cornice are a
foretaste of the future. Coleshill (Fig. 150) has left Elizabethan
times far behind, and retains nothing of their peculiarities either in
plan or appearance. There are no gables, the roof is hipped at each
corner and starts from a widely projecting cornice. The chimneys are
gathered into large stacks, symmetrically placed; not into groups of
single, slender shafts. The dormers have no stonework about them; they
belong to the roof, not to the walls. The designer, having eschewed
picturesque details, had to rely for his effect upon proportion and
the careful spacing of his windows. Coleshill may be regarded as
typical of the style adopted for large country houses down to the end
of the seventeenth century. Up Park, Squerries, Melton Constable, and
many others built towards the close of this century or in the first
years of the next, are of the same type, although somewhat varied in
treatment. There were many intermediate steps between Jacobean houses
and houses like Coleshill. Some of these steps have been attributed to
Inigo Jones himself--taken by him, the chroniclers assert, before his
visit to Italy. Such are St John’s College, Oxford, and the house at
Houghton Conquest, in Bedfordshire, built for the Countess of Pembroke,
“Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother.” But expert opinion is now
inclined to doubt the correctness of such attribution. If Inigo Jones
made no use of a transitional style, others did so.
Swakeleys in Middlesex (Fig. 152) is a case in point. Here mullioned
windows are still retained, but the cornices, breaking out into
pediments, and the gables crowned also with pediments, indicate the
impending change.
[Illustration: 152. Swakeleys, Middlesex (_cir._ 1630).]
[Illustration: 153. Houses in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields
(1640).
(From a Drawing by J. Nash, about 1840.)]
[Illustration: 154. Sparrow’s House, Ipswich.]
[Illustration: 155. Cold Overton Hall, Leicestershire.
(Late in first half of 17th cent.)]
It would seem as though the small size of the lights of mullioned
windows had begun to be irksome before the solution of the difficulty
by the adoption of sash windows. Accordingly round-headed lights of
double the usual width were sometimes introduced among the small
oblong lights, as may be seen in the drawing of the house of wood
and plaster which formerly stood in High Street, Southwark (Fig.
151). Gables are still retained here, and also the old fashion of
bringing forward the upper storeys beyond the lower. But indications
of the change to a later treatment are to be found not only in the
round-headed lights with their wood key-stones, but in the character of
the ornamental plasterwork. If this street front is compared with that
in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, by John Webb (Fig. 153),
the completeness of the impending change will be more readily grasped.
In the later example there are no gables, no mullioned windows, no
lead-lights. Instead we have a well-developed classic cornice with a
row of dormers above it, sash windows, and bold pilasters, carefully
proportioned. If again Sparrow’s House at Ipswich (Fig. 154) were
remodelled, as alleged, subsequently to the Restoration, it is a
striking instance of the survival of the old-fashioned methods of
treatment. But in the absence of any definite evidence it is probable
that whatever was done in the time of Charles II., including the
modelling of his arms in plaster, was merely a renovation. In style, at
any rate, it is a step later than the house in Southwark. The windows
in both cases are of the same family, but instead of the walls being
finished by gables, they are crowned with a heavy classic cornice.
[Illustration: 156. The Vicarage, Burford, Oxfordshire (dated 1672).]
Another example of the transition is to be seen at Cold Overton in
Leicestershire (Fig. 155), an interesting although somewhat plain
house built among the grassy slopes beloved of hunting men. Here the
mullioned windows are survivals from the ancient ways; even more so is
the projecting porch, with its round-arched doorway flanked by columns
and surmounted by a four-light window; while the plain flat bands which
replace the old profiled strings, and the wide, flat-pitched gable
belong to the newer methods of design. The date of this house is not
known, but it must be in the earlier half of the century, and some of
the work inside, notably the staircase with its dog-gate (Fig. 144),
is frankly Jacobean in character. The survival of old ways in remote
places is well shown in the vicarage at Burford in Oxfordshire, a house
dated 1672 (Fig. 156). Here there is no attempt at pronounced classic.
The roof is gabled, it has no cornice of any account; the windows
are mullioned, and the dormers retain some of the fantastic curls of
the early years of the century. Nevertheless, in the plainness and
precision of the whole treatment, in the flat shape of the mullions,
and in the ovals of the dormers, the experienced eye can detect the
march of Time. When it is remembered that this house was built when
Wren was in the midst of his career, it will be realised how distinct
were the two streams of design already alluded to--the stately, guided
by great artists; the homely, guided by unknown artisans.
CHAPTER XII.
CLASSIC DETAIL ESTABLISHED--INFLUENCE OF
THE AMATEURS.
The Civil War diverted men’s thoughts from house-building, and inclined
them rather in the opposite direction of destruction. The middle of
the century was accordingly not prolific in examples of domestic
architecture. Inigo Jones himself was hampered in his career by the
part he was obliged to take in public affairs and by the disturbed
state of the times. He was among those who surrendered at the fall
of Basing House, and must have heard with regret of the order for
“slighting” so interesting an old building. But many another ancient
seat shared the same fate, to the great prejudice of the modern student
of architecture.
With the Restoration, however, matters improved, and Charles II., in
the intervals of more congenial pursuits, was regarded as a great
patron of the arts, among which architecture now took a recognised
place in English opinion. Many books had been published on the
subject, especially in Italy. Some of these treatises had already been
translated into English sixty or seventy years earlier, but they had
not been studied with full effect. The efforts of Inigo Jones towards a
purer taste were highly appreciated by men of culture like John Evelyn,
and it became fashionable among the elect to study building from the
somewhat new point of view of architecture. The only means of becoming
acquainted with the art was through books, all of which derived their
ultimate inspiration from the ancient Roman, Vitruvius. Already, in
the second quarter of the century, Sir Henry Wotton had written a
sensible treatise on the “Elements of Architecture,” and now the same
subject was undertaken by Evelyn. The Italian authorities, who were
his guides, as they had been Wotton’s, had taken Vitruvius as their
high priest, and the old buildings of Italy as their ensamples. Within
the pale of their cult, therefore, came no Gothic at all. Evelyn,
accordingly, has no words too damnatory of Gothic buildings. Barbarous
nations, he says, destroyed the glorious Roman empire together with its
stately monuments, “introducing in their stead, a certain fantastical
and licentious manner of building, which we have since called modern
(or Gothic rather): congestions of heavy, dark, melancholy, and monkish
piles, without any just proportion, use, or beauty, compared with the
truly ancient.” Instead of the “beautiful orders,” he says, they set up
“slender and misquine pillars, or rather bundles of staves, and other
incongruous props, to support incumbent weights and ponderous arched
roofs, without entablature.” He begs any man of judgment to compare
Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster, with its “sharp angles, jetties,
narrow lights, lame statues, lace, and other cut-work and crinkle
crankle,” with Inigo Jones’s Banqueting Hall, or what was then being
advanced by Sir Christopher Wren at St Paul’s; and then to “pronounce
which of the two manners strikes the understanding as well as the eye
with the more majesty and solemn greatness.” The whole of the ancient
cathedrals of England and the Continent, mentioning the most famous by
name, he dismisses as “mountains of stone, vast and gigantic buildings
indeed; but not worthy the name of Architecture.”
Here we have a vast change from fifty years earlier. Thorpe and
Smithson came under the Italian influence, especially the latter; but
both of them thought Henry VII.’s Chapel worthy of study. Each of them
has a plan of it among his drawings; and Smithson has a plan of some
of the vaulting as well, not to mention an outline drawing of a Gothic
window. The Italianising of English taste had indeed progressed when we
find an architectural guide placing not only Henry VII.’s Chapel, but
all Gothic work, outside the domain of architectural study. But outside
it was, and there it remained until the commencement of the nineteenth
century, when the publications of Carter, Britton, and others began to
awaken interest in it.
The pursuit of architecture now became an elegant accomplishment,
and it fell largely into the hands of amateurs. Books in plenty gave
precise rules for its treatment. Any one gifted with a modicum of taste
could design a façade; and if he followed his rules his proportions
would probably be not unpleasing. If he had some inventive faculty
and were sufficiently bold, he could produce a group of buildings
that should have a striking and even noble effect. This was indeed
the weakness of the whole system. Designing became a striving after
external effect without paying due regard to the purpose of the
building. The large houses of the time of the first two Georges are
magnificent to look at, but uncomfortable to live in. Everything is
sacrificed to the state apartments. Most of these are noble rooms
admirably adapted for stately functions; but the ordinary living rooms
are mean in comparison, and are not contrived, whether as to aspect,
position, or their relation one to the other, in order to make for
cheerfulness or comfort. In towns, where space was restricted, a more
simple treatment was adopted, and extravagance eschewed. This resulted
in such plain but well-proportioned houses as Newcastle House, in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields (Fig. 157), designed for Lord Powys by Captain
Wynne in 1686. It has, however, lost much of its character by the
removal of the stone cornice which originally surmounted the windows of
the second floor.
[Illustration: 157. Newcastle House, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London
(1686).]
One of the favourite devices of the time for producing a splendid group
was to place the principal rooms in a lofty central block, to flank it
on either side with a block of subsidiary rooms at some distance, and
to connect these outlying wings with the main building by colonnades.
As a rule one wing contained the kitchens and the other the stables.
Two inconveniences must have followed from this arrangement: the
stables were too near the house, the kitchens too far off. Sir Henry
Wotton had already uttered a warning against placing the kitchen
at a great distance from the dining-room, “or else, besides other
inconveniences, perhaps some of the dishes may straggle by the way.”
Inigo Jones appears to have been the first to adopt this wide-spreading
disposition at Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire, a house of which the
central block has been burnt down; his successors bettered his example,
followed it with frequency, and established a fashion which survived
till late in the eighteenth century.
In Isaac Ware’s “Complete Body of Architecture,” written for students
of the art, and published in 1756, several chapters of the third
book are devoted to explaining how a house of this kind should be
designed. The author supposes a gentleman with a moderate family to
be desirous of building a house in the country “without columns, or
other expensive decorations”; handsome, though not pompous. Having
selected a site in accordance with principles previously enunciated
by Mr Ware, the gentleman asks a builder how much ground the house
ought to cover to meet his requirements. The builder at once replies
that a 65 ft. frontage will answer the purpose. Although the steps by
which this rapid decision is arrived at are not indicated, it seems
to be satisfactory as well as inevitable. Sixty-five feet being the
correct length of the front, it follows that from 40 to 45 ft. must be
the depth. The intention being to achieve something handsome (though
not pompous), the kitchen is not to be put under the parlour, nor
the stable in the corner of the yard: “a bricklayer could do that.”
These offices are to be placed in detached wings, “so that from a
plain design, such as the vulgar builder would have proposed, here
shall arise, with little more expense, a centre, its wings, and their
communication.” The position of the detached wings is next to be
settled. In order to be proportionate with a centre of 65 ft. frontage,
it would appear that the wings should start 28 ft. away to the right
and left; as to their distance frontwards from the centre, the author
is not so certain, but he advises 13 ft. Then comes the actual size of
the wings, which must correspond exactly with one another, although one
is to contain the kitchen and the other the stables. The best measure
in proportion to the 65 ft. is 35: accordingly that is to be the length
of the front of each wing. As to their depth, “for a house of this
bigness and design, 48 ft. will be a good measure.” The size of the
three blocks being thus settled on these somewhat arbitrary lines, the
architect is to proceed to the construction and distribution of the
rooms, bearing in mind that it is “always best to accommodate the inner
distribution of a house to the outer aspect when that can conveniently
be done.” But as the author admits that tastes may vary and occasions
alter the choice, he proceeds in different chapters to set forth
different ways in which his spaces may be divided up into rooms. Into
these details we need not enter, but it is evident that the gentleman
with the moderate family would have to keep his personal predilections
as to aspect, prospect, the relation of rooms one to the other, and
other matters incidental to comfort, strictly in subjection, in order
not to conflict with the proportions and outlines laid down by his
architect.
The study of architecture as an art governed by rules and founded on
proportion has carried us a long way from mediæval methods, which
led to rooms being placed where they were wanted without regard to
regularity of appearance; and almost as far from the ways of the
Elizabethan designer, who contrived to get the requisite accommodation
in its traditional relationship within his symmetrical outline. The
former subordinated appearance to convenience; the latter regarded
them as of equal importance; the eighteenth-century preceptor made
convenience bow to his duly proportioned outline.
[Illustration: 158. Plan and Elevation of a House.
_From Isaac Ware’s “Complete Body of Architecture”_ (1756).]
Mr Ware gives a plan and elevation of his design (Fig. 158), but
with the wings rather more distant from the house than he at first
suggested. The left-hand block contains the kitchens, the right-hand
the stables. Of the six ground-floor windows in the outlying blocks,
the exigencies of internal arrangement require that four should
be shams, although they are in the forefront of his architectural
composition; and it is probable that some of the upper windows followed
suit. The route from the kitchen to the dining-room lies across a
lobby, a room, and 50 ft. of open arcade before it arrives at the outer
wall of the central house wherein the dining-room is situated. When
these and other inconveniences are borne in mind, it is manifest that
such principles of design could have no lasting vitality.
[Illustration: 159. Plan and Elevation of a House.
_From Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones.”_]
Mr Ware, writing in the middle of the eighteenth century, was only
following in the footsteps of his eminent guides of thirty years
earlier. Whether we look at the house designs of Inigo Jones through
the eyes of Kent in 1727, or those of Gibbs through his own eyes in
1728, we find formal arrangements aiming at, and often achieving
stateliness, but at much sacrifice of household comfort. Kent’s
“Designs of Inigo Jones,” many of which probably owe their special
characteristics as much to himself as to the great master, consist of
a series of plates giving plans and elevations; an explanatory “Table”
precedes them. The elucidatory matter is confined to a few lines, such
as those to plate 15 of vol. ii. (Fig. 159). “The Plan of the first
Story with the Elevation of the principal Front of a House, with an
Arcade, standing on a Terras, about which is a Ballustrade. The Rooms
of the Plan are 18 Feet high; those above ’em are 16 Feet high, except
the Middle Room which comes over the Arcade to the Front, and includes
the _Attic_ Story. The Windows of the _Attic_ Story are in
the Frieze of the Entablature that encompasses the Building.” There
are three points to be remarked here. First, the importance attached
to the heights of the rooms. Secondly, that the “middle room” includes
the attic storey; it became fashionable (at any rate in published
plans) to have one large and lofty room, sometimes as much as 40 ft.
high. Thirdly, that the windows of the attic storey are in the frieze
of the entablature: this would allow a width of 3 or 4 ft., by a
height which could only be measured in inches, for the windows of
rooms of considerable area--a complete sacrifice of internal comfort
for the sake of external effect. But no doubt, as such rooms were
only “lodgings for servants,” they were considered good enough. Kent
explains on another plate that the lodging rooms for servants “receive
their light from the hall, whose top rises in a pavilion above the
roof.”
[Illustration: 160. Plan, Elevation, and Section of a House.
_From Gibbs’s “Book of Architecture,”_ 1728.]
Kent gives this as one of Inigo Jones’s own designs; it may be in
reality Jones revised by Kent; but in any case the master’s reputation
rests on surer ground. The illustration is offered not as a specimen of
Inigo Jones’s work, but of what the early eighteenth century regarded
as a suitable and elegant piece of domestic architecture. The attic
storey, here starved of light, was a considerable trouble to designers.
Its space was necessary in order to get sufficient accommodation,
partly owing to the fact of the great room occupying two floors; and
much ingenuity was brought to bear upon the problem of lighting it
without overloading the elevation with windows. One method was this
of squeezing them into the frieze. Another was to light it from the
roof where hidden from observation. Another was to borrow light from
the upper part of the central lofty room. This device is adopted in
connection with the passages of Gibbs’s design in Fig. 160, which also
gives a good idea of the manner in which the central hall was treated.
Such lofty rooms as this hall, lighted from windows at their summit,
and warmed (if they ever got warm) by a single fire, must have been
much more magnificent than comfortable. In large houses vast rooms
had their uses; they could be opened on state occasions and left for
more homely apartments in the intervals; but both in Kent’s book and
in Gibbs’s they occur in houses of moderate size, and could hardly
have been left out of account in daily life. They go to show what
importance was attached to state and dignity by every “person of
quality.”
Campbell’s designs were actuated by similar motives. In his “Vitruvius
Britannicus,” published in 1717, he describes a small essay of his
invention for the ingenious gentleman, Tobias Jenkyns, Esq. On the
“first storey, extending 120 foot,” he says, “here is the double and
single cube, the hall being 27 by 54; here is 18 by 27, which is the
_sesqui altera_, and 21 by 27, the _sesqui tertia_, and you
pass gradually from the larger to the lesser.” The front was to have “a
rustic basement and two orders of pilasters in the theatrical, which
admits of more gaiety than the temple or palatial style.”
Such were the principles underlying the house design of professed
masters in architecture in the first half of the eighteenth century,
and it was by publishing their designs that they commended themselves
to the public. They had travelled far from the virility of Inigo Jones
and the splendid common-sense of Wren. Not that Wren had left much
of a legacy in house design. He was an architect of the first rank,
but his work had been chiefly concerned with St Paul’s Cathedral in
London, with the city churches, with palaces and public buildings.
There are but few houses among his preserved drawings, and what there
are throw little illumination on the subject; he never pursued it so
as to make it his own. A few houses here and there are attributed to
him, but it has always been the fashion to attribute unknown work of
exceptional merit to some master of the period on little or no sound
authority. But although he left no direct legacy, a man of such wealth
in architectural power could hardly die and leave nothing behind him;
and doubtless to his influence may be traced much of the spirit which
characterises the vernacular work of the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER XIII.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EXTERIORS--THE
PALLADIAN STYLE.
Architectural design having become an elegant occupation founded on
so impracticable a basis, it is not surprising to find it pursued by
amateurs. Lord Burlington was the most eminent of these, and he tried
his hand, according to contemporary accounts, at a number of houses
as well as at some semi-public buildings, such as the Assembly Room
at York. Kent includes several in his book on Inigo Jones, where they
suffer somewhat by comparison with the genuine work of the master. The
well-known house in Burlington Street for General Wade was another of
his creations, of which Walpole recounts that being ill-contrived and
inconvenient, yet having a beautiful front, Lord Chesterfield said
that as the General could not live in it to his ease, he had better
take a house over against it and look at it. The villa at Chiswick was
yet another of his designs, borrowed, as Walpole says, from a villa of
Palladio’s. Though faulty in plan and arrangement, as that chronicler
admits, yet these blemishes could not “depreciate the taste that reigns
in the whole.” He then adds an observation which throws much light on
the motives that underlay the architectural design of the time. “The
larger court,” he says, “dignified by picturesque cedars, and the
classic scenery of the small court that unites the old and the new
house, are more worth seeing than many fragments of ancient grandeur,
which our travellers visit under all the dangers attendant on long
voyages.” It would seem that to have a bit of architectural grouping
that really reminded you of Italy more than compensated for damp,
draughty, and inconvenient rooms.
Henry, Earl of Pembroke, according to Walpole, was another of the
“men of the first rank who contributed to embellish their country
by buildings of their own design in the purest style of antique
composition.” William, Earl Fitzwilliam, designed a new front to
Wentworth Castle; General Conway erected a rustic bridge, of which
every stone was placed by his own direction; but from a reference in
one of Walpole’s letters to George Montagu, it was hardly a piece
of architecture, but rather a mere piling up of large stones; this,
however, the writer regarded as much superior to a regular Palladian
structure. Mr Chute, at his seat of the Vyne, in Hampshire, designed
and erected a theatric staircase. Dean Aldrich and Dr Clarke at
Oxford, and Sir James Burroughs at Cambridge, were also amateurs, but
they appear to have had more claim as designers than some of those
whom Walpole extols. The amateur architect of the eighteenth century
had, indeed, a long and even illustrious ancestry. Already in Charles
II.’s reign Sir John Denham, a poet, had been surveyor of the works
to the King. Wren, who succeeded him, was himself an amateur, in the
sense that he received no early training in architecture, and that
his reputation as a scientist was fully established before he turned
his attention to art. But Wren was a man of exceptional genius and
capacity, and soon mastered the technicalities of his new calling. Sir
John Vanbrugh was a poet before he was an architect, yet to him we owe
houses of the first importance, such as Blenheim and Castle Howard.
Besides these amateurs there were men who had received a definite
training as architects, John Webb, the nephew and son-in-law of Inigo
Jones; Nicholas Hawksmoor, the assistant of Wren; James Gibbs; Colin
Campbell; Thomas Ripley, of whom Walpole says that “in the mechanic
part, and in the disposition of apartments and conveniences,” he was
superior to Lord Burlington himself; and William Kent, the protégé and
friend of the same munificent and gifted nobleman. But even among these
professional architects the amateur spirit prevailed, and their clients
had to adapt themselves to the houses provided for them, instead of the
houses being adapted to the wants of the clients.
Other designers might be named of this period and of the preceding
half-century, as well as of later times, but the present object is
to trace in a brief way the gradual changes which took place in
houses themselves, without burdening the reader with many particulars
concerning their architects. The immediate source of inspiration for
all designers of this period was the Italian, Andreas Palladio; and no
designation has been more aptly bestowed on a phase of architecture
than Palladian upon that of the eighteenth century. Every type of
plan that was employed, every type of elevation, almost every kind of
feature that was adopted, has its prototype among Palladio’s designs.
In one instance, Mereworth “Castle” in Kent, Campbell, who designed
it, states that he copied it from a villa by Palladio built near
Vicenza for Signor Paolo Armerico. It is true that he introduced a few
variations, but substantially it is the same design; a design which had
already been adapted, with other variations, by the Earl of Burlington
in his villa at Chiswick. This is the most notable instance of direct
copyism; but a comparison of any of the published plans of that period
with those given by Giacomo Leoni in his “Architecture of A. Palladio,”
will show that they were all founded on Italian models, and derived
little (except the names of some of the rooms) from English tradition.
[Illustration: 161. House in St James’s Square, London (1772).]
This planting of Italian villas on English soil, where they were
subjected to a climate wholly different from that of the land of
their origin; this handling of the plan and elevation with a view
to architectural effect, instead of with a view to the comfort of
daily life, was of a piece with the artificiality of the age in other
directions. Among the letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne is one written
in 1739 to a friend whom he designates Philotes. In it he describes
how he had lately visited another friend (Euphronius), who was shortly
going to the wars in Flanders. As the warrior was not one of those who
preserve the chance of fighting another day by running away, there was
some probability of his never returning. Accordingly he had caused his
portrait to be taken after a manner designed by his father-in-law.
He was portrayed as Hector, his wife as Andromache, his sister-in-law
and little boy as the nurse holding Astyanax. So much was the writer
pleased with this “uncommon family-piece,” that he could wish it were
the fashion to have all such pictures executed in some such manner.
Architects, it is clear, were not the only designers who drew their
inspiration from classic sources.
But however mistaken their ideals were, the architects of George I.’s
time went a long way towards achieving them. Stateliness within and
without, noble proportions, careful and refined detail--all these
they produced in plenty. Possibly their noble clients, the “persons
of quality,” the “persons of distinction,” were satisfied with the
results, and were content to forego the comforts of home for the
opportunity of living the stately life. Yet from contemporary observers
we get occasionally a word of protest. After hearing a description of
Blenheim, Pope says,
“’Tis very fine,
But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ye dine?
I see from all you have been telling
That ’tis a house, but not a dwelling.”
He tells Lord Burlington, too, that his noble rules would fill half the
land with imitating fools, who, among other things,
“Shall call the wind thro’ long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;
Conscious they act a true Palladian part,
And if they starve, they starve by rules of art.”
The rules of art were supreme. They had achieved their supremacy
by the time that George I. came to the throne. Inigo Jones was too
original a thinker, too close to the old traditions, to be entirely
fettered by them. Wren was too powerful a genius, too much occupied
in solving constructional problems, to become their slave. He was too
busy surmounting real architectural difficulties to occupy his time
in half-hearted attempts to translate Italian villas into terms of
English mansions; and some at least of his contemporaries refrained
from the favourite pursuit of his successors. In the second half of the
eighteenth century architects gave themselves a little more freedom of
treatment, while still conforming to the very careful proportions of
the classic styles. The brothers Adam, for instance, while indulging
in no great flights of fancy, bestowed great care on the proportions
and the detail of their work. The house, No. 20 St James’s Square (Fig.
161), is a good example of the refined manner of Robert Adam, although,
compared with the productions of the early part of the century, it may
be considered a little insipid.
[Illustration: 162. Boughton House, Northamptonshire (_cir._
1700).]
Boughton House in Northamptonshire lies outside the usual run of
classic houses of its period. It was built, or rather rebuilt,
by Ralph, Duke of Montagu, who incorporated in his new house a
considerable portion of his ancestral home, which had been first
erected in the middle of the sixteenth century. Montagu had been
ambassador at the court of Louis XIV., and on his return to England
towards the end of the seventeenth century, he built his house, as one
chronicler affirms, after the model of Versailles. It was a very modest
version, it is true; but there is a French feeling about it, in rather
refreshing contrast to the innumerable Palladian mansions of later
years (Fig. 162). The “long arcade” is there, but there is a welcome
absence of overpowering columns and cornices, and the windows are all
adequate for their purpose. Its restrained treatment, indeed, leads the
casual visitor to pronounce it dull; but its very simplicity produces
dignity, and its detail is refined. Within, it has ranges of noble
rooms (Fig. 183), which, like those at Hampton Court, have the drawback
of leading one into the other without the help of a corridor. They are
all panelled with large panels, and are full of fine furniture of the
period, and fine pictures. There are several excellent staircases, of
different and somewhat unusual design; and many of the ceilings exhibit
the masterpieces of Verrio or his school (Fig. 209). The house was the
centre of a vast and magnificent lay-out, in which great avenues, sunk
gardens, canals, lakes, cascades, and statuary all played their part.
The whole place, in spite of the decay of the gardens, retains much of
its original interest, and gives a vivid idea of the home of a great
noble of the time of William and Mary.
[Illustration: 163. The Entrance, Drayton House, Northants (_cir._
1700).]
Another house with much work of the same period is Drayton, in the same
county. This is an interesting edifice dating back to the beginning of
the fourteenth century. The early roof of the great hall has already
been illustrated (Fig. 84). Considerable alterations were made in the
reign of Henry VI.; a long wing was added in Elizabeth’s time; and the
close of the seventeenth century left perhaps the most lasting mark of
all. The hall was refronted and furnished with a fine doorway (Fig.
163), and enormous sash windows. At the ends of the front courtyard
columned arcades were introduced. A chapel was contrived against the
ancient windowless wall of fortified times. Most of the old mullioned
windows were replaced by sashes. Two venerable towers were crowned
with cupolas on columns, which lift themselves up against the sky and
proclaim the identity of the house at a glance. New staircases were
contrived, one covered with a coved ceiling on which Lanseroon tried
his skill. Many rooms were panelled with the large panels of the
time. The long gallery in the attic of the Elizabethan wing was made
into a library with rows of carefully designed shelves. A little room
leading out of the library was fitted up as a boudoir for the Duchess
of Norfolk; its ceiling was coved and gilt, and a mirror placed in the
central panel; the walls were partly panelled and partly fitted with
cases of curious Chinese objects; the floor was covered with a charming
design in parquetry, where formal patterns were interspersed with
dainty little birds, admirably drawn. The great hall was ceiled below
the ancient open-timber roof. The whole place was renovated within
and without, and newly furnished with fine chairs, settees, tables,
and beds, which remain to this day in the house where they went when
they were new. Nor was this all. The gardens were rearranged; stables
were built; long walls of enclosure were raised, pierced with gateways
into which splendid iron gates were hung. The front court was enclosed
on one side with a long stretch of excellent iron railings. Quaint
flights of steps led from one level to another. Innumerable lead urns,
large and small, but all bearing delicately modelled designs, were
placed at intervals along the balustrades, or mounted on great stone
pedestals as worthy to form central objects in the various quarters
of the garden. The whole place is another admirable example of how
noblemen housed themselves in those days, and it has this advantage
over Boughton, that it preserves its gardens, and that it has a longer
and more varied history to look back upon.
Shortly after the work at Boughton and Drayton was finished, Sir John
Vanbrugh was laying his “heavy loads” on the earth in various parts of
the country. Heavy they may be, but no one can deny them vigour and
force. Vanbrugh, like his contemporaries, troubled himself little about
the niceties of planning from the point of view of daily life, nor did
he even provide rooms of a size and dignity proportionate to the vast
palaces he designed. But no architect of the time succeeded better in
pleasing the passer-by with his stately buildings. Blenheim, the gift
of a grateful nation to her most distinguished hero, was rivalled by
Castle Howard (Fig. 164), the private enterprise of a wealthy nobleman.
Eastbury in Dorset was nearly as large, and from the outset must have
been something of a white elephant to its owners. At the end of the
eighteenth century its possessor is said to have offered an annuity of
£200 to any one who would live there and keep it in repair. Finding
nobody willing to undertake the responsibility, he finally pulled down
all but one wing. Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, though not so
large, was still on an extravagant scale. The central block, a fine
and massive piece of building, had nevertheless no great amount of
accommodation, and it has never been rebuilt since it was burnt down
in 1752. Both the outlying wings remain; the kitchen was in one, many
yards distant from the dining-room; and some of the bedrooms in this
block have to this day no direct communication with the outer air. The
other wing contained, as usual, the stables; but so vast are its spaces
that the standings within it that are used have had to be enclosed in
order to keep them warm.
[Illustration: 164. Castle Howard, Yorkshire (1714).]
The plan of Castle Howard (Fig. 165) shows what splendour Vanbrugh and
his clients aimed at. The house itself, with a long extending garden
front, a lofty hall, and the prevalent curved colonnades flanking the
chief entrance, is supported by two projecting wings, containing on one
side the chapel, and on the other the kitchen and other rooms called
the “hunting apartments.” Outside each wing is a large court--the
stable court on one side, the kitchen court on the other, the whole
disposition producing a frontage of 660 feet. Blenheim by the same
reckoning extended 850 feet. The bird’s-eye view of Castle Howard (Fig.
164) shows the stately treatment of the exterior seen from the front;
while Fig. 166 (from a photograph) shows the garden façade. It is a
palace rather than a private house. The general view also shows how the
buildings that compose the wings are treated absolutely alike, although
their purposes are widely different. This practice must have resulted
in extravagance and inconvenience at one end or the other, probably at
both. Doubtless this aspect of the question occurred to the designer,
but it must be remembered that the early eighteenth century frankly
built for show rather than for use. Pope points this moral in his
letter to Burlington--
“You show us Rome was glorious, not profuse,
And pompous buildings once were things of use.”
The settled proportions in which architects then delighted, the
double cube, Campbell’s _sesquialtera_ and _sesquitertia_,
resulted in fine apartments, of which the double cube room at Wilton
in Wiltshire is the most notable. There is another room of similar
proportions, but rather smaller, in the same county, in the Bishop’s
palace at Salisbury. This is the drawing-room, built over some of
Bishop Poore’s twelfth-century vaulting. It is 50 ft. by 25 ft., a fine
apartment, well adapted for the semi-private functions which diversify
the daily life of a great Church dignitary, but perhaps a little too
large for ordinary family use. On the opposite side of the close is
a house which aptly illustrates the type of plan familiar in the
architectural folios of the time. It is a large square house of almost
stately appearance. A flight of steps leads up to the spacious entrance
hall, which is two storeys high, and contains an excellent staircase.
Straight across the hall is the dining-room, of reasonable size. To
the left lies a room which extends the whole depth of the house from
front to back, a distance of between 30 and 40 ft., while its width
is not quite half as much. There can be little doubt that the room is
too long for its width, and that there would have been more comfort
had the architect been less ambitious. For the purposes of daily life
the occupants prefer a smaller room on the other side of the hall. The
bedrooms are few in number, and the actual accommodation of the house
is by no means so large as its appearance suggests, much space being
sacrificed for the hall.
[Illustration: 165. Castle Howard, Yorkshire. Plan of Principal Floor.]
Another example of the fine houses of the eighteenth century is
Campbell’s Wanstead in Essex (Fig. 167), built shortly before 1720.
In his “Vitruvius Britannicus” he gives three designs for this house,
two in the first volume and one in the third. The second design,
somewhat modified in detail, was carried out; these modifications
are shown on the third design, which also includes a tower at each end
of the façade; it was, however, quite as well that these towers were
not built, for they would have been no improvement. The view here given
was taken from the house itself, which was pulled down in 1822. It is
a dignified composition, one of the least extravagant of its period,
but the plan, although more compact than many, is ill-adapted for the
ordinary routine of household life.
[Illustration: 166. Castle Howard, Yorkshire. The Garden Façade.]
[Illustration: 167. Wanstead House, Essex (built shortly before 1720).]
If we leave the architecture of the masters and of their books, and
turn to the ordinary houses of the time, we find something much more
home-like and convenient. These smaller houses reflect, though dimly,
the stately handling of their more pompous contemporaries. They are
generally a complete and symmetrical whole, and if in the course of
time their owners wish to enlarge them, it becomes a problem of some
difficulty how to do so without spoiling their appearance. The entrance
door is in the middle of one front, and is flanked on either hand by
three or four sash windows, spaced so as to fall into groups. The group
over the door is often surmounted by a pediment, or has some special
treatment, as at Rothwell manor house (Fig. 192). The angles of the
building generally have quoins, the roof is hipped every way, and at
the eaves there is a projecting cornice of varying degrees of richness.
The chimneys are gathered together in large solid stacks; the roof
surface is broken by dormers. The whole effect is simple and quiet. The
large spaces of plain walling, the large area of the window openings,
the large chimney-stacks are all in complete contrast to the lively
windows, steep gables, and detached chimney-shafts of Elizabethan and
Jacobean houses. There are innumerable examples of this kind throughout
the country. Every old-fashioned town has two or three, occupied by
leading inhabitants, the doctor, the solicitor, the maiden ladies. Not
a few manor houses are of the same type, with rooms of reasonable size
and height, and the eating-room within easy reach of the kitchen. A
good specimen of a small house is Fenton House, Hampstead, of which
the plan is given in Fig. 168, and the side elevation in Fig. 169. The
plan is compact and well arranged, there is no attempt at grandeur, and
the rooms are accordingly disposed with a view primarily to comfort;
yet both within and without the effect is handsome; there is nothing
pretentious on the one hand, nor mean and makeshift on the other. The
elevation follows the usual simple lines mentioned above.
[Illustration: 168. Fenton House, Hampstead.
Ground Plan.]
It is seldom that these houses are dated, and they have not been
considered of sufficient importance for any one to record the year of
their building; it is therefore not possible to place the examples
here illustrated in chronological order, except in the case of the
house at Burwash in Sussex (Fig. 170), which bears the date 1699 in
a plaster panel on the soffit of the hood over the front door. Two
features which agree with the date, and place it earlier than the other
examples, are the wood mullioned windows and the panelled chimneys.
The next three illustrations (Figs. 171, 172, 173) were probably all
built during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. They have
sash windows of which the wood casing forms a broad white margin to the
opening. One has architraves to its windows, one merely key-stones by
way of ornament, and one has no relief of this kind. Varieties such as
these, unpretending as they are, impart a certain amount of character.
The remaining two examples (Figs. 174, 175) date from towards the end
of the century. They show how formal and spiritless house design was
growing. The absence of a wide overhanging cornice seems to deprive
them of half their character. On the other hand, they are too simple
and unpretentious to excite that active dislike which some of the more
laboured houses of yet later times arouses.
[Illustration: 169. Fenton House, Hampstead.
Side Elevation.]
[Illustration: 170. “Roppynden,” Burwash, Sussex (1699).]
[Illustration: 171. The Rectory House, Burford, Oxfordshire.]
[Illustration: 172. House at Horsham, Sussex.]
[Illustration: 173. Heale House, Middle Woodford, near Salisbury.]
[Illustration: 174. House at Faversham (late 18th cent.).]
[Illustration: 175. House at Colchester (late 18th cent.).]
[Illustration: 176. Drayton House, Northamptonshire.
Gates in the Side of Fore-court (_cir._ 1700).]
[Illustration: 177. Drayton House.
Gates at the End of the West Avenue (_cir._ 1700).]
The iron gates and railings of the period from William III. to George
II. afford some of the finest specimens of craftsmanship which the
country can boast. Those at Drayton House have already been mentioned.
They were mostly wrought for the Duchess of Norfolk about the year
1700, and much of the work bears her monogram. From the wealth of
examples which the gardens and park offer, two have been selected,
one from the side of the front court (Fig. 176), and one from the
broad avenue which runs westward from the entrance front (Fig. 177).
In the former the device of placing the massive hammered leafage
in the tympanum of the arch, with the bright sky as a background,
is singularly happy. In the latter the combination of the delicate
ironwork with the lofty stone piers crowned with large lead urns
produces a noble effect, which is heightened by the remote position
of the group from the house at the end of an avenue never meant for
traffic. It was only a lordly munificence which could place so notable
a feature where in the ordinary way it would be but dimly visible.
[Illustration: 178. Gates at Eaton Hall, Cheshire.]
[Illustration: 179. Railings and Gates at Carshalton House, Surrey
(1723).]
At Eaton Hall in Cheshire is another fine example (not, however, in
its original position) of somewhat unusual design (Fig. 178). Here,
too, the more elaborate part of the work is high up, where it now
shows against the sky; the lower parts are plain, and veil, without
obscuring, the view. The pillars instead of being in stone are built up
of ironwork. Clever as the idea is, the effect is not so monumental as
when the delicacy of the metal is bounded by the solidity of stone or
brick.
There is a splendid range of gates and railing at Carshalton in Surrey,
erected in 1723 (Fig. 179) as part of the embellishments of the
gardens and park of Carshalton House, which was to have been built
for Sir Thomas Scawen from the designs of Giacomo Leoni. It never
was built, however, and these gates (of which the designer is not
known), together with some others of less pretension, and a bridge,
are all that remain of an ambitious scheme. The stone piers at either
end, surmounted by lively lead figures, help the monumental effect,
an effect which would perhaps have been even finer had the range of
ironwork not been quite so long.
[Illustration: 180. Gate to a House in High Street, Richmond, Surrey.]
But it was not only large houses to which these fine adjuncts were
applied. The neighbourhood of London abounds in charming specimens
attached to houses of quite small size, such as that in Fig. 180;
and even in London itself there are still left interesting examples,
many of them yet retaining the extinguisher used by the linkboys
after piloting their patrons through the difficulties of the dark and
ill-paved streets.
CHAPTER XIV.
LATE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH
CENTURIES--INTERIORS--DETAILS
AND FEATURES.
The gradual change in character which has been traced in the external
treatment of houses of the later part of the seventeenth century and
of the eighteenth is also to be found in the internal decoration. The
exuberant and vivacious detail of Elizabethan and Jacobean work gave
way to the more sober and scholarly rendering of Inigo Jones, Webb,
Wren, and their successors. The walls, the doors, the windows, the
chimney-pieces, the ceilings, and the staircases were alike affected.
Throughout the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth the
ancient methods of covering the walls prevailed; either with hangings
or with panelling. The panels, however, became much larger; instead
of being 12 or 15 in. wide, they were 3 ft. or more, and high in
proportion. Hitherto they had usually been made in one sheet from floor
to cornice; sometimes, however, a dado had been introduced; that is a
range of panels near the floor, surmounted by a horizontal moulding
which made the circuit of the room at the height of about 3 ft. from
the floor, thus dividing the panelling into two unequal ranges, a
low one below, and a lofty one above. This arrangement, instead of
being the exception, now became the rule. The pilasters and cornices
were more carefully and correctly designed--both those of the walls
and those which embellished the doorways. The broken pediment was
introduced, and not infrequently the blank space left where the apex of
the completed pediment would have been was filled with a cartouche of
arms surrounded by foliage, and linked to the adjacent work by heavy
swags of fruit and leaves (Fig. 195). All the detail was carefully
designed, both as to its proportion, its purity of outline, and its
suitable decoration with carving. Yet withal there was a freedom and
variety of treatment, a charming absence of too formal restraint,
which were a legacy from the lighthearted and irresponsible methods of
earlier days. At Thorney Hall in Cambridgeshire there is some excellent
panelling of this kind (Fig. 181). It has been attributed to Inigo
Jones, but from its close resemblance to the work at Thorpe Hall (Fig.
194), it may be more safely assigned to his pupil and successor, John
Webb.
[Illustration: 181. Panelling in the Dining-room at Thorney Hall,
Cambridgeshire.]
[Illustration: 182. Typical Panel Mouldings of the Eighteenth Century.]
The mouldings of the panels became bolder; instead of being narrow and
kept within the face of the surrounding woodwork, they grew to 3 in.
or more in width and projected considerably beyond the face; the panel
itself, instead of being recessed from the framing, not infrequently
stood out in front of it (Fig. 182). The carving followed the same
tendency; instead of being flat in section, delicately modelled in
conventional designs, and kept in subordination, adding an unobtrusive
interest to the surrounding work, it asserted its independence, grew
high in relief, assumed naturalistic forms, and challenged admiration
on its own account. This is particularly noticeable in Grinling
Gibbons’ carving, which excites admiration by its life-like modelling
and wonderful execution, yet often induces the feeling that it has
been too eager to throw off the wholesome restraints of architectural
treatment.
[Illustration: 183. Boughton House, Northants (_cir._ 1700).
View in State Apartments.]
[Illustration: 184. House in Buckingham Street, Strand, London (1675).]
[Illustration: 185. Wilton House, Wiltshire.
Chimney-piece in the Single Cube Room (_cir._ 1648).]
[Illustration: 186. House in Hatton Garden, London. (Now destroyed.)]
The large panels, the dado, the bold bolection mouldings are everywhere
in evidence at Boughton House, where suites of rooms, opening one
from the other, afford long vistas through lofty doors (Fig. 183).
There is an excellent example in a house (now rebuilt) in Buckingham
Street, near the Strand (Fig. 184), built about 1675; a house which was
the residence of Peter the Great while he was studying at Deptford.
By the middle of the seventeenth century pilasters, as a means of
dividing wall-panelling into bays, had gone out of fashion; their
place was sometimes taken, as at Wilton, by carved drapery or
flowers apparently hung on the wall (Fig. 185); but even this attempt
at grouping the panels was subsequently relinquished, and the walls
became covered with nothing but the large panels, crowned with a good
cornice and relieved by the dado, the windows, the doors, and the
chimney-piece. This simple but satisfactory treatment may be seen in
numberless houses of the time of Queen Anne and the early Georges,
where the panelling consists of nothing more than slightly raised
panels, surrounded by the plainest of mouldings (Fig. 186). Later in
the century the wood panelling disappeared, and its place was taken
by panels sunk in the plaster of the walls, such as Abraham Swan
shows in his “Designs of Architecture” (Fig. 187), or by the more
elaborate plaster panels of the old War Office (Fig. 188) attributed to
Brettingham; or yet again by wallpaper, such as is familiar to every
one in the present day.
[Illustration: 187. Treatment of One Side of a Room.
_From Abraham Swan’s “Designs in Architecture”_ (1757).]
[Illustration: 188. Room in Old War Office, formerly Cumberland House,
Pall Mall (1760–67).
(Now destroyed.)
_Matthew Brettingham, Architect._]
[Illustration: 189. Doorway at Cark Hall, Lancashire (_cir._
1623).]
A considerable amount of attention was bestowed upon doors and
doorways, both external and internal. In Jacobean times external
doorways were tolerably simple in themselves, and they were generally
set back inside a porch, which was entered through a semicircular
archway flanked by pilasters or columns carrying a frieze and cornice.
Typical examples may be seen at Felbrigge Hall (Fig. 118) and Gayhurst
(Fig. 126). This method was carried on during the first quarter of
the seventeenth century. A later treatment occurs at Cark Hall,
Lancashire, where almost detached columns support a bold semicircular
pediment which encloses a heavy wreath surrounding a coat of arms (Fig.
189).
[Illustration: 190. Doorway formerly in Sherborne Lane, London.]
[Illustration: At Petworth. At Godalming.
191. External Doorways.]
[Illustration: 192. Manor House at Rothwell, Northamptonshire
(_cir._ 1720).
Entrance Doorway.]
[Illustration: 193. Raynham Hall, Norfolk (_cir._ 1636).
A Doorway.]
In the eighteenth century a pediment over external doors became the
established fashion, as a reference to the illustrations of the
smaller houses (Figs. 171–173) will show. It rested either on a bold
architrave, or on pilasters. If not a pediment, then there would be a
bold hood generally fashioned internally in the similitude of a huge
shell, such as may be seen at Burwash (Fig. 170), or, more at large,
in a doorway which once stood in Sherborne Lane, London (Fig. 190).
At first the pilasters and pediment were of stone, but later on they
were made of wood protected from the weather by a covering of lead.
Very charming features of this kind may be seen in almost any old
country town; two illustrations, from Petworth and Godalming, are given
in Fig. 191. It will be seen that each of them has an arrangement
characteristic of the age in the shape of a fanlight over the door,
a simple but really ingenious device for obtaining light where the
entrance hall was not wide enough to allow of a window. The fanlight
was always divided into comparatively small spaces by bars gracefully
curved; and it is surprising to what a variety of pleasing designs this
fashion led. Much fancy was displayed in the embellishment of doorways
long after windows had become mere oblong apertures relieved only by
stout cross-bars. Even when the bulk of the windows were thus plain, a
central feature was sometimes contrived by adopting a special treatment
of the window over the door, as in the case of the manor house at
Rothwell (Fig. 192).
[Illustration: 194. Thorpe Hall, Northamptonshire (_cir._ 1656).
Doorway and Panelling.]
Internal doorways in Jacobean times had frequently been lavishly
ornamented, and the desire to achieve a handsome result had
occasionally led to an extraordinary elaboration. In this respect, as
in others, the cultivated taste of trained architects, such as Inigo
Jones and Webb, led to a more sober and carefully calculated result.
This may be seen at Raynham Park (Fig. 193) by Jones, and at Thorpe
Hall (Fig. 194) by Webb, where there is a delightful mixture of freedom
and austerity. Then came Wren with his massive and masculine hand, of
which the influence, although probably not immediate and direct, is
visible in the doorways at Combe Abbey (Fig. 195) and Love Lane (Fig.
210).
A type of general treatment became firmly established. The very large
panels of the end of the seventeenth century, such as those adopted at
Love Lane, gave place to smaller. Instead of two, doors had six or even
more panels. They were surrounded by a bold architrave, and surmounted
by an overdoor consisting of frieze and cornice, as may be seen in
the example from Hatton Garden (Fig. 186); from the book of Abraham
Swan (Fig. 187); from the old War Office (Fig. 188); or from the later
houses shown in Fig. 196. All the component parts of the design--the
architrave, the frieze, the cornice--lent themselves to enrichment by
carving. But this was generally applied with discretion, and with a
well-regulated wish to heighten the effect without overdoing it. The
carving changed in character with the lapse of years. In the early part
of the century it retained the boldness imparted by Wren and Vanbrugh,
but gradually its vigour gave way to the delicacy and refinement
associated with the names of the brothers Adam, of which type an
excellent example is shown from Sheen House (Fig. 196, _b_).
[Illustration: 195. Doorway at Combe Abbey (1686).
Probably designed by Captain Wynne.]
[Illustration: 196. Three Internal Doorways.
_a._ From a House in Whitehall Gardens (before 1727).
_b._ From Sheen House, Richmond.
_c._ From Cumberland House (Old War Office, 1760–67).]
[Illustration: 197. Chimney-piece from Raynham Hall.]
The same gradual changes which took place in the design of doorways
also characterise the treatment of chimney-pieces. The small detail
and elaborate ornament of the Jacobean style gave way to a simpler and
larger handling. Already towards the close of the Jacobean period
much of the exuberant carving and fretwork of earlier times had been
dropped, and in its place simple columns and moulded panels had been
adopted. The obvious division of a chimney-piece into two stages, one
surrounding the fireplace, and the other filling the wall space above
it--a division which is most easily described by the rather hackneyed
terms mantel and overmantel--became more emphasised than it had been.
Many of the chimney-pieces of the time of Elizabeth and James are so
largely designed, both in size and scale, that they strike the beholder
as one composition rather than as two halves. With the simplification
of the detail, the two-fold character became more apparent. The space
above the fireplace was often panelled after the same general fashion
as the rest of the room, but with some special treatment to emphasise
its important position. The chimney-piece consequently became a
one-storey feature. This is the case in the room at Wilton (Fig. 185),
and also in a minor degree at Raynham Hall (Fig. 197). But concurrently
with this treatment went another, which, while adopting the division of
mantel and overmantel, kept them both in complete harmony, and made one
feature of them. Good examples of this were to be found in the house
in Hatton Garden, now destroyed (Figs. 186, 198). The blank space in
the overmantel in Fig. 186 was probably occupied by a picture, for it
was a frequent custom to insert in the panel over the fireplace some
agreeable but unexciting subject, such as a flowerpiece or a landscape
diversified with architectural ruins; something which should inspire
a mild interest by its harmonious colour and peaceful rendering. A
typical chimney-piece of the early eighteenth century is reproduced
from an original drawing by the architect James Gibbs in Fig. 199. This
was clearly meant to be completed by a picture. Another example of a
similar kind is that from a house in Whitehall Gardens (Fig. 200),
which closely resembles one of Kent’s designs. Sometimes instead of a
picture a mirror was introduced in this position; but as large sheets
of glass were not yet procurable, the mirrors were made long and low,
and not infrequently in three divisions of which the middle one was
circular headed.
[Illustration: 198. Chimney-piece from a House in Hatton Garden,
London. (Now destroyed.)]
The treatment adopted about the middle of the century may be gathered
from the illustration taken from Swan’s book (Fig. 187); while that of
a few years later is shown in the specimen from Lansdowne House by the
brothers Adam (Fig. 201). Here it will be seen that the chimney-piece
is an isolated feature, not part of a general scheme of architectural
decoration, for the walls are papered, and the only reminiscence
of the more monumental treatment of past times is the dado-rail. It
was before some such fireplace as this, but simpler and less ornate,
that Cowper sat on a winter evening when he heard the post-boy’s horn
sounding along the “wearisome but needful length” of the country
bridge, and called upon his companion to
“Stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
Which cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.”
Except that the urn and the shutters have gone out of fashion, the
picture might have been drawn in the present day, so far have we
travelled from the central hearth of the Gothic hall. The stirring of
the fire is a touch that reminds us of the disappearance of the open
hearth, and the adoption of the fire-grate in its stead--a change
which had occurred some sixty or seventy years before Cowper published
his “Winter Evening” in 1785. No exact date can be assigned to the
alteration, just as no exact date can be given to the practice of
papering walls instead of panelling them or hanging them with tapestry.
But in an inventory of two country houses belonging to a director of
the South Sea Company, made in 1720, it is obvious that although grates
were already in use the open hearth was still prevalent. Many of the
rooms had fire-dogs, shovels, and tongs, but no poker; while others had
a grate, shovel, tongs, and poker, but no fire-dogs. It is the dogs
which were essential to the open hearth in order to keep the logs of
wood in position, for wood was the fuel of the ancient fire; and it is
the poker which was essential to the grate in order to break the coal,
and coal was the fuel of the modern fire. The intermediate step was
the dog-grate, which was in its essence a firebasket holding coal, and
placed in the old, large, open recesses. This expedient, however, was
not entirely successful. The huge flues of the old days did not draw
away the smoke from the small coal fires adequately; coal smoke is far
more pungent and disagreeable than wood smoke; and therefore the next
step was to increase the draught by combining with the grate a shield
which should close the large opening of the open hearth, or by building
it up with brickwork. The result was the first ancestor of the modern
grate.
[Illustration: 199. Chimney-piece designed by James Gibbs.
_From an Original Drawing by the Architect._]
[Illustration: 200. Chimney-piece in a House in Whitehall Gardens,
London (before 1727).
This chimney-piece closely resembles one in Kent’s “Designs of Inigo
Jones,” plate 63.]
[Illustration: 201. Chimney-piece from Lansdowne House, London
(_cir._ 1765).]
[Illustration: 202. Plaster Frieze at Coles Farm, Box, Wiltshire
(1649).]
[Illustration: 203. Plaster Frieze at Coles Farm, Box.]
Just as the small panels of Jacobean woodwork gave way to the large
panels of Wilton House and Boughton, so were the busy ceilings of
the early seventeenth century gradually superseded by a more massive
treatment. The older treatment survived in remote places till half-way
through the century, and a plaster frieze of 1649, from Coles Farm,
near Box in Wiltshire (Figs. 202, 203), shows how the old forms
lingered on, although losing some of their vitality. The pattern in
these busy ceilings covered the whole area, and the ground of the area
was unbroken except by the pattern; any constructional beams that were
required were concealed. But in course of time the beams asserted
themselves, and were so arranged, with the addition of heavy ribs
forming circular, oval, or octagonal panels, as to divide the area
into several large spaces, thus breaking it up into deeply recessed
divisions. The ornament, instead of being spread over the whole ceiling
equally, was concentrated on and near the beams and ribs. The whole
character of the ceiling was altered: instead of being a large, evenly
fretted surface, it was broken up into several massive bays, which gave
it a heavier and more monumental appearance. As in the wood-carving so
in the plasterwork, much greater relief was aimed at, and in some of
the finest ceilings of the time of William and Mary much of the work
is so detached as to require a framework of wire for its foundation.
This large way of handling the ceiling prevailed throughout the latter
half of the seventeenth century, and is exemplified by the work at
Thorpe Hall (Fig. 204), designed by Webb, the house in Buckingham
Street (Fig. 184), and a house in Warwick Square in the city, once
the home of a wealthy merchant (Fig. 206). It survived in occasional
examples till towards the close of the eighteenth century. Ware held
it to be sufficiently in vogue to justify him in giving instructions
as to the treatment of ceilings, and the design in Fig. 205 gives an
excellent idea of the system and of the contrast it presents to
Jacobean methods. An example of yet later date is in a room at the old
War Office (Fig. 188), but here the main lines are unconstructional in
their shape: the subsidiary ornament is of the delicate type associated
with the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: 204. Ceiling from Thorpe Hall, Northamptonshire
(_cir._ 1656).]
[Illustration: 205. Ceiling designed by Isaac Ware.]
[Illustration: 206. Ceiling from a House in Warwick Square in the City
of London (_cir._ 1707).]
[Illustration: 207. Room in a House in Whitehall Gardens, London,
showing Flat Treatment of Ceiling (late 18th cent.).]
Concurrently with the massive treatment just described, the eighteenth
century saw a reversion to the old idea of treating the ceiling as
one large flat surface and covering it with ornament in low relief. A
specimen of this type is seen in the house in Whitehall Gardens (Fig.
207). The relief is very low, and the ornament is of the discursive
rococo type, wanting in an easily intelligible _motif_. In equally
low relief were the ceilings designed by the brothers Adam, but their
forms were intelligible, and the modelling was full of delicacy and
refinement. A characteristic example of their work is that from a house
in Mansfield Street, London (Fig. 208). In a great number of houses,
especially the ordinary unimportant house, the ceilings throughout
the eighteenth century were quite plain. The rooms depended for their
interest upon the panelling, the chimney-piece, and the well-moulded
cornice, which not infrequently was carried along the ceiling beams,
introduced in order to lessen the depth of the floor joists by
shortening their bearings to 7 or 8 ft.
An entirely different kind of ceiling, which had a vogue of some fifty
years, must not be overlooked. It belongs perhaps less to the domain
of architecture than to that of painting, namely the painted ceilings
associated with the names of Verrio and Laguerre. Verrio was brought
over to England by Charles II., and he died in 1707. Laguerre, whom
he employed, and who carried on the style after Verrio’s death, lived
till 1721. With him the interest ceased, although Sir James Thornhill
went on painting ceilings for another dozen years. It is only in
great houses or public buildings that this phase of decoration is to
be found. The ceiling was regarded as a vast canvas, and certainly
no previous painter had enjoyed so wide a field for the display of
his conceptions. As a rule both Verrio and Laguerre succeeded in
avoiding the weighting of their ceilings with too ponderous matter.
Their favourite subjects were gods and goddesses seated upon clouds,
and some very clever drawing and painting they produced. Their work
cannot well be compared with that of masters working under the ordinary
conditions of a movable canvas, controllable light, and a vertical
position for manual execution. Were their masterpieces more easily
studied than by looking upwards at a ceiling, they would probably
be held in higher esteem. Some idea of the effect of this method of
decoration may be gathered from Fig. 209, which gives part of a ceiling
in Boughton House, attributed to Verrio. The dark cornice on the left
is actually the soffit of the modelled plasterwork; everything else,
including the shallow balustrade, is painted on the flat ceiling.
[Illustration: 208. A Drawing-room in Mansfield Street, London.
_R. & J. Adam, Architect._]
[Illustration: 209. Painted Ceiling from Boughton House,
Northamptonshire (attributed to Verrio, _cir._ 1700).]
Staircases seem to have been an exception to that general tendency to
increase the scale of detail which is apparent in work of the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One of the characteristics of
Jacobean staircases is the massiveness of their component parts,
the newels, the balusters, the handrail, the string; even the steps
themselves were sometimes made of solid blocks of wood. The newels
were carried up well above the handrail, and fashioned into finials,
sometimes heavily moulded, sometimes made into a pedestal for a
figure--a heraldic animal, a boy playing an instrument, a warrior
or what not. The “string” which supported the ends of the steps was
always stout and solid. Much of this early treatment was carried on
till the end of the seventeenth century, as may be seen by referring
to the illustration from a house in Love Lane (Fig. 210) traditionally
associated with Wren. Here all the parts are as massive as of old,
although the turned portions of the balusters are inclined to be thin.
The most significant change is to be found in the newels, which are
not carried up into a finial, but are furnished with a cap by mitring
the mouldings of the handrail round them. Once this fashion was
established, it held the field until newels were dispensed with in the
later part of the eighteenth century, and the handrail wound in one
continuous length from the bottom to the top of the staircase.
A passing phase of treatment, associated with the later half of the
seventeenth century, is the carved floriated balustrade, such as is to
be seen at Sudbury House in Derbyshire (Fig. 211). This is generally
combined with massive newels, handrail, and string; indeed, it could
hardly be otherwise, for the carved foliage required a fair thickness
of wood, and as the carving was almost necessarily made in straight
lengths, there had to be newels to receive it. It is not a very
common form of treatment, and is usually confined to large houses where
expense was not a primary consideration. The same illustration affords
good examples of plasterwork in the ceiling, and of woodwork in the
doors. It will be seen how much larger in scale is this work than the
work of the beginning of the seventeenth century.
[Illustration: 210. Staircase in a House in Love Lane, London (now
destroyed).
(Late 17th cent.)]
With the eighteenth century the treatment of staircases grew more
dainty. The handrail, newels, and balusters lessened in size; the outer
string disappeared, and the balusters rested on the ends of the steps
themselves. The whole effect became lighter. In Austin Friars, London,
there was a house of the date of 1704 (now destroyed) which had a fine
staircase, illustrated in Fig. 212, where these changes are apparent.
It will be seen also that the handrail is ramped, that is, curved
upwards at each turn in the staircase in order to attain the proper
level for being mitred round the top of the newel. In earlier work, it
would have been carried in a straight line till it stopped against the
newel, but as the newels are here twisted, there is no plain surface to
receive it, and accordingly ramping becomes a necessity. The twisting
of the balusters was a common device, more common than that of twisting
the newels.
[Illustration: 211. Staircase from Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire.]
[Illustration: 212. Staircase from a House in Austin Friars, London,
1704.
(Now destroyed.)]
Occasionally the treads and risers were themselves ornamented, the
treads being inlaid with various patterns, and the risers being
panelled. There is a fine example of this treatment at the Hall at
Glastonbury in Somerset,[5] of the date of 1726 (Fig. 213). The inlay
is of mahogany and a light wood let into the oak of the treads. The
first quarter-landing contains a panel with a monogram and date. It is
obvious that no carpets were contemplated for such staircases as
these. The newels and balusters in this instance are slightly carved as
well as turned; and the bracket at the end of each step is also carved,
thus helping considerably towards the general richness of effect.
Later in the eighteenth century skill in the construction of staircases
developed still further. It seems a comparatively simple matter to
build one in short straight flights with a stout string to carry the
steps at either end of them. It is rather less simple to cut away the
outer string so as to let the ends of the steps project as in Figs.
212 and 213; the difficulty, however, is minimised by keeping the
flights straight. But it required greater skill, both in setting out
and in construction, to depart from straight flights altogether, and to
contrive a staircase in one continuous elliptical sweep from floor to
floor. One of the earliest examples of this method of design, of about
1700, is at Drayton House in Northamptonshire, but it became quite
fashionable in the middle of the eighteenth century, and many specimens
still survive in large houses in the Bloomsbury district of London,
some in stone and some in wood.
[Illustration: 213. Staircase at the Hall, Glastonbury, Somerset (1726).
The dated inlaid panel is seen in the plan in the centre of the square
landing at the top of the first flight.]
[Illustration: 214. Staircase in Baddow House, Essex.]
The changes that took place in the length of the flights of staircases
are not without interest. In mediæval times, when staircases were
of the corkscrew type, landings were sparsely provided, and in the
nature of things they were small at the best--anything large would not
only have interrupted the continuous spiral of ascent, but would have
interfered with the already scanty headroom. With the introduction
of the wood staircases of the late sixteenth century, a complete
change took place. They were made of ample width, and in straight,
short flights, seldom of more than six or eight steps; then came a
quarter-landing, then another flight at right angles. These short
flights remained in fashion nearly down to the eighteenth century.
Occasionally winders had been employed, but not in the finest examples.
With the eighteenth century the flights increased in length, containing
twelve, sixteen, or even more steps: winders were more frequently used.
Finally came the elliptical staircase, sweeping from floor to floor
in one flight without any landings, and consisting wholly of winders,
although as the radius of the sweep was longer, they none of them
were narrowed to an actual point. The general effect, which is not
altogether happy, may be gathered from Fig. 214. The balustrade here
is of iron, rather meagre in design, as such things had now become; the
early years of the century had produced some excellent specimens of
iron stair-balustrades; but they were not of frequent occurrence, the
usual material being wood.
* * * * *
By the end of the eighteenth century the ordinary methods of house
design had become almost devoid of interest; the story of the growth of
the English house must therefore perforce end on a low note. The stream
of development had been fairly continuous up to then, thenceforward
it was to be diffused in various channels, all of which derived their
character from the past. The Italian Renaissance had been the main
source of inspiration, but soon the buildings of Greece were to furnish
ideas. After them came the Gothic revival; the battle of the styles;
the eclecticism of the nineteenth century; the negation of all style
adopted by the speculative builder, only one degree better than his
vulgarisation of all styles as he became aware of their existence. From
this Slough of Despond we seem now to be happily emerging, and we shall
do so the more certainly in proportion as we add to knowledge, thought,
and common-sense.
From the foregoing pages it is hoped that some slight knowledge may
be obtained; but the dry bones of the facts recorded must be clothed
by the imagination of the reader with their covering of flesh. “The
cloud-capp’d towers” of feudalism may, perhaps to his ear, resound with
the clash of armour; “the gorgeous palaces” of the Renaissance may echo
with the melodious notes of the Elizabethan singers or the stately
cadence of a later age. Through the cross-bars of the portcullis his
eye must detect the glint of steel and the glow of heraldry; across the
latticed panes of the mullioned window he must watch for the passing
of ruff, and cloak, and slashed hose; behind the glazed sashes he must
picture the flowing wig, the patches, and the skirted coat. As the
panorama of architecture unfolds itself before him he must people it
with the forms of the savage Front-de-Bœuf, the valiant Hotspur, the
courtly Sidney, glorious John, sententious Shandy, and the rest of
the great band of immortals; and from the “worm-eaten holds of ragged
stone,” upon which his eye has lingered, he must for himself construct
the homes that once they were.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF CASTLES AND HOUSES.
The list includes those mentioned in the text, together with a
few others of note. It is not always possible to date houses
accurately; a margin of a few years must usually be allowed.
Where dates are given they either appear on the houses, or can
be approximately ascertained. The Index to Illustrations shows
which buildings are illustrated or referred to.
WILLIAM I.--1066–1087.
The White Tower, Tower of London
WILLIAM II.--1087–1100.
Colchester Castle, Essex
Westminster Hall, early parts
HENRY I.--1100–1135.
Rochester Castle, Kent, 1130 (_cir._)
Castle Hedingham, Essex, 1130 (_cir._)
Norham Castle, Northumberland
Ludlow Castle, Shropshire, parts
STEPHEN--1135–1154.
Many castles subsequently destroyed
HENRY II.--1154–1189.
Dover Castle, Kent
Guildford Castle, Surrey
Jew’s House, Lincoln
Castle Rising, Norfolk
Norham Castle, Northumberland, parts
Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, keep
Peak Castle, Derbyshire, keep, 1176
Oakham Castle, Rutland, 1180 (_cir._)
RICHARD I.--1189–1199.
Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, early parts
Chacombe Priory, Northamptonshire, window
JOHN--1199–1216.
Conisborough Castle, Yorkshire
HENRY III.--1216–1272.
Stokesay, Shropshire, parts
Ludlow Castle, Shropshire, parts
Prebendal House, Nassington, Northamptonshire
Many additions and repairs to royal houses
EDWARD I.--1272–1397.
Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk
Longthorpe Tower, Northamptonshire
Acton Burnell, Shropshire, 1284 (_cir._)
Stokesay Castle, Shropshire, parts; licence to crenellate, 19 Edw.
I., 1291
Aydon Castle, Northumberland, licence, 33 Edw. I., 1305
Woodcroft Castle, Northamptonshire
Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire
Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire, parts
EDWARD II.--1307–1327.
Prudhoe Castle, Northumberland, oriel
Markenfield, Yorkshire, licence, 3 Edw. II., 1309
Yanwath, Westmorland, soon after 1322
Ightham Mote, Kent, parts
Leeds Castle, Kent
EDWARD III.--1327–1377.
Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, licence, 1 Edw. III., 1327; early
parts destroyed
Drayton House, Northamptonshire, licence, 2 Edw. III., 1328
Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire, parts; licence, 4 Edw. III., 1330
Lyddington, Rutland, licence, 10 Edw. III., 1336; existing parts,
Henry VII.
Penshurst, Kent, licence, 15 Edw. III., 1341
Alnwick Castle, Northumberland
Haddon Hall, parts
Maxstoke Castle, Warwickshire, licence, 19 Edw. III., 1345
Northborough, Northamptonshire, licence, 20 Edw. III., 1346
Mayfield, Sussex, Bishop’s Palace, 1349–66
Warwick Castle, licence, 45 Edw. III., 1371
RICHARD II.--1377–1399.
Amberley Castle, Sussex, licence, 1 Rich. II., 1377
Bodiam Castle, Sussex, licence, 9 Rich. II., 1386
Raby Castle, Durham
Baguley Hall, Cheshire
Kenilworth Castle, hall, &c., 1392 (_cir._)
Westminster Hall, roof, &c.
Glastonbury Abbey, Somersetshire, kitchen
HENRY IV.--1399–1413.
HENRY V.--1413–1422.
HENRY VI.--1422–1461.
Hurstmonceux, Sussex, licence, 1 Henry VI., 1423
South Wingfield Manor House, Derbyshire, 1435–40 (_cir._)
Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, 1440 (_cir._)
Warkworth Castle, Northumberland, keep, 1435–40 (_cir._)
Ewelme, Oxfordshire, almshouse and school, between 1437–48
Great Chalfield, Wiltshire
Norrington, Wiltshire
Little Sodbury, Gloucestershire
Sherborne Abbey, Dorset, fireplace
Church House, Salisbury, fireplace
Harringworth, Northamptonshire, chimney
EDWARD IV.--1461–1483.
Eltham Palace, Kent
Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire, 1460 (_cir._)
Hurstmonceux, parts
Crosby Hall, London
Stanton Harcourt, kitchen
Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, 1482
EDWARD V.--1483.
RICHARD III.--1483–85.
HENRY VII.--1485–1509.
Cothele, Cornwall
Athelhampton, Dorsetshire
Lytes Carey, Somerset, Manor House
Lyddington, Bede House
Stanton Harcourt, parts
Cowdray House, Sussex
Ightham Mote, Kent, parts
Fawsley, Northamptonshire
Horham Hall, Essex, between 1502–20
East Barsham Hall, Norfolk
Brympton d’Evercy, Somerset
Eastington, Worcestershire
Abingdon Abbey, Guest-house
Crowhurst Place, Surrey
Lenham, Kent, doorway
Harrietsham, Kent, doorway
Glastonbury, doorway and windows
HENRY VIII.--1509–1547.
Layer Marney, Essex, 1500–25
Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire, 1511–21
Bramhall Hall, Cheshire, parts, 1521 (_cir._)
Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, 1525–38
Compton Winyates, Warwickshire, 1525 (_cir._)
Sutton Place, Surrey, 1523–25
Clifton Maybank, Dorsetshire
Kirtling, Cambridgeshire, between 1530 and 1564
Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, parts
Lacock, Angel Inn
Haddon Hall, parts, 1542
Moyns Park, Essex, early parts
Hampton Court, great hall
Cocklaw Tower, Northumberland
Sir Paul Pindar’s House, London
EDWARD VI.--1547–1553.
Deene Park, Northamptonshire, parts
Longleat House, Wiltshire, early parts
Old Somerset House, London, 1546–56
MARY--1553–1558.
Burghley House, Northamptonshire, kitchen, great hall, &c., 1553
(_cir._)
Park Hall, Oswestry, Shropshire, 1553–58
Dingley Hall, Northamptonshire, parts, 1558
ELIZABETH--1558–1603.
Moreton Old Hall, Cheshire, 1559
Buckhurst House, Sussex, 1560–65
Loseley, Surrey, 1562–68
Theobalds, Hertfordshire, 1564–88
Longleat House, Wiltshire, 1566–78
Gorhambury, Hertfordshire, 1568
Kirby, Northamptonshire, 1570–75
Deene Park, Northamptonshire, chimney-piece, 1571
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, 1576
Burghley House, courtyard, 1577–87
Montacute, Somerset (entrance porch earlier), 1580
Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, 1580–88
Longford Castle, Wiltshire, 1580
Moyns Park, brick part, 1580 (_cir._)
Holdenby, Northamptonshire, 1580–85
Corsham Court, Wiltshire, 1582
Barlborough Hall, Derbyshire, 1583
Cobham Hall, Kent, 1584–95
Wimbledon, Surrey, 1588
Beaufort House, Chelsea, 1590 (_cir._)
Wakehurst Place, Sussex, 1590
Westwood Park, Worcestershire, 1590
Astley Hall, Lancashire
Powis Castle, Wales
Bramhall Hall, Cheshire, parts, 1592
Brome Hall, Suffolk
Herringstone, Dorsetshire
Wolveton, Dorsetshire
Parham, Sussex, 1593
Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, 1595, parts
Doddington, Lincolnshire, 1595
Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire, 1597, parts
Condover Hall, Shropshire, 1598
Marton Hall, Cheshire
Burton Agnes, Yorkshire, 1602–10
JAMES I.--1603–1625.
Audley End, Essex, 1603–16
Chastleton, Oxfordshire, 1603 (_cir._)
Knole, Kent, 1605
Bramshill, Hampshire, 1605–12
Charlton House, Wiltshire, 1607
Fountains Hall, Yorkshire, 1611
Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, 1612
Cranborne Manor House, Dorsetshire, parts, 1612
Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire, 1613
Crewe Hall, Cheshire, 1615–36
Aston Hall, Warwickshire, 1618–35
Blickling, Norfolk, 1619–20
Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, 1620 (_cir._)
Quenby Hall, Leicestershire, 1602 (_cir._)
Banqueting Hall, Whitehall, 1622
Apethorpe, Northamptonshire, parts, 1623–24
King’s Lynn, chimney-piece at, 1623
Cark Hall, Lancashire, 1623 (_cir._)
Stibbington Hall, Huntingdonshire, 1625
Felbrigge Hall, Norfolk
Heath Hall, Yorkshire
Derwent Hall, Derbyshire
Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire
Calgarth Old Hall, Cumberland
Pilton Manor House, Northamptonshire
Lyveden Old Building, Northamptonshire
Hall of Butchers’ Guild, Hereford
CHARLES I.--1625–1649.
Rushton Hall, parts, 1627
Raynham Park, Norfolk, 1630–36
Stoke Park, Northamptonshire, 1630–36
Stanway, Gloucestershire, 1630 (_cir._)
Kenyon Peel Old Hall, Lancashire, 1631
Wilton, Wiltshire
Swakeleys, Middlesex
COMMONWEALTH--1649–1660.
Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire
Coles Farm, Box, Wiltshire, 1649
Coleshill, Berkshire, 1650
Ashburnham House, Westminster, 1650–60
Thorney Hall, Cambridgeshire
Amesbury House, Wiltshire, 1654
Tyttenhanger, Hertfordshire, 1654
Thorpe Hall, Northamptonshire, 1656 (_cir._)
Cold Overton, Leicestershire
CHARLES II.--1660–1684.
Hampstead Marshall, Berkshire, 1662
Ashdown House, Berkshire, 1665–66 (_cir._)
The Vicarage, Burford, Oxfordshire, 1672
House in Buckingham Street, Strand, 1675
Groombridge Place, Kent
Chatsworth, Derbyshire, 1681
JAMES II.--1684–1688.
Newcastle House, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1686
Combe Abbey, Warwickshire, 1686
Melton Constable, Norfolk, 1687
WILLIAM AND MARY--1688–1702.
Belton House, Lincolnshire, 1689
Hampton Court, parts
“Roppynden,” Burwash, Sussex, 1699
Boughton House, Northamptonshire, 1700 (_cir._)
Drayton House, parts and ironwork, 1700 (_cir._)
House in Love Lane, London
ANNE--1702–1714.
House in Austin Friars, London, 1704
House in Warwick Square, London, 1707 (_cir._)
Apple Dorecombe, Isle of Wight (“Vitruvius Britannicus”), 1710
Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, 1713
Kings Weston, Gloucestershire (“Vit. Brit.”), 1713
Duncomb Park, Yorkshire (“Vit. Brit.”), 1715
Fenton House, Hampstead
Castle Howard, Yorkshire, 1714
GEORGE I.--1714–1727.
Blenheim, Oxfordshire, 1715
Wanstead, Essex, 1719 (_cir._)
Seaton Delaval, Northumberland, 1720
Moor Park, Hertfordshire, 1720
Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, 1720 (_cir._)
Mereworth, Kent, 1722
Houghton, Norfolk, 1723
Glastonbury Hall, 1726
Villa at Chiswick, 1729
Rothwell Manor House, Northamptonshire
Rectory, Burford
House in Whitehall Gardens
Heale House, Middle Woodford, Wiltshire
House at Horsham, Sussex
Ironwork at Carshalton House, Surrey
Ironwork at Eaton Hall, Cheshire
GEORGE II.--1727–1760.
House in Hatton Garden
Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, 1747
Prior Park, Bath, 1750 (_cir._)
Holkham Hall, Norfolk, 1754 (_cir._)
GEORGE III.--1760–1820.
Harewood House, Yorkshire, 1760
Cumberland House, 1760–67
Kedlestone, Derbyshire, 1761
Lansdowne House, 1765 (_cir._)
House in Mansfield Street, London, 1770 (_cir._)
House in St James’s Square, London, 1772
Somerset House, Strand, 1776
Baddow House, Essex
House at Faversham, Kent
House at Colchester
GLOSSARY.
AISLE.--The wing of a church, at the side of the nave or choir.
ARABESQUE.--Ornamentation enriching flat surfaces.
ASHLAR.--Hewn or squared stone, as distinguished from that which
is rough or unhewn.
BALL-FLOWER.--A mediæval ornament resembling a ball placed within
a globular flower.
BASE.--- The lower part of a pillar or column.
BATTLEMENT.--An indented parapet, often pierced for the discharge
of arrows.
BOLECTION MOULDING.--A moulding (in joinery) which projects
beyond the surface of the framework round a panel.
BOSS.--A projecting ornament placed at the intersection of the
ribs of a ceiling or of vaulting.
BUTTRESS.--A projection from a wall to create additional strength
or support.
CAP., abbrev. for CAPITAL.--The upper part or head of a pillar or
column.
CHIMNEY-PIECE.--The architectural decoration surrounding a
fireplace.
COPING.--The covering course of a wall or parapet to protect it
from the weather.
CORBEL.--A projecting stone to carry a weight.
CORNICE.--The horizontal moulded projection encircling a
building, or the upper part of the walls of a room below the
ceiling.
COUNTER-HAURIANT.--A heraldic term. Counter = reversed:
hauriant = swimming vertically. Two fishes swimming vertically,
facing each other, are counter-hauriant.
CRENELLATE.--To fortify with battlements.
CROCKET.--Projecting leaves or flowers placed on pinnacles,
gables, or the mouldings of doors and windows, &c.
CROSS-BRACE.--An oblique wooden tie or support.
CUSP.--A projecting point in the arches of tracery.
DADO.--The architectural treatment of the lower part of the walls
of a room.
DAÏS.--The raised part of the floor at the upper end of a hall.
DOG-GATE.--A gate placed across a staircase to prevent dogs from
going into the upper rooms of a house.
DORMER.--A window in a roof.
ENTABLATURE.--A series of horizontal mouldings at the summit of a
wall, or surmounting a row of columns. An entablature consists
of three members. The lowest is a series of mouldings of
slight projection, called the architrave. Above this is a
vertical face, called the frieze; above this a series of
widely projecting mouldings, called the cornice.
FINIAL.--The ornamental finish at the apex of a gable.
FIREPLACE.--A recess in a wall for the reception of a fire,
furnished with a flue or vent for the escape of smoke.
FRIEZE.--The middle member of an entablature, _q.v._
GABLE.--The pointed wall at the end of a roof.
GARDE-ROBE.--A latrine or privy.
GATEHOUSE.--A building surrounding the gate to the courtyard of a
house.
HIPPED ROOF.--A roof of which all the sides are sloped, one of
which does not abut against a gable.
JAMB.--The side of a doorway, window, or other aperture.
LABEL.--The outer projecting moulding, or drip-stone, over a
door, window, or arch.
LANTERN.--A turret raised above a roof for the admission of
light.
LOUVRE.--A turret raised above a roof for the escape of smoke.
MACHICOLATION.--The corbelling out of the parapet of a building,
forming openings through which missiles could be discharged on
the heads of an attacking force.
MAUNCH.--The heraldic term for a sleeve.
MINSTRELS’ GALLERY.--The gallery formed above the screen of a
hall, sometimes occupied by minstrels.
MITRE (in Joinery).--The line formed by a sharp change (at right
angles or otherwise) in the direction of a moulding.
MOULDING.--The term applied to the contour, wrought into long
hollows and projections, of the angles or edges of an
architectural feature, such as a door, window, arch, panel,
&c.
MULLION.--The vertical shaft or division between the lights of a
window.
NAVE.--The central portion of a church westward of the choir or
chancel.
NEWEL.--In a circular stone staircase, the central column round
which the steps wind. In a wooden staircase, the stout posts
which carry the handrail and the string supporting the stairs.
OGEE.--A compound curve, partly concave and partly convex.
OILLET.--A loophole for the discharge of arrows.
ORIEL.--A bay window on an upper floor, corbelled out from the
wall below.
PANELLING.--A series of panels formed of boards whose edges are
held in the groove of a thicker surrounding frame.
PARAPET.--The upper part of a wall carried above the springing of
the roof. Where the roof was flat it formed a protection to
those who used the roof for defence or other purposes.
PEDESTAL.--A substructure carrying a column or pilaster.
PEDIMENT.--The triangular or segmental space formed by the
carrying up of a cornice over a door or window or in a gable,
&c.
PEEL or PELE.--A fortified tower or stronghold forming a
dwelling; a term principally applied to the fortified houses
of the North.
PIER.--A pillar or column; also sometimes a flat buttress.
PILASTER.--A square pillar or column attached to a wall, usually
of slight projection.
PITCH (of a Roof).--The slope.
PORTCULLIS.--A strong grating of timber which slid up and down in
a groove, to protect the entrance of a castle or fortified
house.
PRINCIPAL (Rafter).--A massive framing of wood which spans a
building from wall to wall and carries the purlins.
PURLIN.--A stout piece of timber resting on the principals and
carrying the common rafters.
QUATREFOIL (in Tracery).--A form composed of four segments of
circles.
QUOINS.--The external angles of a building; also the stones which
form the angles.
RESPOND.--A half-column attached to a wall.
RIBS (Stone).--Narrow projecting stones which form the framework
of vaulting.
SASH-WINDOW.--A window in two halves, one over the other, which
slide up and down.
SCANTLING.--The dimensions of a piece of timber in breadth and
thickness.
SCREENS.--The entrance passage formed at the end of a hall by the
screen.
SHAFT.--A small column.
SOLAR.--The retiring or private room of the lord in early houses.
SPAN.--The width between the supports of an arch or roof.
SPANDREL.--The space between an arch and the horizontal feature
above it.
SQUINCH.--An arch carried across the internal angle of a tower or
building.
STOREY.--A horizontal division of a building containing rooms at
one level.
STRING (of a Staircase).--The inclined piece of wood which
carries the steps.
STRING-COURSE.--A narrow projecting horizontal line of stone or
brickwork.
TRACERY.--The ornamental stonework of a Gothic window formed by
ramifications of the mullions; also decorations of a
corresponding character applied to panels, &c.
TRANSOME.--The horizontal cross-bar of a casement window (as
distinguished from a sash window).
TRIFORIUM.--An upper storey over the aisle of a church, with
arches opening into the nave or choir.
TYMPANUM.--The space enclosed between the flat head of a door or
window and the surmounting arch.
UNDERCROFT.--A vaulted chamber underground.
VAULTING.--An arched roof or ceiling of stone or brick.
WINDERS (of a Staircase).--The steps sometimes formed where a
staircase changes direction; they are wide against the wall
and are narrowed almost to a point against the newel or
string.
A Brief List of Books recommended for the Study of The History
of English Domestic Architecture.
ADDY (S. O.)--THE EVOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH HOUSE. Small 8vo.
1905.
TURNER (T. H.) AND PARKER (J. H.)--SOME ACCOUNT OF DOMESTIC
ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 3 vols. in 4.
8vo. 1859–1877.
GARNER (T.) AND STRATTON (A.)--THE DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF
ENGLAND DURING THE TUDOR PERIOD. 3 parts. Folio. 1908–1909.
GOTCH (J. A.)--ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND. 2
vols. Folio. 1891–1894.
GOTCH (J. A.)--EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 8vo.
1901.
NASH (J.)--MANSIONS OF ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME. 4 vols. Folio.
1839–1849; or Small Edition. 4 vols. 4to. 1869.
BELCHER (J.) AND MACARTNEY (M. E.)--LATER RENAISSANCE
ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 2 vols. Folio. 1901.
BLOMFIELD (R. T.)--A HISTORY OF RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN
ENGLAND. 2 vols. Imp. 8vo. 1897; and Abridged Edition. Small
8vo. 1900.
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.
_NOTE.--J. A. G. stands for J. Alfred Gotch; W. T. for William
Twopeny; p.= photograph; d.= drawing._
+----------------------+------------------------+-----+-------------------+
| Name of Place. | Description. |Page.| Source. |
+----------------------+------------------------+-----+-------------------+
|ABINGDON ABBEY, |Chimney-shaft and | 108 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Berkshire | chimney-vent | | |
| Do. |Orifice of chimney-vent | 108 |J. A. G., _d._ |
| Do. |Fireplace | 109 | do. |
| Do. |Window in guest-house | 101 | do. |
|ALNWICK CASTLE, |Interior of window | 99 |W. T., _d._ |
| Northumberland | | | |
|APETHORPE HALL, |Plaster panel from | 194 | |
| Northamptonshire | ceiling (arms of | | |
| | James I.) | | |
|ASTLEY HALL, |The Long Gallery | 203 | |
| Lancashire | | | |
|ASTONBURY, |Tudor chimneys | 162 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| Hertfordshire | | | |
|AYDON CASTLE, |Chimney-shaft | 111 |W. T., _d._ |
| Northumberland | | | |
| Do. |Doorway to hall | 91 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Do. |Fireplace | 112 |W. T., _d._ |
| Do. | do. | 112 | do. |
| | | | |
|BADDOW HOUSE, Essex |Staircase | 300 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
|BODIAM CASTLE, Sussex |View showing the moat | 36 |Col. Gale, _p._ |
|BOUGHTON HOUSE, | | 238 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
| Do. |Painted ceiling | 292 | do. |
| Do. |View in State apartments| 262 | do. |
|BOX, Wiltshire, Coles |Plaster frieze | 285 |Herbert A. Hall, |
| Farm | | | _d._ |
| Do. | do. | 285 | do. |
|BRAD STREET, Kent | | 175 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
|BRAMHALL HALL, | | 172 | |
| Cheshire | | | |
|BROME HALL, Suffolk |Bird’s-eye view | 181 |J. Kip, _sc._ |
|BRYMPTON D’EVERCY, |Bay window | 102 |W. Wonnacott, _p._ |
| Somerset | | | |
|BURFORD, Oxfordshire, | | 252 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
| Rectory House | | | |
| Do., The Vicarage | | 219 | do. |
|BURWASH, Sussex, | | 252 | do. |
| “Roppynden” | | | |
| | | | |
|CALGARTH OLD HALL, | | 190 |Herbert Bell, |
| Westmorland | | | Ambleside, _p._ |
|CARK HALL, Lancashire |Doorway | 268 |J. A. Waite, _p._ |
|CARSHALTON HOUSE, |Railings and gates | 257 |Col. Gale, _p._ |
| Surrey | | | |
|CASTLE HEDINGHAM, |Archway from stairs to | 90 |C. Hadfield. |
| Essex | gallery | | |
| Do. |Entrance doorway | 90 | do. |
| Do. |A fireplace | 12 | do. |
| Do. |The keep | 8 | |
| Do. |Plans of the keep | 9 |Cecil C. Brewer, |
| | | | _d._ |
| Do. |Section of the keep | 11 | do. |
| Do. |Window in fourth floor | 97 |C. Hadfield. |
| Do. |Window of gallery in | 10 | do. |
| | hall | | |
|CASTLE HOWARD, | | 243 |Campbell, |
| | | | _Vitruvius |
| Yorkshire | | | Britannicus_. |
| Do. |Plan of principal floor | 245 | do. |
| Do. |The garden façade | 247 |Alan Potter, _p._ |
| | | | (by permission of|
| | | | the Architectural|
| | | | Association). |
|CASTLE RISING, |From the west | 5 |Frith & Co., |
| Norfolk | | | Reigate, _p._ |
|CHACOMBE PRIORY |Ceiling | 287 |I. Ware, _Complete |
| | | | Body of Archi- |
| | | | tecture_. |
| Do. |Window | 98 |W. T., _d._ |
| |CHIMNEY-PIECE | 281 | From a drawing |
| | | | by James Gibbs. |
|COCKLAW TOWER, |Plan of principal floor | 21 |J. A. G., _d._ |
| Northumberland | | | |
| Do. | | 22 |J. P. Gibson, |
| | | | Hexham, _p._ |
|COLCHESTER, House at | | 254 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
|COLD OVERTON HALL, | | 218 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Leicestershire | | | |
| Do. |Staircase with dog-gate | 201 | do. |
|COLESHILL, Berkshire | | 211 |Belcher and |
| | | | Macartney, |
| | | | _Later |
| | | | Renaissance_. |
| Do. |Plan | 210 | H. Tanner, _d._ |
|COMBE ABBEY |Doorway | 279 |From a drawing by |
| | | | Capt. Wynne, in |
| | | | the Bodleian |
| | | | Library, Oxford. |
|COTHELE HOUSE, |The great hall | 34 |_p._ |
| Cornwall | | | |
|CREWE HALL, Cheshire |Staircase | 200 |W. T., _d._ |
|CROWHURST PLACE, |Interior | 120 |A. Martin, Ling- |
| Surrey | | | field, _p._ |
| | | | |
|DEENE PARK, |Stone chimney-piece | 197 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
|DERWENT HALL, | | 168 |_p._ |
| Derbyshire | | | |
|DRAYTON HOUSE, |The entrance | 240 |H. Evans, _p._ |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
| Do. |Gates in the side of | 255 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| | fore-court | | |
| Do. |Gates at the end of | 255 | do. |
| | west avenue | | |
| Do. |Roof of the great hall | 117 |L. M. Gotch, _d._ |
|DROITWICH, |Tudor chimney | 163 |A. J. Ashdown, _d._|
| Worcestershire | | | from an old |
| | | | drawing). |
|EAST BARSHAM, Norfolk |The gatehouse | 136 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
|EASTINGTON HALL |Entrance doorway | 95 |J. A. G., _p._ |
|EATON HALL, Cheshire |Gates | 256 |F. Simpson, |
| | | | Chester, _p._ |
|ELTHAM PALACE, Kent |Doorway | 93 |W. T., _d._ |
| Do. |Roof of great hall | 119 |G. H. Lovegrove, |
| | | | _p._ |
|EWELME, Oxfordshire |Door to school | 96 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| | | | |
|FAVERSHAM, House at | | 254 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
|FAWSLEY, |Bay window of the | 102 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Northamptonshire | great hall | | |
| Do. |Chimney-piece in | 116 | do. |
| | great hall | | |
|FELBRIGGE HALL, | | 170 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
| Norfolk | | | |
|GAYHURST, | | 178 |Cyril Ellis, _p._ |
| Buckinghamshire | | | |
|GLASTONBURY ABBEY, |Plan and section of | 61 |After A. W. |
| Somerset | kitchen | | Pugin. |
| Do. |View of kitchen | 62 | do. |
|GLASTONBURY HALL, |Staircase | 299 |Rupert C. Austin, |
| Somerset | | | _d._ |
| Do. |Front of wood house, | 105 |W. T., _d._ |
| | showing windows and | | |
| | doors | | |
|GODALMING, Surrey |External Doorway | 270 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
| | | | |
|HADDON HALL, |Plan | 48 |After E. G. |
| Derbyshire | | | Wyllie. |
| Do. |View in lower courtyard | 52 |J. C. Buckler, _d._|
|HARRIETSHAM, Kent |Doorway | 94 |W. T., _d._ |
|HARRINGWORTH, |Chimney | 114 | do. |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
|HATFIELD HOUSE, |North front | 167 | |
| Hertfordshire | | | |
|HEATH HALL, Yorkshire | | 176 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
|HENGRAVE HALL, Suffolk|Ground plan | 138 |Garner and Strat- |
| | | | ton, _Tudor |
| | | | Domestic |
| | | | Architecture_. |
|HEREFORD, Hall of the |Wood chimney-piece | 199 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
| Butcher’s Guild | | | |
| | | | |
|HERRINGSTONE, Dorset |Coved plaster ceiling | 193 |Bernard Griffin, |
| | | | Dorchester, _p._ |
|HORHAM HALL, Essex |Ground plan | 128 |T. D. Atkinson, |
| | | | _d._ |
| Do. |View of principal front | 129 |Garner and Strat- |
| | | | ton, _Tudor |
| | | | Domestic |
| | | | Architecture_. |
|HORSHAM, Sussex, House| | 253 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
| at | | | |
| | | | |
|IPSWICH, Sparrow’s | | 217 | do. |
| House | | | |
| | | | |
|KENILWORTH CASTLE, |Great hall | 56 |A. W. Pugin. |
| Warwickshire | | | |
| Do. |Ground plan | 54 |From various |
| | | | sources. |
| Do. |View from north-west | 59 |_p._ |
| Do. |Window of great hall | 57 |A. W. Pugin. |
|KING’S LYNN, Norfolk |Wood chimney-piece | 198 |J. A. G., _p._ |
|KIRBY HALL, |A corner of the | 161 |Col. Gale, _p._ |
| Northamptonshire | courtyard | | |
|KIRBY MUXLOE, |Block plan | 86 |J. A. G., _d._ |
| Leicestershire | | | |
| Do. |Entrance gateway | 85 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Do. |Plans of remaining | 84 | do., _d._ |
| | buildings | | |
|KIRTLING HALL, |The gatehouse | 130 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| Cambridgeshire | | | |
| | | | |
|LACOCK, Wiltshire |Doorway from the Angel | 93 |W. T., _d._ |
| | Inn | | |
|LAVENHAM, Suffolk |Ceiling with carved | 121 |J. A. G., _d._ |
| | beams | | |
| Do. |Part of panelled cei- | 122 | do. |
| | ling, showing boss at | | |
| | the intersection of | | |
| | the wood ribs | | |
|LAYER MARNEY, Essex |Carved wood panel | 189 | do. |
| Do. |Windows | 133 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
|LENHAM, Kent |Doorway | 93 |W. T., _d._ |
|LITTLE SODBURY, |Roof of hall | 118 |Montague Cooper, |
| Gloucestershire | | | Taunton, _p._ |
|LITTLE WENHAM HALL, |Window on upper floor | 100 |W. T., _d._ |
| Suffolk | | | |
| Do. |Window between hall | 100 | do. |
| | and chapel | | |
|LONDON-- | | | |
| BISHOPSGATE, Sir |Window (now in Victoria | 160 |Board of |
| Paul Pindar’s | and Albert Museum) | | Education, _p._ |
| House | | | |
| CHELSEA, Beaufort |Bird’s-eye view | 147 |J. Kip, _sc._ |
| House | | | |
| CUMBERLAND HOUSE |Interior of room | 267 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| (Old War Office) | (destroyed) | | |
| Do. |Internal doorway | 276 | do. |
| | (destroyed) | | |
| HAMPSTEAD, Fenton |Ground plan | 250 |Arthur Stratton, |
| House | | | _d._ |
| Do. |Side elevation | 251 | do. |
| House in Austin |Staircase | 297 |Alfred Marks, |
| Friars (now | | | _Society for |
| destroyed) | | | Photographing |
| | | | Relics of Old |
| | | | London_. |
| House in Buckingham |Interior | 263 |Walter L. Spiers, |
| Street, Strand | | | _p._ |
| Houses in Great | | 216 |From an original |
| Queen Street | | | drawing by |
| | | | Joseph Nash. |
| House in Hatton |Interior | 265 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| Garden (destroyed)| | | |
| | | | |
| House in Hatton |Chimney-piece | 279 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| Garden | | | |
| (destroyed) | | | |
| House in Love Lane |Staircase | 294 |Board of Educa- |
| (destroyed) | | | tion, _p._ |
| House in St James’s | | 236 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| Square | | | |
| House in Sherborne |Doorway (destroyed) | 269 |A. J. Ashdown, |
| Lane | | | _d._ (from an old|
| | | | drawing). |
| House in Warwick |Ceiling | 288 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| Square | | | |
| House in Whitehall |Internal doorway | 276 | do. |
| Gardens | | | |
| Do. |Interior, showing flat | 289 | do. |
| | treatment of ceiling | | |
| Do. |Chimney-piece | 283 | do. |
| LANSDOWNE HOUSE |Chimney-piece | 284 | do. |
| MANSFIELD STREET |A drawing-room | 291 | do. |
| NEWCASTLE HOUSE, | | 224 | do. |
| Lincoln’s Inn | | | |
| Fields | | | |
| OLD SOMERSET HOUSE, |End façade of court- | 149 |From an old print. |
| Strand | yard (now demolished) | | |
| SOUTHWARK, Houses | | 213 |J. C. Buckler, _d._|
| in High Street | | | |
| (destroyed) | | | |
|LONGLEAT HOUSE, |Bird’s-eye view | 158 |J. Kip, _sc._ |
| Wiltshire | | | |
|LYDDINGTON BEDE |Interior of hall, show- | 121 |J. A. G., _P._ |
| HOUSE, Rutland | ing panelled wood | | |
| | ceiling and tracer- | | |
| | ied cornice | | |
| Do. |Traceried cornice in | 123 |F. T. Dollman, _p._|
| | wood | | |
|LYVEDEN OLD BUILDING, | | 155 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
| | | | |
|MARTON HALL, Cheshire | | 171 |Henry Walker, _p._ |
| (now destroyed) | | | |
|MAYFIELD, Sussex, |Doorway to hall | 92 |W. T., _d._ |
| Bishop’s Palace | | | |
|MIDDLE WOODFORD, near | | 253 |_p._ |
| Salisbury, Heale | | | |
| House | | | |
|MONTACUTE HOUSE, |Sketch | 153 |J. C. Buckler, _d._|
| Somerset | | | |
|MOYNS PARK, Essex | | 166 |_p._ |
| | | | |
|NASSINGTON, |Doorway | 89 |W. T., _d._ |
| Northamptonshire, | | | |
| Prebendal House | | | |
|NORHAM CASTLE, | | 1 |J. Pattison Gibson,|
| Northumberland | | | Hexham, _p._ |
|NORRINGTON, Wiltshire |Doorway | 93 |W. T., _d._ |
|NORTHBOROUGH MANOR |Chimney | 113 | do. |
| HOUSE, | | | |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
| Do. |Doorways in the | 92 | do. |
| | “screens” | | |
|NORWICH, Bishop’s |Wood panelling | 188 |Dr Bolingbroke, |
| Palace | | | _p._ |
| | | | |
|OAKHAM CASTLE, Rutland|The hall | 31 |W. T., _d._ |
| Do. |Interior of the hall | 28 |Turner and Parker. |
| Do. |Plan of the hall | 30 | do. |
| Do. |Pier cap | 33 |W. T., _d._ |
| | | | |
| |PANEL, linen | 187 |L. F. Day. |
| |PANEL mouldings, typical| 261 |J. A. G., _d._ |
| | of eighteenth century | | |
| |PANEL (wood) in Victoria| 189 |Board of Education |
| | and Albert Museum | | _p._ |
|PARHAM, Sussex |The great hall | 192 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
|PEAK CASTLE, |Plan of the site | 14 |J. A. G., after |
| Derbyshire | | | Ordnance Map. |
| Do. |Plans of the keep | 16 |J. A. G., _d._, |
| | | | traced from S. |
| | | | O. Addy, |
| | | | _Evolution of the|
| | | | English House_. |
| Do. |Plan (ground) | 16 | do. |
| Do. |Section | 16 | do. |
| Do. |South-west face | 19 |J. A. G., _p._ |
|PENSHURST PLACE, Kent |The great hall | 107 |Col. Gale, _p._ |
|PETWORTH, Sussex |External doorway | 270 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
|PILTON MANOR HOUSE, | | 164 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
| |PLANS of an unnamed | 144 |Thorpe Collection, |
| | house | | Soane Museum. |
| |PLAN (unnamed) | 146 | do. |
| | do. | 148 | do. |
| |PLAN AND ELEVATION of a | 150 | do. |
| | house (unnamed) | | |
| |PLAN AND ELEVATION | 227 |Isaac Ware, |
| | of a house | | _Complete Body of|
| | | | Architecture_. |
| |PLAN AND ELEVATION | 228 |W. Kent, _Designs |
| | of a house | | of Inigo Jones_. |
| |PLAN, ELEVATION, AND | 230 |J. GIBBS, _BOOK OF |
| | SECTION of a house | | Architecture_. |
|POWIS CASTLE, Wales | | 184 |W. T., _d._ |
| | | | |
|QUENBY HALL, | | 177 |George Nott, _d._ |
| Leicestershire | | | |
| | | | |
|RAWDON HOUSE, |Staircase and doorway | 202 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| Hoddesdon, | | | |
| Hertfordshire | | | |
|RAYNHAM HALL, Norfolk |Chimney-piece | 277 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Do. |A doorway | 272 | do. |
| Do. |Plan | 208 |H. Inigo Triggs, |
| | | | _d._ |
| Do. |West front | 209 |Triggs and Tanner, |
| | | | _Inigo Jones_. |
|RICHMOND, Surrey |Gate to house in High | 258 |Horace Dan, _p._ |
| | St. | | |
| Do. Sheen House |Internal door way | 276 |Board of Education,|
| | | | _p._ |
|ROCHESTER CASTLE, Kent|Doorway and window | 89 |W. T., _a._ |
|ROTHWELL MANOR |ENTRANCE DOORWAY | 271 |J. A. G., _D._ |
| HOUSE, | | | |
| Northamptonshire | | | |
| | | | |
|SALISBURY, Church |Fireplace | 112 |W. T., _d._ |
| House | | | |
|SEDLESCOMBE MANOR | | 174 |W. G. DAVIE, _P._ |
| HOUSE, Sussex | | | |
|SHELDONS MANOR | _Frontispiece_|Montague Cooper, |
| HOUSE, Wiltshire | | | Taunton, _p._ |
|SHELL FARM, near | | 173 |J. Gale, |
| Droitwich, | | |Wolverhampton, _p._|
| Worcestershire | | | |
|SHERBORNE, Dorset |Oriel window | 104 |W. T., _d._ |
| Do. Abbey, Dorset |Fireplace | 112 | do. |
|SOUTH WINGFIELD |BAY WINDOW OF HALL | 71 |_P._ |
| MANOR HOUSE, | | | |
| Derbyshire | | | |
| Do. |Interior of bay window | 74 |Col. Gale, _p._ |
| Do. |Doorway of porch | 96 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Do. |Doorway from hall to | 96 | do. |
| | garden | | |
| Do. |Fireplaces in the | 66 | do. |
| | kitchen | | |
| Do. |Ground plan | 69 | do., _d._ |
|SOUTH WINGFIELD |NORTH SIDE OF SOUTH | 77 |R. KEENE, LTD., |
| MANOR HOUSE, | courtyard | | Derby, _p._ |
| Derbyshire | | | |
| Do. |Porch of Great Hall | 72 |_p._ |
| | and gable of State | | |
| | apartments | | |
| Do. |Undercroft beneath Great| 73 |_p._ |
| | Hall | | |
| Do. |Window in porch | 100 |J. A. G., _p._ |
|STANTON HARCOURT, |Door in “Pope’s Tower” | 96 | do. |
| Oxfordshire | | | |
| Do. |Plans, elevations, and | 64 |Sydney G. Follett, |
| | sections of kitchen | | _d._ |
| Do. |Sketch of kitchen | 65 | do. |
|STOKESAY CASTLE, |Fireplace in north tower| 110 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Shropshire | | | |
| Do. |General view | 39 |J. Gale, Wolver- |
| | | | hampton, _p._ |
| Do. |Ground plan | 37 |J. H. Cook, _d._ |
| Do. |Section of Great Hall | 38 | do. |
| Do. |Window and doorway of | 40 | do. |
| | hall | | |
| Do. |Window in south tower | 41 |J. A. G., _p._ |
|SUDBURY HALL, |Staircase | 296 |R. Keene, Ltd., |
| Derbyshire | | | Derby, _p._ |
|SUTTON PLACE, Surrey |Part of the courtyard | 135 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
|SWAKELEYS, Middlesex | | 215 |Belcher and |
| | | | Macartney, _Later|
| | | | Renaissance |
| | | | Architecture_. |
|SYDENHAM HOUSE, | | 165 |Gotch, _Renaissance|
| Devonshire | | | in England_. |
| | | | |
|TATTERSHALL CASTLE, |Chimney-piece on upper | 115 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
| Lincolnshire | floor, showing | | |
| | heraldic decoration | | |
| Do. |Chimney-piece on ground | 115 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| | floor | | |
| Do. |Plans of second and | 79 |F. H. Reed. |
| | third storeys | | |
| Do. |The staircase | 80 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Do. |The stone handrail | 81 |A. Stratton, _d._ |
| Do. |View | 78 |J. A. G., _p._ |
|THORNBURY CASTLE, |Bay window | 159 |Garner and |
| Gloucestershire | | | Stratton, _Tudor |
| | | | Domestic |
| | | | Architecture_. |
|THORNEY HALL, |Panelling in dining-room| 260 |A. W. Bentham, _d._|
| Cambridgeshire | | | |
|THORPE HALL, |Ceiling | 286 |Belcher and |
| Northamptonshire | | | Macartney, _Later|
| | | | Renaissance |
| | | | Architecture_. |
| Do. |Doorway and panelling | 273 | do. |
| |TREATMENT of one side | 266 |Abraham Swan, |
| | of a room | | Architect. |
| | | | |
|WANSTEAD HOUSE, Essex | | 248 |J. C. Buckler, _d._|
|WARKWORTH CASTLE, |Entrance gateway | 88 |J. A. G., _p._ |
| Northumberland | | | |
| Do. |The keep | 82 |J. Pattison |
| | | | Gibson, Hexham, |
| | | | _p._ |
| Do. |Plan of the keep | 83 |J. A. G., _d._, |
| | | | after Turner |
| | | | and Parker. |
|WELLS, Vicars’ Close |Chimney | 113 |W. T., _d._ |
|WEST BURTON, Sussex |Entrance gateway | 180 |Col. Gale, _p._ |
|WILTON HOUSE, |Chimney-piece in the | 264 |W. G. Davie, _p._ |
| Wiltshire | single cube room | | |
|WIMBLEDON, |Plan of the lay-out | 183 |Smithson |
| Lord Exeter’s House | | | Collection. |
| and Garden | | | |
|WOLVETON HOUSE, |Interior, showing door- | 195 |W. Pouncy, |
| Dorsetshire | way, chimney-piece, | | Dorchester, _p._ |
| | and ceiling | | |
INDEX TO TEXT.
A
ABINGDON ABBEY, 41, 42, 103, 110;
chimney-shaft, 110;
fireplace, 42, 110;
guest-house, 42;
prior’s room, 41;
treatment of walls, 42;
windows, 42, 103
ADAM, THE BROTHERS, 238, 274, 278, 290
ADAM, ROBERT, 238
ALDRICH, Dean, 234
ALIGNMENT, 70
ALNWICK CASTLE, 44, 100, 102;
windows, 100, 102
AMATEUR ARCHITECTS, 223–229, 233, 234
AMATEUR SPIRIT among professional architects, 235
AMORINI, 134, 137, 197
ANNE, QUEEN, 266
APARTMENTS named by Chaucer, 45–47, 140;
by Spenser, 139, 140;
in Thorpe’s plans, 141, 142;
in Smithson’s plans, 152
APETHORPE HALL, 194, 203;
plaster panel from ceiling, 194;
long gallery, 203, 204
ARABESQUE on mullions, 133, 134;
on panelling, 187
“ARCHITECTURE OF A. PALLADIO,” by G. Leoni, 235
ARRAS, 125, 139, 191
ASTLEY HALL, long gallery, 204
ASTON HALL, 151, 210;
planning, 151, 210;
vestibule, 151, 210
AUDLEY END, extent of, 154
AYDON CASTLE, 36, 91, 111, 114;
chimney-shaft, 111;
doorway, 91;
fireplaces, 111, 114;
precautions for defence, 36
B
BAGULEY HALL, timber hall, 45
BALL-FLOWERS, 94
BANQUETING HALL, WHITEHALL, 210, 222
BARLBOROUGH HALL, 179
BASING HOUSE, fall of, 221
BAY WINDOWS, Elizabethan and Jacobean, 145, 157–159, 179, 182, 213;
mediæval, 58, 103–105;
Tudor, 128, 130, 132
BEAUCHAMP, THOMAS, Earl of Warwick, 44
BEAUFORT HOUSE, CHELSEA, 147
BEDROOMS, 142, 204, 212, 246
BELSAY CASTLE, 22
BITCHFIELD TOWER, 22
BLENHEIM PALACE, 154, 234, 237, 244;
extent of, 154, 244;
Pope’s criticism on, 237
BODIAM CASTLE, 35, 36
BOLECTION MOULDINGS, at Boughton House, 262
BOLT, Wood, at Stanton Harcourt, 97
BOUGHTON HOUSE, 239, 242, 262, 282, 292;
ceilings, 239, 292;
French feeling, 239;
furniture, 239;
lay-out, 239;
panelling, 239, 262, 282;
staircases, 239
BOWER, 45, 47
BRAD STREET, house at, 175
BRAMHALL HALL, 173
BRETTINGHAM, MATTHEW, 266
BRICKWORK, 79, 80, 81, 86, 124, 134, 169;
diaper in, 86, 134
BRITTON, J., 223
BROME HALL, 182;
chimney-stacks, 182;
dormers, 182;
gardens, 182;
porch, 182;
symmetrical arrangement, 182
BROUGHTON CASTLE, 44
BRYMPTON D’EVERCY, bay window, 104
BUCKHURST HOUSE, 154
BUCKINGHAM STREET, Strand, house in, 264, 285;
ceiling, 285;
panelling, 262, 264;
residence of Peter the Great, 264
BURFORD, Vicarage at, 220;
roof and windows, 220
BURGHLEY HOUSE, 60, 65, 66, 154;
kitchen, 60, 65, 66
BURGHLEY, Lord, 66, 154, 185
BURLINGTON, Earl of, 233, 235, 237, 244
BURLINGTON STREET, house in, 233;
Lord Chesterfield’s advice concerning, 233
BURROUGHS, Sir JAMES, 234
BURTON AGNES, 155
BURWASH, SUSSEX, house at, 250, 251, 272;
chimneys and windows, 251;
door, 272
BUTCHERS’ GUILD, HEREFORD, hall of, chimney-piece, 198
C
CALGARTH OLD HALL, panelling, 189
CAMPBELL, COLIN, 232, 235, 246, 249
CANONS ASHBY, coved ceiling, 193
CARDIGAN, Lord, 27
CARK HALL, doorway, 268, 272
CARSHALTON HOUSE, 258;
gates, 258;
railings, 258
CARTER, J., 223
CARTOUCHE of arms, 261
CARVING, stone, at Oakham Castle, 33;
wood, 198, 262, 266, 274–277, 282
CASTLE ASHBY, lettered parapet, 179
CASTLE HEDINGHAM, 5, 6, 7–13, 91, 100, 106, 109, 114;
doorway, 91;
fireplace, 8, 10, 12, 106;
floors, 114;
gallery, 7, 10;
orifice, 109;
windows, 10, 13, 100;
wooden shutters, 13;
roof, 8, 114;
staircase, 8, 10
CASTLE HOWARD, 154, 234, 244;
extent of, 154, 244
CASTLES, NORMAN, 1–6
CASTLE RISING, 5, 6
CECIL, ROBERT, Earl of Salisbury, 147
CEILINGS, coved, 192, 193, 241;
Elizabethan and Jacobean, 191–194, 196, 197, 203, 204, 282;
late seventeenth century and eighteenth century, 241, 282, 292;
mediæval, 87, 88, 114, 116, 119, 122, 123;
painted, 239, 290–292
CENTRAL HEARTH, 27, 32, 70, 106–109, 280
CHACOMBE PRIORY, windows, 100, 101
CHAPEL, 6, 30, 49, 82, 145, 146, 152, 241, 244
CHARLES I., 203
CHARLES II. encourages architecture, 221;
arms of, in plaster, 220;
Sir John Denham, Surveyor of Works to, 234;
brings Verrio to England, 290
CHAUCER, GEOFFREY, description of fourteenth-century house, 45–47;
compared with Spenser’s, 140
CHESTERFIELD, Lord, 233
CHIMNEYS, Elizabethan and Jacobean (1603), 169, 179, 182, 210, 213,
249;
mediæval, 109–112;
late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 214, 249, 251;
Tudor, 164
CHIMNEY-PIECE, eighteenth century, 275–278;
Elizabethan and Jacobean, 195–198, 277;
mediæval, 40, 80, 81, 114
CHIPCHASE CASTLE, 22
CHISWICK, villa at, by Lord Burlington, 233
CHUTE, Mr, 234
CIVIL WARS, effect of, on South Wingfield, 76;
on house-building, 221
CLARKE, Dr, 234
COCKLAW TOWER, colour decoration at, 21
COLCHESTER CASTLE, fireplace, 109
COLD ASHTON MANOR HOUSE, walled garden, 179
COLD OVERTON, 201, 220;
dog-gate, 201, 220;
porch, 220;
staircase, 220;
windows, 220
COLES FARM, BOX, plaster frieze, 282
COLESHILL, 212–215;
chimneys, 214;
roof, 214;
windows, 213, 214
COLOUR DECORATION, 21, 42, 43, 187, 290–292
COMBE ABBEY, doorway, 274
“COMPLETE BODY OF ARCHITECTURE,” by Isaac Ware, 225, 226, 227
CONISBOROUGH CASTLE, chapel, 6
CONWAY, General, 234
“COOK’S TALE OF GAMELYN,” 45
CORNICE, classic, 127, 159–163, 165, 169, 193, 195, 216, 219, 220,
224, 239, 266, 268, 274, 290, 292;
projecting, 214, 249;
wood, at Lyddington, 121, 123
CORRIDOR, beginnings of, 145, 146;
becomes general, 152;
lack of at Boughton, 239
COTHELE HOUSE, great hall, 35
COTSWOLDS, manor houses of, 155
“COUNTER-HAURIANT,” 132–134
COWDRAY HOUSE, tendency towards symmetry, 67;
gatehouse at, 131
COWPER, WILLIAM, 280
CRENELLATE, licence to, 44
CREWE HALL, staircase, 201
CROCKETS, 94
CROMWELL, RALPH, Lord Treasurer, 68, 78, 81
D
DADO, 259, 262, 266
DAÏS, 26, 33, 35, 58, 141, 145, 151
DEENE PARK, central hearth, 27, 106;
chimney-piece, 197
DEFENCE, precautions for, in fortified manor houses, 29, 30, 35,
36, 88–91, 92;
keeps, 3, 10, 14, 88–91;
mediæval manor houses, 47, 51, 76, 84–86, 88–91;
Tudor manor houses, 131, 139;
at Kenilworth, 53;
less need for, 86, 113;
treatment of windows, 98, 103;
abandonment of, 143;
reminiscence of, 145
DENHAM, Sir JOHN, 234
DERWENT HALL, 169
“DESIGNS OF ARCHITECTURE,” by Abraham Swan, 266, 278
“DESIGNS OF INIGO JONES,” by William Kent, 229–231
DE VERES, Earls of Oxford, 12
DIAPER--See under “Brickwork”
DOG-GATE, 201, 220
DOG-GRATE, 282
DOG-TOOTH, 33
DOLPHINS, FLORIATED, 132, 133
DOORWAYS, external, at Drayton, 241;
eighteenth century, 272–274;
Jacobean, 268–272;
mediæval, 88–98
DOORWAYS, internal, eighteenth century, 274, 275;
Elizabethan and Jacobean, 195, 274
DORMERS, 182, 214, 219, 220, 249
DOVER CASTLE, keep, 5
DRAYTON HOUSE, 44, 119, 239–242, 255, 298;
alterations, 241, 242;
boudoir, 241;
ceiling, 241;
gardens, 241, 242;
ironwork, 241, 242, 255;
long gallery, 241;
roof, 119, 241;
staircases, 241, 298;
windows, 241
DRAYTON, SIMON DE, 44
E
EAST BARSHAM, 134, 137
EASTBURY, DORSET, 242
EASTINGTON, doorway, 97
EASTON HALL, ironwork, 255, 256
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE, compared with domestic, 28, 29, 33,
87, 100, 103, 118
EDWARD VI., 27, 108
EGG-AND-TONGUE ORNAMENT, 133, 134
“ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE,” by Sir Henry Wotton, 204, 222
ELIZABETH, QUEEN, sanitation in days of, 75;
the staircase, 76, 124, 198, 202;
house builders in reign of, 78, 154;
increase of comfort under, 127
ELIZABETHAN DESIGNER, 58, 103, 114
ELIZABETHAN HOUSE--See under “Manor House”
ELIZABETHAN PLANNING--See under “Planning”
ELTHAM PALACE, doorway, 95;
roof, 119, 121
ENTABLATURE, 164, 165, 229
EVELYN, JOHN, 221, 222
EWELME, SCHOOL AT, doorway, 97
EXETER, Earl of, 185
EXTINGUISHER, 258
EYAM HALL, walled garden, 179
F
“FAERIE QUEENE,” 138, 139
FANLIGHT, 272, 273
FAN TRACERY, 123
FAWSLEY, NORTHANTS, 104, 114;
bay window, 104;
chimney-piece, 114;
staircase, 104
FELBRIGGE HALL, 169, 176, 179;
parapet, 179;
porch, 268
FENTON HOUSE, HAMPSTEAD, sensible planning at, 250
FIREPLACE, mediæval, 10, 12, 21, 27, 35, 38, 40, 42, 58, 61, 70,
74, 80, 83, 87, 88, 105–114;
sixteenth century, 130, 148, 186;
absence of, 27, 32
FITZOSBORNE, Sir THOMAS, letter of, 236, 237
FITZWILLIAM, Earl, 234
FRENCH INFLUENCE at Boughton House, 239
FRIEZE, 165, 229, 231, 274, 282
FURNITURE, 140, 239, 241
G
GALLERY, 7, 10, 50;
long, 49, 50, 138–140, 142, 145, 152, 202, 203, 204, 210, 241;
minstrels’, 26
GARDENS, 49, 179–182, 184, 185, 239, 241, 242, 255
GARDEN DESIGN, 184, 185
GARDEN, orange, 185;
sunk, 185, 239;
walled, 179–182
GARDE-ROBE, 7, 18, 42, 68, 75, 80, 86;
pit, 21;
tower, 58
GASCELYN FAMILY, builders of Sheldons, 154
GATEHOUSE, 3, 35, 36, 37, 46, 75, 81, 84–86, 90, 94, 131, 139
GATE PIERS, 155, 255, 258
GATES, iron, 241, 251, 255, 256, 258
GAYHURST, 179, 268;
gables, 179;
parapet, 179;
porch, 268;
roof, 179
GEORGE I., 237
GEORGE II., 255
GEORGIAN HOUSES, 108, 223, 266
GIBBONS, GRINLING, 262
GIBBS, JAMES, 229, 231, 234, 278
GLASTONBURY, Abbot’s kitchen, 60, 61–63;
the Hall, staircase, 295, 298;
street front at, 105
GODALMING, doorway, 272
GRATE, FIRE, 111, 280, 282
GREAT CHALFIELD, oriel, 104
GREAT CHAMBER, 82, 142, 145, 152, 210
GREAT QUEEN STREET, street front, 218
H
HADDON HALL, 44, 47–53, 70;
chapel, 49;
chimney-stack, 51;
dining-room, 51;
Eagle Tower, 47, 51;
gallery, 50, 51;
gallery, long, 49, 50;
hall, 41, 50, 51, 70;
kitchen, 47, 50;
windows, 47, 50, 51
HALF-TIMBER WORK, 36, 38, 97, 151, 171–175, 218
HALL, dominance of, 24, 45, 137, 141;
loss of importance of, 142, 152;
altered treatment, 143, 149–151;
becomes a vestibule, 151, 210;
Spenser’s description of, 139
HALL of fourteenth-century manor house, 45–60;
of Norman keep, 7, 8;
of thirteenth century, 24–27, 31–34
HALTON CASTLE, 22
HAMPTON COURT, 138, 154, 191, 203, 239;
character of plan, 138;
long gallery, 203;
tapestry, 191
HANDRAIL, 81, 124, 201, 293, 295
HARDWICK HALL, staircase, 199, 200
HARRIETSHAM, doorway, 95, 98
HARRISON, WILLIAM, 186
HASTINGS, Sir WILLIAM, 67, 86;
heraldic maunch of, 86
HATFIELD HOUSE, 166, 179, 201;
dog-gate, 201
HATTON, Sir CHRISTOPHER, 154
HATTON GARDEN, house in, chimney-piece, 278
HAWKSMOOR, NICHOLAS, 234
HEATH HALL, 176, 179, 185;
garden flight of steps, 185
HENGRAVE HALL, character of plan, 137
HENRY II., 4, 17, 33
HENRY III., 42, 55;
influence on architecture of, 42, 43
HENRY VI., 241
HENRY VII., 106, 130, 134, 136, 187;
domestic work in reign of, 130, 134;
tomb of, 136
HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL, 222, 223
HENRY VIII. and the Renaissance, 126, 136, 137;
domestic architecture under, 128–140;
chimneys, 164;
panelling, 187
“HENRY VIII.’S LODGINGS” at Kenilworth, 60
HERALDRY IN DECORATION, 43, 80, 86, 194, 195–198, 201, 204, 272
HEREFORD, BUTCHER’S GUILD, hall of, chimney-piece, 198
HERRINGSTONE, ceiling, 192, 193
HIPPED ROOF--See under “Roof”
HOLDENBY, extent of, 154
“HOLLINGSHED’S CHRONICLES,” 186
HORHAM HALL, 128, 130;
fireplace, 130;
hall, 128, 130;
windows, 128
HORN, as material for glazing, 42, 98
HURSTMONCEUX CASTLE, 85
HOUGHTON CONQUEST, 215
I
IGHTHAM MOTE, roof, 116, 118
IRONWORK, 241, 242, 255, 258;
gates, 241, 255, 256, 258;
railings, 242, 255, 256, 258;
staircase balustrades, 301
ITALIAN INFLUENCE in England, 67, 127, 128, 132–138, 160–166, 187,
196, 206–208, 235–238
J
JAMES I., 95, 194, 208, 210
JOHN, KING, 49, 55
JOHN OF GAUNT, 44, 55
JONES, INIGO, 205, 207, 221, 229–232, 234, 237;
banqueting hall, 210, 222;
works attributed to, 215, 216, 261;
Stoke Bruerne, 225
K
KEEP, its origin, 3;
relation to castle, 3;
described, 4–6;
late survival of, 20, 23, 35;
compared with fortified manor house, 20, 24;
fireplaces in, 106;
roofs or ceilings, 114
KEEP, at Castle Hedingham, 7–13;
at Kenilworth, 53, 60;
at Longthorpe, 35, 114;
at Peak Castle, 17–20;
at Stokesay Castle, 35, 40, 41;
at Tattershall, 21, 79–81;
at Warkworth, 23, 81
KENILWORTH CASTLE, 5, 44, 53–60, 185;
fireplaces, 58;
hall, 55, 58;
keep, 53, 60;
kitchen, 56, 58;
undercroft, 55;
windows, 58
KENT, WILLIAM, 229, 231, 235, 278
KING’S LYNN, house at, chimney-piece, 198
KIP, views by, 145, 147, 157, 182, 184
KIRBY HALL, 152, 154, 163
KIRBY MUXLOE, 67, 84–86;
gatehouse, 86;
hall, 86
KIRTLING HALL, 131, 132
KITCHEN, importance of, 60;
Abbot’s, at Durham, 60;
Abbot’s, at Glastonbury, 60, 61–63;
at Burleigh House, 60, 65;
at Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, 65, 66;
at Haddon Hall, 47, 50, 65;
at Kenilworth Castle, 56, 58;
at Oakham Castle, 31, 32;
at Raby Castle, 60;
at South Wingfield, 61, 65, 73, 74;
at Stokesay Castle, 38;
at Warkworth Castle, 82, 83
KNOCKER, 97
KNOLE, 154
KNYFF, views by, 182, 184
L
LACOCK, ANGEL INN, doorway, 95, 97;
knocker on, 97
LAGUERRE, 290
LANCASTER, EDMUND, Earl of, 55
LANDSDOWNE HOUSE, chimney-piece, 278
LANTERN LIGHT, 108
LANTERN, octagonal, 63
LAYER MARNEY, 131, 132, 133, 187;
gatehouse, 131;
windows, 132, 133;
panel from, 187
LAY-OUT OF HOUSES, 179–185, 239
LAVENHAM, ceilings, 122, 123
LEADWORK, urns at Drayton, 242;
figures at Carshalton, 258;
roofs, 179;
used on doorway pediments, 272
LEICESTER, DUDLEY, Earl of, work at Kenilworth, 55, 59, 60
LENHAM, doorway, 97, 98
LEONI, GIACOMO, 235, 258
LIBERATE ROLLS, of Henry III.’s time, 42
LINCOLN, Bishops of, 123
LINEN PATTERN, 187
LITTLE MORETON HALL, 173
LITTLE SODBURY, roof, 119, 121
LITTLE WENHAM HALL, windows, 100–102
LOGGIA, 145
LONG GALLERY, 49, 50, 138–140, 142, 145, 152;
object of, 203, 204;
goes out of fashion, 210, 241
LONGLEAT, 157, 179, 182, 206;
bay windows, 157, 182;
lay-out, 182;
roofs, 179
LONGTHORPE, 35, 114
LOUVRE, 27, 32, 106, 108, 130
LOVE LANE, house in, staircase, 293
LYDDINGTON BEDE HOUSE, ceiling, 123;
cornice, 123
LYTES CAREY MANOR HOUSE, 137
M
MACHICOLATIONS, 81, 89, 90
MANNERS, Sir JOHN, 49
MANOR HOUSE, Elizabethan and Jacobean, 1, 25, 70, 157–179;
fortified, 20, 24–43;
mediæval, 45–61, 67–86;
Tudor, 128–139
MARKENFIELD HALL, 45
MARTIN MARPRELATE TRACTS, 105
MARTON HALL, 173
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, at South Wingfield, 74, 75
MARY, WILLIAM AND, 239, 285
MAUNCH, heraldic, at Kirby Muxloe, 86
MAYFIELD, BISHOP’S PALACE, doorway, 92–94;
roof, 116–118;
window, 103
MELTON CONSTABLE, 215
MEREWORTH “CASTLE,” 235
MINSTER LOVEL, hall, 26
MOAT, 35, 36, 53, 76, 84, 131
MONTACUTE HOUSE, 155
MONTAGU, GEORGE, letter from Walpole to, 234
MONTAGU, RALPH, Duke of, 239
MONTFORT, SIMON DE, 55
MORE, Sir THOMAS, 148
MORTEIGNE, Earl of, afterwards King John, 49
MOULDINGS, 86, 91, 123, 259, 262;
bolection, 262;
of panels, 262
MOYNS PARK, 166, 169
MULLION, 29, 100, 101, 102, 154, 163, 165, 166, 210, 251;
origin of, 101, 102;
ornamented with arabesques, 133, 134;
replaced by sash windows, 213–220, 241;
survival of, 220
N
NASSINGTON, PREBENDAL HOUSE, doorway, 91
NAWORTH, 45
NEVILLS, Earls of Westmorland, 44
NEWCASTLE HOUSE, 223
NEWEL STAIRCASE--See under “Staircase”
NONESUCH PALACE, 137
NORFOLK, Duchess of, work for, at Drayton, 241, 255;
monogram of, 255
NORRINGTON, doorway, 95
NORTHBOROUGH MANOR HOUSE, described, 45, 94;
chimney, 112
NUNNEY, CASTLE OF, 45
O
OAKHAM CASTLE, 27, 28, 29–33, 45, 55, 101;
hall, 27, 31–33, 55;
kitchen, 31, 32;
window tracery, 101
OGEE ARCH, 94
OILLETS, 85, 89
OLD WAR OFFICE, plaster panels, 266;
ceiling, 288
OOLITE STONE, 169
OPEN HEARTH--See “Central Hearth”
ORDERS, use of the, 162, 163
ORIEL, 104, 105, 132, 137
ORIFICE, 109, 110, 111
OXBURGH, gatehouse, 131
OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE, halls of, 108, 134;
kitchens, 65, 66
OXFORD, Earls of, 12
P
PALLADIO, ANDREA, 233, 235;
“Architecture of,” by G. Leoni, 235
PANELLING, wood, 124, 125, 187–191, 194;
late seventeenth century and eighteenth century, 259–266;
plaster, 266
PARAPET, 165, 179
PARHAM, ceiling, 191
PARLOUR, 139, 140, 142, 145, 146, 152;
winter, 148
PARQUETRY, at Drayton, 241
PEAK CASTLE, 5, 6, 13–20, 49, 108;
keep, 15–20;
staircase, 18
PEDESTAL, stone, at Drayton, 242
PEDIMENT, 127, 216;
broken, 261;
semicircular over doorway, 272
PELE or PELE-TOWER, descent of Elizabethan house from, 1;
similarity between keep and, 17;
late examples, 21, 22;
stone vaulting at, 114;
Belsay Castle, 22;
Bitchfield Tower, 22;
Chipchase Castle, 22;
Cocklaw Tower, 21;
Halton Castle, 22;
Longthorpe, 35, 114
PEMBROKE, HENRY, Earl of, 234
PENSHURST PLACE, licence to crenellate, 44;
central hearth, 108;
roof, 119;
window, 103
PERCY, HENRY, son of Hotspur, 81
PETER THE GREAT, 264
PETWORTH, doorway, 272
PIERS, GATE--See under “Gate”
PILASTER, 162, 163, 169, 195, 196, 219, 259, 264, 272
PILTON MANOR HOUSE, 166
PINDAR, Sir PAUL, house of, 157, 159
PLANNING--courtyard type, 143–145, 152;
eighteenth century, 233–236, 242–250;
of Elizabethan and Jacobean house, 25, 58, 140, 143–154;
of fortified manor house, 20, 24–42;
=H= type, 148–152;
of mediæval manor house, 47–60, 67–86;
of Norman keep, 20–23;
of seventeenth century, 210–213;
of Tudor house, 128–139;
under the influence of the amateurs, 224–232
PLASTERWORK, 123, 194, 218, 220;
ceilings, 191–194, 204, 282–290, 295;
details in, to imitate stone, 171;
frieze, 282;
panelling, 266
POORE, Bishop, 246
POPE, ALEXANDER, criticisms on Palladian architecture, 237;
letter to Burlington, 244
PORCH, 42;
central, 149, 175;
at Brome Hall, 182;
projecting, 220
PORTCULLIS, 85, 89, 139, 143
POWIS CASTLE, 185
POWYS, Lord, 223
PRUDHOE CASTLE, oriel, 105
PULTENEY, JOHN DE, licence to crenellate granted to, 44
PURLINS, 116, 121
Q
QUENBY HALL, parapet, 179;
roof, 179
QUOINS, 169, 249
R
RABY CASTLE, 44, 60;
kitchen, 60
RAIL, HAND--See “Handrail”
RAILINGS, iron, 242, 254, 255, 258
RAWDON HOUSE, staircase, 201;
doorway, 202
RAYNHAM HALL, 212–215;
chimney-piece, 278;
doorway, 274
RENAISSANCE, the, 86, 87;
advent into England, 126–128, 136;
Inigo Jones and, 207
RICHMOND PALACE, central hearth, 106
RIPLEY, THOMAS, 235
ROCHESTER CASTLE, 5, 6, 7, 91, 100, 114;
doorway, 91;
keep, 5, 6, 7;
roofs, 114;
windows, 100
ROLL OF THE PIPE, 17
ROOFS, flat, 179;
hammer-beam, 121, 122;
hipped, 214, 249;
lead, 179;
octagonal, 63;
open-timber, 33, 37, 58, 116–122;
stone-vaulted, 114
ROTHWELL MANOR HOUSE, described, 249;
entrance doorway, 249, 274
ROTHWELL MARKET HOUSE, circular stair, 199
S
ST JAMES’S SQUARE, house in, 238;
ceiling, 290
ST JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD, 215
ST PAUL’S, 222, 232
SALISBURY, house in Close, 246;
Bishop’s palace, drawing-room, 246
SALLYPORT, 15
SANITATION, 42, 74, 75, 80, 86, 142
SCAWEN, Sir THOMAS, 258
SCREENS, 33, 50, 56, 94, 145, 146, 151, 210
SEATON DELAVAL, 242–244
SEDLESCOMBE MANOR HOUSE, 175
SESQUIALTERA, 246
SESQUITERTIA, 246
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM, 152;
depicts Elizabethan room, 196
SHAKESPEARE’S “HENRY IV.,” 83, 84
SHEEN HOUSE, doorway, 275
SHELDONS MANOR HOUSE, described, 154, 155
SHELL FARM, 174
SHERBORNE, oriel, 105
SHUTE, JOHN, 206
SHUTTERS, wooden, 13, 40, 41, 98–103;
to be painted, 43
SMITHSON DRAWINGS, 152, 156, 184, 206, 223
SMITHSON, HUNTINGDON, 152
SMITHSON, JOHN, 151, 152;
notes on Wimbledon House, 185;
Italian influence, 206;
plans, 210;
Henry VII.’s chapel, 222, 223
SOANE MUSEUM, 141
SOLAR, 24, 25, 27, 32, 34, 38, 40, 46
SOMERSET HOUSE, OLD, 149
SOUTHWARK, HIGH STREET, house in, 218, 220
SOUTH WINGFIELD MANOR HOUSE, 21, 61, 68–78, 80, 97, 103, 104;
doorways, 97;
gatehouses, 75;
hall, 70, 76, 78;
kitchen, 61, 65, 73, 74;
staircase, 75, 76;
undercroft, 71–73;
windows, 76, 103, 104
SPARROW’S HOUSE, IPSWICH, 219
SPENSER, EDMUND, 125;
describes sixteenth-century palace, 138–140
SQUERRIES, WESTERHAM, 215
SQUINCH, 63
STAIRCASES, at Boughton, 239;
at Drayton, 241, 298;
brick, 81, 124;
eighteenth century, 293–301;
Elizabethan and Jacobean, 198–203, 293;
elliptical, 298, 300;
external, 38;
newel, 8, 10, 18, 21, 51, 63, 71, 73, 75, 76, 80, 82, 104, 124;
wood, 38, 76, 200, 298
STANTON HARCOURT, 60, 63, 97;
doorways, 97;
kitchen, 60, 63
STATUARY in lay-out at Boughton, 239
STEPHEN, KING, castles during reign of, 6
STOKE BRUERNE, awkward planning, 225
STOKESAY CASTLE, 35, 36–41, 42, 102, 106, 110, 119;
fireplace, 38, 110;
gatehouse, 36;
hall, 37, 38, 41;
keep, 35, 40;
roof, 37, 119;
solar, 38–40;
stairs, 38;
windows, 40, 41, 102
STRING-COURSE, 159, 160–162, 166
SUDBURY HALL, 293, 295;
ceiling, 295;
doors, 295;
staircase, 293, 295
SURVEYOR, 205, 206
SUTTON COURTNEY, 45
SUTTON PLACE, Italian influence on ornament, 134
SWAGS, 261
SWAKELEYS, 216
SWAN, ABRAHAM, 266, 278
SYDENHAM HOUSE, 166
SYMMETRY, tendency towards in mediæval houses, 58, 59, 67, 68, 70,
81, 85, 86;
in disposition of plan, 127;
in Tudor houses, 137, 138;
becomes universal, 140, 142, 145, 148, 175;
effect of house depends on, 182;
growing demands of, 186;
in Palladian houses, 249
T
TAPESTRY, 125, 191, 196, 280
TATTERSHALL CASTLE, 21, 78–81, 114, 124;
chimney-pieces, 80, 81, 114;
staircase, 80, 81, 124;
windows, 80
TEMPLE NEWSAM, 179
TERRA-COTTA, 134
THEOBALDS, 154
THORNBURY CASTLE, 137, 157;
bay window, 157
THORNEY HALL, panelling, 261
THORNHILL, Sir JAMES, 290
THORPE HALL, 261, 285;
ceiling, 285
THORPE, JOHN, 141, 143, 147, 151, 152, 156, 157, 207, 210;
attitude to Henry VII.’s chapel, 222, 223
THORPE’S drawings, 141–151, 156;
plans, 141–151, 157, 210
THYNNE, Sir JOHN, 206
TILES, use of in half-timber work, 175
TOWER OF LONDON, 5, 6, 57;
keep, 57
TRACERY, fan, 123;
window, 26, 29, 51, 81, 94, 103;
common to ecclesiastical and domestic architecture, 29;
sparing use of, 100, 132;
elaborate, 103;
Italian influence on, 134
TRANSOME, 29, 132
TRIFORIUM, 7, 8
TYMPANUM, 255
U
UNDERCROFT, 55, 70, 71–73
UP PARK, 215
URNS, lead, 242, 255
V
VANBRUGH, Sir JOHN, 205, 234, 242–244, 274
VERNACULAR WORK, influenced by Wren, 232
VERNON, Sir GEORGE, “King of the Peak,” 49
VERRIO, 290, 292
VERSAILLES, 239
VESTIBULE, 151, 210
VICENZA, villa near, 235
VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, wood panel, 188
VITRUVIUS, 221, 222
“VITRUVIUS BRITANNICUS,” 232, 246
VYNE, THE, Hampshire, 234
W
WADE, General, 233
WAINSCOT, 124, 187
WALLS, methods of covering internally, 42, 124, 125, 187–191,
259–266, 280
WALPOLE, HORACE 233–235
WANSTEAD, ESSEX, 246–249
WARE, ISAAC, 225–231, 285
WARKWORTH CASTLE, 23, 67, 81–84;
gatehouse, 81;
hall, 82, 83;
kitchen, 82, 83;
staircases, 82;
windows, 83, 84
WARWICK CASTLE, 44
WARWICK, Earl of--See “Beauchamp”
WARWICK SQUARE, house in, ceiling, 285
WEBB, JOHN, 218, 234, 259, 261, 274, 285
WELLS, Deanery at, bay window, 104;
Vicars’ Close, chimney, 112
WENTWORTH CASTLE, 234
WEST BURTON, 180
WHITEHALL GARDENS, house at, ceiling, 288–290;
chimney-piece, 278
WILLIAM III., 239, 255, 285
WILLIAMS, CHARLES, 206
WILTON HOUSE, double cube room, 246;
chimney-piece, 264, 266, 278;
panelling, 282
WIMBLEDON HOUSE, 185;
lay-out, 185
WINDOWS, bay, 34, 58, 70, 73, 103–105, 128, 130, 132, 145, 157–159,
179, 182, 213;
dormer, 182, 214, 219, 220, 249;
glazing of, 13, 40–43, 98–100, 102, 103;
in attic storey, 229, 231;
“Italyan,” 152, 206;
mediæval, 13, 21, 29, 32, 47, 49, 50, 76, 80, 84, 98–105;
mullioned, 154, 163, 165, 166, 210, 251;
oriel, 104, 105, 132, 137;
round-headed, 216;
sash, 213–219, 241, 249, 251;
sham, 227;
square-headed, 127, 154, 157, 165, 166;
traceried, 26, 29, 51, 81, 94, 132, 134;
Tudor, 132–134
WOLSEY, Cardinal, 138, 191
WOTTON, Sir HENRY, 204, 221, 222, 225
WREN, Sir CHRISTOPHER, 205, 208, 220, 222, 232, 234, 238, 259, 274,
293
WYNNE, Captain, 224
Y
YANWATH, 45
YORK, Assembly Rooms at, 233
_Printed at_ THE DARIEN PRESS, _Edinburgh_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Remains of this are visible in the plastered spaces of one of the
principals.
[2] See an engraving made after a drawing of 1716 from the original
painting in fresco at Newnham Padox, published by Henry Merridew,
Coventry.
[3] See the _Transactions of the Royal Institute of British
Architects_, vol. v., New Series, for an interesting conjectural
restoration of the Mayfield roof by Mr G. E. Street, R.A.
[4] They are in the possession of Colonel Coke of Brookhill Hall,
Alfreton. See also pp. 183, 185.
[5] The residence of the Misses Baily, who have kindly allowed the
staircase to be drawn.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where appropriate, the original spelling has been retained.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r.
or X^{xx}.
5. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
6. Bold text is shown as =xxx=.
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