Early Renaissance Architecture in England / A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625

CHAPTER III.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HOUSE-PLAN FROM ABOUT 1450 TO 1635.

Note.—The plans are drawn to a uniform scale of 50 feet to the inch.

The principal buildings erected during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were houses, and it is mainly in connection with domestic architecture that we must seek to trace the development of the new style. There were but few churches built after the dissolution of the monasteries, and we have no examples of sufficient importance to show how ecclesiastical architecture would have been affected. There are chapels, chantries, and fittings, such as screens, pews, pulpits, and fonts, but nothing on a large scale. We have already seen how such comparatively small and isolated features were affected. It is necessary, therefore, to look to the numerous houses that were built in order to see what progress the new ideas made.

The character of a house is largely determined by its plan, and the plan is the expression of the wants and habits of the inmates. Accordingly we find that the wants and habits of English people, being far less susceptible of change than their taste in ornament and decoration, caused the plan of their houses to follow the old lines long after the superficial decoration had taken on itself the foreign fashion. The one quality which the Italian influence gradually introduced into the plan was symmetry, and this could be obtained without sacrificing the arrangements which seemed essential to English habits. In later days an Italian feature, the open loggia, was often made use of in the form of an arcade, but even this had its English precedent in the cloisters of the monks.

What were the essential points about the plan of an English house? The most important place was the hall, which was the nucleus of the whole series of apartments. Then there was the kitchen with its adjuncts; and there were the private apartments for the family, of which the chief was the "parlour." The arrangement which naturally established itself was that the kitchen should be located at one end of the hall and the parlour at the other. This relation of rooms had existed from a very early period, and it is in the developing of this idea with more or less elaboration and skill that house-planning consisted down to the time of Inigo Jones, when the hall gradually ceased to be the centre of household life, and became merely an entrance.

To the central group of hall, kitchen and parlour were added what other rooms were required for convenience or defence; but in regard to the latter, precautions against attack had already become less necessary in Henry VIII.'s time, and they were practically disregarded in Elizabeth's, when considerations of stateliness and display chiefly influenced the design, at any rate as far as the larger houses were concerned.

Nothing will help to show how the central idea of an English house developed, while tenaciously adhering to its essence, so much as a comparison of the plans of a number of houses built during the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth. But in order to bring them into relation with what preceded them, the series commences with the plans of two houses that were built in the fifteenth century, before there was a trace of Italian influence to be found in English work. All the plans are those of fair-sized houses, chiefly of the manor-house class, and they are from examples scattered up and down the country; therefore whatever characteristics they possess may be taken to have been of fairly wide distribution.

33.—Great Chalfield, Wiltshire. Plan (temp. Henry VI.).

The first example is Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire (Fig. 33), where the work is all of good Perpendicular character. The house was built towards the end of the reign of Henry VI., at a time when precautions against attack were still necessary; it was therefore surrounded by a moat. Much of the work has disappeared, and alterations have been made in what is left, but the arrangement of the hall is still plain, although the kitchen is not recognisable. The almost invariable disposition of the hall was as follows: it was an oblong apartment with one end cut off by a screen, which formed the entrance passage called "the screens." From this passage the hall was entered on one side, while from the other side access was obtained to the kitchen, the buttery, the pantry, and the rest of the servants' department. This arrangement may still be seen in use at many of the colleges in Oxford and Cambridge. The hall itself was usually lighted from both sides, and was a lofty apartment with an open roof, that is, with all the timbers showing. The effect of this disposition was that the hall divided the house into two separate portions; there was no thoroughfare above it or around it, but only through it. At the end opposite to the screens was the daÏs, a platform raised some few inches above the general floor level, where the family sat at meals, in the same way as the dons sit in many colleges at the present day. The daÏs was usually lighted by a bay window, which formed a convenient recess for a serving table. There are still a few houses where the daÏs survives, but in most cases it has been cleared away and the floor has been lowered to the general level. That it was of universal adoption is proved by its being shown on practically all contemporary plans. The fireplace was placed in one of the side walls, and was generally somewhat nearer to the daÏs end than the other. It obviously could not be placed at the screen end, because the screen itself did not go up to the roof, but was covered by a gallery, usually known as the minstrels' gallery, though it may be doubted whether in many instances it was used by the votaries of the gaie science. Nor could the fireplace be conveniently set in the end wall on the daÏs, since it would have interfered with the table; it was necessarily placed therefore in one of the side walls.

These features, then, may be looked for in every hall of the time—the screen, the daÏs, the bay window, and the fireplace—and in some cases a good deal of ingenuity was displayed in contriving to obtain them in their due relation to each other.

From the daÏs end of the hall access was obtained to the family apartments, which were few in number at first, but gradually increased with the ever-growing desire for comfort and refinement.

At Great Chalfield the hall conforms to the dispositions detailed above, but the bay windows serve rather as means of communication with other rooms than merely as windows.

34.—Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk. Ground Plan (1482).

35.—Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk. Entrance Tower (1482).

At Oxburgh Hall, in Norfolk (1482), we have another type of defensive house (Fig. 34). It was built round a court, as well as being surrounded by a moat. The entrance was through a lofty tower into the court, on the opposite side of which was the hall of the usual type. The kitchen was to the right on entering, in the extreme south-west corner of the building—not exactly the aspect we should choose in the present day. So many changes have been made in the use to which the rooms in these old houses have been put, and in the way of approaching them, that too much stress must not be laid upon the details of the plan, but the relation of the hall and kitchen at Oxburgh must have been always the same. The rest of the building is made up of small rooms surrounding the court, not arranged on any elaborate plan, but put to whatever use was required. It will be seen that although there is a considerable amount of uniformity in the arrangement of Oxburgh Hall, there is no strict symmetry. The entrance tower is in the centre of the front, but the windows on either side of it do not tally with each other. The entrance to the hall is not on the axial line of the tower, nor is the setting of the windows and doors in the court by any means regular. As we advance in time, we shall find that all these points were very carefully attended to, especially towards the end of the sixteenth century. The plan here illustrated was made in 1774, and a few years subsequently the south side of the court, containing the hall and kitchen, was pulled down. Other alterations have been made since then, but there is still much of the original work left. The great entrance tower (Fig. 35) shows still a certain hankering after defensive features; there is a curtain arch thrown across between the turrets, from behind which missiles could be hurled upon unwelcome visitors, and the openings in the turrets are of the smallest. The windows generally are of few lights, the heads are pointed and cusped, the parapets are corbelled out and battlemented, and the whole work is of Late Gothic character without any trace of the new style in its decoration.

36.—East Barsham, Norfolk. Ground Plan (cir. 1500-15).

At East Barsham (about 1500-15) we get indications of the new style in the treatment of parts of the ornament. The general feeling, however, is still Gothic. There is not much of the plan to be made out, but what there is shows a large entrance tower, with the porch of the hall exactly opposite to it (Fig. 36). The hall has a bay window at the daÏs end, and, contrary to custom, a fireplace in the end wall. The kitchen is to the right on entering, and is approached by a passage from the middle of the screens. The whole arrangement is in the main of the usual type, so far as it can be traced. The new feeling is indicated in one or two panels which bear a head, but most of the ornament is still of the Gothic type with cuspings, etc. At the neighbouring parsonage of Great Snoring, which resembles East Barsham in general treatment, some of the ornament is more decidedly Italian, with the characteristic balusters and foliage.

Plate XI.

COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE (ABOUT 1520).

GENERAL VIEW.

Compton Winyates, in Warwickshire (about 1520), is a very complete and charming example of its period. The plan conforms in its main features to the ordinary type (Fig. 37). A certain amount of regularity is imparted to it by reason of its being built round a rectangular court, but of symmetry in it there is hardly a trace, and there is still less in the grouping of the structure. Everything is as irregular and picturesque as the most romantic could desire; the mixture of materials—stone, brick, wood, and plaster—lends a delightful variety of texture, tone, and colour, and makes the house, next to Haddon, one of the most alluring in the country (Plate XI.). But our concern at present is more particularly with the plan. This shows a courtyard entered through a gateway which is opposite, though not exactly opposite, to the door of the screens. On the left of the screens are the buttery, the kitchen passage, and a staircase; on the right, of course, the hall, from the upper end of which access is obtained to the family rooms, the chapel, and—what previous plans have not shown—the grand staircase. Of course, with the lofty hall cutting the building in two halves, at least two staircases were necessary to get to the upper rooms; as a matter of fact there were usually more than two, as there are here: difficulties of planning being often removed, or at any rate lessened, by this rather costly expedient. It will be seen that the hall has a range of rooms at the back of it, and that its two side walls are not, as usual, both external. The sides of the court are formed, as they were at Oxburgh, of a number of small rooms, which originally (in all probability) led into one another, the passage being a later addition. The ornament, in which the house abounds, is all of Late Gothic character (Plate XII.). There is no actual Renaissance detail in the external work, although much of it looks as though it were quite ready for the change.

37.—Compton Winyates, Warwickshire. Ground Plan (cir. 1520).

Plate XII.

COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE

THE ENTRANCE PORCH

38.—Sutton Place, near Guildford. Ground Plan (1523-25).

39.—Sutton Place, Surrey. Details (1523-25).

So far, although we have come to nearly the close of the first quarter of the century, we have seen but little effect from the new style. Just a suggestion in the ornament at East Barsham, and a slight tendency towards a symmetrical treatment of the plan; yet whatever symmetry there may have been at East Barsham was thrown to the winds at Compton Winyates. In the next example, Sutton Place, near Guildford, only a few years later in date (1523-25),[9] we find symmetry in plan and elevation, and ornament which is strongly marked with Italian character. The entrance was as usual through a tower, and faced the hall door exactly opposite, on the axial line (Fig. 38). Such accuracy of alignment was so infrequent at this date, and it results in the hall door being placed so far from the end wall where the screens ought to be, that a feeling of doubt creeps in as to whether we see here the original arrangement unaltered. The hall, too, is of such a height as to embrace two tiers of windows, another most unusual treatment. In the ordinary way the windows would have been made lofty in proportion to the hall. If the existing dispositions have come down unaltered, they are a striking testimony to the manner in which routine of design was broken in order to obtain external symmetry. Apart from this point, the plan adheres to the usual lines. The hall connects the two wings, and the sides of the court are formed by a series of small chambers approached either through each other or from the outer air. The internal walls have either been removed or altered, but the external walls remain to show that the wings enclosing the court were only one room thick, and not of sufficient width to allow of a corridor.

[9]Annals of an Old Manor House, by Frederic Harrison.

There is, however, an important point to be noticed, and that is the symmetrical treatment of the court. Not only is there a little bay window halfway along each side, but the bay window of the hall, which comes in the angle of the court, is balanced by another bay in the other angle, although there is no important room to be lighted by it. Such an arrangement was often adopted in subsequent plans, but this is the first instance which we have seen of it.

40.—Sutton Place, Surrey. Part Elevation of Courtyard (1523-25).

While the plan adheres in the main to the customary lines, the ornamentation has taken quite a new departure. The windows are of Perpendicular type, and have the old-fashioned cusping in the heads, but the hollow of the moulding is occupied with ornament drawn from Italian, or perhaps Franco-Italian, sources (Fig. 39). The house was built by Sir Richard Weston, and, in accordance with the custom of the preceding half century, his rebus, or an attempt at it in the shape of a tun, appears as a diaper in various places and in the horizontal string-course; but instead of being shrouded in vine leaves or other old and well-established devices, it occurs among ornament of the new type. This is a point worth noticing, inasmuch as it shows that this ornament was made for the place, and was not purchased out of ready-made stock. The amorini which are introduced over the doors have not the same individuality, nor have the half-balusters which divide them into their panels, but they were no doubt made by the same men who did the tuns and Sir Richard's initials, which also help to form a diaper in places. All this ornamental work is in terra-cotta, but there is nothing to show where the patterns were cast, whether in England or abroad. The battlemented parapet is not yet discarded (Fig. 40), and the large octagonal shafts are crowned with a variation of the dome. Some of the panels are Gothic quatrefoils, and in the parapet of the central block over the front door the Italian amorini disport themselves (a little clumsily) in panels with Gothic cusping. The whole of the ornament is a curious and interesting mixture of the old and new forms.

Another house with many of the same characteristics is Layer Marney Tower, in Essex (1500-25). There is not enough left of the plan to enable us to draw any deductions from it, but the character of the work is very similar to that at Sutton, only a little more pronounced in its Renaissance feeling. The lofty entrance tower recalls that at Oxburgh; its general appearance, its pointed doorway and windows with their mouldings, and also the cusped panels of its string-courses are all distinctly Gothic (Fig. 41). But closely associated with the Gothic panelling is the classic egg and dart enrichment. The large mullioned windows, though of Gothic descent, are Renaissance in detail, while the parapets, with their egg and dart strings, and their dolphins climbing over semicircular panels filled with radiating ornament, are thoroughly Renaissance of the French type (Plate XIII.). In the moulded chimneys we go back to the ordinary patterns in vogue in nearly all houses of the time, whether touched with the foreign influence or not. The decorative detail here, as at Sutton Place, is in terra-cotta.

Plate XIII.

DETAILS FROM LAYER MARNEY TOWER, ESSEX.

41.—Layer Marney, Essex. Entrance Tower (1500-25).

Both these houses were built by men who had spent some time in France. Sir Richard Weston was there more than once, and was among those who were present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Sir Henry Marney, who built Layer Marney Tower, was one of those attending upon Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, when he took a great army to France in 1522.[10] But whether they took advantage of these journeys to bring back French or Italian workmen with them is not known. Unfortunately there is no documentary evidence to produce, and any opinion that may be formed can only be speculative. One thing is clear; namely, that no school was established over here of men working in the new style. The instances of its use are too few and isolated for that.

[10]"Architectural Notes on Layer Marney Hall, Essex," by C. Forster Hayward. Trans. Essex ArchÆolog. Soc. Vol. III. pt. I.

42.—Hengrave Hall, Suffolk. Ground Plan (1538).

At Hengrave Hall, in Suffolk (1538), the main dispositions conform to the usual type, but without any attempt at exact symmetry (Fig. 42). The entrance leads into a court, round which a corridor is taken. This feature adds much to the comfort and convenience of the house, but it is a refinement in planning which was very seldom introduced. On the opposite side from the entrance is the hall, with the old position of the screens still preserved; to the right of the screens lies the kitchen wing. There is the usual bay window at the daÏs end of the hall, and the family apartments are on the left. Owing to alterations the minutiÆ of the original plan cannot now be traced; the general disposition alone can be recognised. The accompanying plan is from one made in 1775, since which time the whole of the kitchen wing has been pulled down and other alterations have been made. The general disposition shown on it may be taken as being like the original, and we see that the entrance is not in the middle of the side of the court, and that in order to obtain a symmetrical faÇade a wing was carried out to the right, whereby the entrance comes nearly in the centre, though not quite, and is balanced on either hand by projecting turrets corresponding one with the other.

43.—Hengrave Hall, Suffolk. West Front (1538).

The house was originally moated, and beyond the moat was an outer court, surrounded by low buildings, used as offices and stables. It was entered through a gateway or lodge, where the keepers and falconers had their quarters. The general treatment of the architecture still follows the old lines (Fig. 43). The windows, as a rule, have few lights, they have flat-pointed heads, and their total area is relatively small in proportion to the plain surface of brick wall. The chimneys are of cut and moulded brickwork of the prevailing type; the turrets are crowned with a dome-like finish, similar to that which had been used at Henry VII.'s chapel thirty years before. The parapets are battlemented, and the strings are narrow and not of classic profile. In the entrance gateway we find the new note struck (Plate XIV.). The archway is Perpendicular in character, but above it is a triple bay window, supported on corbelling, full of Renaissance detail, while amorini in Roman armour carry long scrolls in their hands, and serve as supporters to a shield of arms (Fig. 44). The whole of the corbelling terminates at the bottom in a foliated pendant. This inextricable mixture of the old-fashioned Perpendicular detail with the new-fashioned Renaissance ornament is quite characteristic of the period, and shows that the masons, while clinging to the style with which they had been familiar since their youth, were endeavouring to make closer acquaintance with the foreign forms so much in demand. The names of the masons who did this work are on record: they were John Eastawe and John Sparke, evidently Englishmen.[11]

[11]Hist. and Antiq. of Hengrave, by John Gage.

44.—Hengrave Hall, Suffolk. Corbelling of Bay Window over Entrance Archway.

Of the houses so far mentioned, Oxburgh Hall, East Barsham, Sutton Place, Layer Marney, and Hengrave are all built of brick. On the other side of the country, and in a house constructed of entirely different materials, we get—at Moreton Old Hall in Cheshire (1559)—the same kind of plan with which we have now become familiar (Fig. 45). This house is of timber and plaster, as many of the old houses in that district are. It is surrounded by a moat, and has—at any rate on the ground floor—but few windows looking out over the country; they face into the court where possible. The relative positions of the hall, the kitchen, and the private apartments are here more clearly discernible than in some of the preceding plans, inasmuch as the family rooms have undergone but little serious alteration. The proximity of the two large bays of the hall and parlour is curious, and was the factor which caused the hall bay to be placed so far away from the daÏs end.

Plate XIV.

HENGRAVE HALL, SUFFOLK (1538).

ENTRANCE GATEWAY.

The observations of contemporary writers are of much value when considering subjects of historical interest. It is therefore worth while to reproduce the advice of a certain Andrew Boorde, Doctor of Physicke, in regard to the arrangements of a house, which he offers in the fourth chapter of his Compendyous Regyment, or a Dyetary of Helth, published in 1542. In this chapter he proceeds to "shewe under what maner and fasshon a man shulde buylde his howse or mansyon in exchewyng thynges the whiche shulde shorten the lyfe of man." He dwells upon the necessity of a good soil and good prospect, which latter advice was frequently neglected, a great number of houses in those times being built in a hole. The air, he says, must be pure, frisky, and clean, the foundations on gravel mixed with clay, or else on rock or on a hill. The chief prospects are to be east and west, especially north-east, south-east, and south-west; never south, for the south wind "doth corrupte and doth make evyll vapoures." He holds it better that the windows should open plain north than plain south, in spite, he says, of Jeremiah's saying that "from the north dependeth all evil."

45.—Moreton Old Hall, Cheshire. Ground Plan (1559).

He then enters upon particulars of the plan, and it will be observed how exactly his suggestions, so far as they go, agree with the plans we are examining. "Make the hall," he says, "under such a fashion that the parlour be annexed to the head of the hall, and the buttery and pantry be at the lower end of the hall; the cellar under the pantry, set somewhat abase from the buttery and pantry, coming with an entry by the wall of the buttery; the pastry-house and the larder-house annexed to the kitchen. Then divide the lodgings by the circuit of the quadrivial court, and let the gatehouse be opposite or against the hall door (not directly), but the hall door standing abase, and the gatehouse in the middle of the front entering into the place. Let the privy chamber be annexed to the great chamber of estate, with other chambers necessary for the building, so that many of the chambers may have a prospect into the chapel." The necessity for these particular arrangements, so far as health is concerned, does not seem quite obvious, especially the directions not to have the hall door exactly opposite to the entrance gateway; and it may be supposed that this particular passage in his treatise was suggested by what he had frequently seen rather than by what science led him to prescribe. When he goes on to dwell upon the necessity for removing "fylth," he was probably taking a more original attitude, as also when he recommended the stables, slaughter-house, and dairy to be kept a quarter of a mile away from the house. The bakehouse and brewhouse should also be isolated, he thinks; but in all these respects his advice was not universally followed, for the whole of these particular places are to be found attached to the house on one or other of contemporary house plans. His next advice is applicable to Moreton Old Hall. "When all the mansion is edified and built, if there be a moat made about it, there should be some fresh spring come to it, and divers times the moat ought to be scoured and kept clean from mud and weeds. And in no wise let not the filth of the kitchen descend into the moat." Most of Dr. Andrew Boorde's advice is practical and to the point, and he is not so much in bondage to ancient authorities as many of his contemporaries were, in spite of his reference to Jeremiah. The rest of his chapter refers to the gardens and other surroundings of the house, which need not now be dealt with.

Plate XV.

MORETON OLD HALL, CHESHIRE.

ELEVATION OF ENTRANCE GABLE.

Plate XVI.

MORETON OLD HALL, CHESHIRE.

ELEVATION OF GABLE ON FRONT.

The prevailing treatment of the ornament at Moreton is still Gothic (Plates XV., XVI.), in spite of its date being beyond the middle of the century. Nevertheless the influence of the new style is seen here and there, especially in the carved pendants of the overhanging work. The fine bay windows were made, as an inscription tells us, by Richard Dale, carpenter, in 1559, a further testimony to the fact that it was English workmen who did most of the work of the time, even when it shows signs of foreign ornament. Although the bulk of the house was built in 1559, considerable alterations were made nearly half a century later, in 1602; and to this date may be assigned the long gallery, with its continuous row of mullioned windows reaching from end to end almost without a break. The effect is very quaint, but the room must always have been uncomfortable, whether in summer by reason of the heat, or in winter by reason of the cold; and as a comment upon the effect of time on the stability of these timber houses, nothing can be more striking than an attempt to walk quickly down the seventy feet of billowy floor which the gallery presents.

With our next plan we enter upon the Elizabethan era, an era marked by an extraordinary amount of house-building, which led to a great degree of attention being bestowed upon the planning. This attention, it is true, does not seem to have been directed so much towards comfort or economy as towards magnificence and display. No doubt comfort of a kind was aimed at, but people did not then require comfort as we understand it, and designers were not likely to be much in advance of their clients. The sacrifices of common sense to architectural effect were nevertheless few. The relative positions of the principal apartments were settled by considerations of convenience, not of external grouping. The kitchens, for instance, were always fairly in touch with the hall, not, as in later days, when Palladian architecture was in vogue, located some hundreds of feet away in a detached wing, connected by a curved colonnade, and balanced on the other extremity by the stables or the remainder of the servants' rooms, in a similar wing. Nor were the servants' bedrooms hidden away in the roof with windows looking out on to the back of a solid pediment, or even looking inwards and only lighted by borrowed light. It was the architects of a more strict Italian school who were reduced to such expedients in the early part of the eighteenth century; but in the late sixteenth the prevalent style was sufficiently elastic to enable the dictates of common sense to be obeyed. No doubt bay windows were placed in useless situations in order to balance others that were useful. Lofty windows were sometimes divided by floors halfway up their height in order that the uniformity of the front should not be interrupted; but the rooms themselves were cheerful enough and had good prospects. The features which the Elizabethan designer had to marshal were smaller and more manageable than those which fell to the lot of his successor in the days of Anne and the Georges; and this was particularly the case with his windows. In a mullioned window an additional row of lights in the width, or even the height, can be managed without attracting undue attention, but the sash window has to conform to the size and situation of its brethren.

Economy of planning, in the sense of avoiding waste spaces, or saving the footsteps of the inmates, was not much studied. The only evidence we have of its consideration lies in the occasional lopping off of extravagant features, or the substitution of a reduced set of plans for one of more extensive area.

The real aim of the designers seems to have been magnificence and display—sometimes on a large scale, sometimes on a small. The principal means used for this end was symmetry—not so much a symmetry of detail as a symmetry of parts, of large features rather than of small. We shall find this quality in almost every kind of plan, and an extremely valuable quality it is if not carried to excess. The symmetry of the Elizabethans was generally under control. It was sometimes wasteful and its results were occasionally amusing, but they were never ridiculous or fatal to the comfort of the house.

Up to the present the plans we have examined have not—with the exception of Sutton Place—shown any determined attempt at a symmetrical treatment, only a certain hankering after it. With Kirby Hall (1570-75) we get a more resolute effort in this direction (Fig. 46). The entrance gateway and the screens are on an axial line running through the house and its green court. The inner court is quite symmetrically treated, door answering to door, and window to window; but the exterior faÇades were left to take care of themselves, and no attempt was made to balance one mass by another.

Plate XVII.

KIRBY HALL, NORTHANTS.

ELEVATION OF SOUTH SIDE OF COURTYARD (1570-75).

46.—Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire. Ground Plan (1570-75).

The symmetry of plan was carried out in the elevations too, at least so far as the courtyard is concerned. The south side, in which the projecting porch stands, is quite symmetrical, the great windows of the hall on the right being exactly balanced by similar windows on the left (Plate XVII.). The hall reaches from floor to roof, but the left wing had two storeys, and the floor of the upper one occupied one row of the glazed lights. This expedient cannot be justified on the principle of causing the exterior treatment to indicate the internal arrangement; but it can hardly be denied that the general effect would be marred were the left-hand windows divided into two tiers. The door below the windows to the left is a later insertion. A curious fact about this front is that the two outside gables, which contain much delicate detail, are partly blocked by the roofs of the side wings, which abut against them; yet it is quite certain, from the character of the detail, and from the badges which are used as ornaments in the wings, that the whole court was built at the same time, ends and sides, and it is equally certain that the whole building operations were comprised within the five years 1570 to 1575.

Plate XVIII.

KIRBY HALL. JOHN THORPE'S GROUND PLAN.

From the Soane Museum Collection.

Although no attempt seems to have been actually made to carry symmetry of treatment into the external faÇades, yet an examination of the plan made by John Thorpe, the surveyor, at the time that Kirby was built, shows that such a treatment was contemplated on each of the four faces (Plate XVIII.). There are other points of interest which Thorpe's plan elucidates. Having entered through the principal doorway, in the north or upper side of the plan, and having traversed the length of the court, we find a projecting porch through which the screens are reached. The arrangement is the typical one which we have seen in all the plans yet examined, and which tallies almost exactly with Dr. Andrew Boorde's advice, already quoted (see page 57), with the exception that he was opposed to the hall porch being exactly opposite the entrance gateway. On the right (as the plan lies) are the buttery and pantry, and the passage leading to the kitchen department; on the left is the hall. The details of the kitchen department are shown more clearly than in any of the foregoing houses, which have all undergone alterations. They comprise the kitchen, with its large fireplace; "the pastry," where the ovens are; the dry larder under it; the surveying place; and the wet larder. Close to these, and approached by the kitchen passage, is the winter parlour, a room which occurs on many plans of the time in close proximity to the kitchen. This endeavour to get a living room conveniently situated for winter use is one of the refinements which were now creeping in. Returning to the screens, and passing into the hall, we find the daÏs marked on the plan, the fireplace in the side wall, but no bay window: there is one indicated, but it was not carried out. From the daÏs the family apartments are reached, together with a great staircase. Next to the head of the hall, as Dr. Andrew Boorde has it, is the parlour (pler); the other rooms are not named. The division of "the lodgings by the circuit of the quadrivial court" is shown on Thorpe's plan, but most of the cross walls are now gone. It will be seen that these lodgings consist of a number of groups of two or three rooms (which were called "lodgings"), each group being entered from the court by a door, and each room communicating with its neighbour, so that the complete circuit of the building could be made through them. The object of this grouping was to give a small suite of rooms to every guest, in which he could establish himself with his principal attendants; in the case of a large retinue it could overflow into the next group. It was necessary to traverse the open court to reach the places of general resort, such as the hall, the "great chamber of estate," and the gallery; but it is evident that this was not felt to be a drawback, since the practice was widespread. The next point to notice is that here we have the first instance of the open terrace, or arcade, or loggia. It occupies the north side of the court, thus being open to the full midday sun. The long gallery, which was one of the principal features of an Elizabethan house, and frequently affected the planning, inasmuch as endeavours were made to obtain a gallery of the greatest possible length, was over the western or left-hand side of the court: it was 150 feet long by 16 feet wide. The upper floor was to be reached, according to Thorpe's plan, by four large internal staircases, and two external ones on the west front. As a matter of fact, indications actually remain of five principal staircases, besides a subordinate one, and they are more conveniently placed than those shown on the old plan. The great extent of the rooms, and their being placed round a court, necessitated several means of access, and it must not be forgotten that the upper part of the hall interposed an impassable barrier between the two sides of the house on the upper floor. The time was soon to come when the height of the hall was to be restricted to that of other rooms on the same floor, but at Kirby the traditional lofty hall was still retained.

The detail at Kirby is thoroughly Elizabethan, but there are a few windows, dated 1638, 1640, which were inserted by Inigo Jones, and he remodelled the north wing. His work, however, is easily distinguished from that of earlier date. The house was built by a Sir Humphrey Stafford, the head of a family seated at Blatherwyck in the immediate vicinity. It was begun in 1570, and it bears on the parapet of the courtyard the dates 1572, 1575; in the latter year Sir Humphrey died, having practically completed his house, which was then sold by his heir to Sir Christopher Hatton. Not only are the parapets dated, but amid the ornament of the various bands which make the circuit of the courtyard, and in the gable over the porch, occur the Stafford cognizances. Their presence indicates the extent of the work of Stafford, and proves that practically the whole place was built between the years 1570-75, though the Hattons probably made some trifling alterations during the last ten years of the century, and subsequently employed Inigo Jones to partly modernise the house fifty years later. The detail is unusually free and fresh, and has more variety than Elizabethan masons generally bestowed upon their work. The gable over the porch in the courtyard has no counterpart in England; the coping of the parapet round the whole court has an unusual but effective wave ornament (Plate XIX.).

Plate XIX.

KIRBY HALL, NORTHANTS. DETAIL OF PORCH.

There are, of course, the usual classic columns applied with a liberal hand, and all the horizontal string-courses have classic profiles. The carving of the friezes is interesting, inasmuch as it is somewhat out of the common in detail, and its component parts were evidently carved in large numbers, and used as occasion required, for in many places where the length of a carved stone was too great for its intended position it was ruthlessly shortened to fit, and the carving was mutilated.

So far all the plans have shown a courtyard round which the house was built, first adopted, no doubt, from reasons of defence, and afterwards retained because it had become customary. We now come to another type of very frequent occurrence, in which two narrow parallel wings are connected by a narrow body, thus forming a figure like the letter H. It is in effect a curtailment of the older plan by leaving out the "lodgings" which enclosed the court; but there is no change in the old idea of placing the hall in a central situation and flanking it at one end by the family apartments and at the other by the kitchen and servants' rooms. At Montacute, in Somerset (1580), the original relation of hall and kitchen is preserved, but the intermediate rooms have been allotted to modern uses (Fig. 47). It should be observed that the passage at the back of the hall was formed by inserting between the wings the porch and part of the walls from an earlier house at Clifton Maubank in the year 1760. This passage, which is a great convenience to the house, must therefore not be looked upon as part of the original plan. The detail of the part thus inserted is of Late Tudor character. The profiles of the mouldings are Gothic, the carving inclines towards Italian, the parapets have cusped panels, the pinnacles have the spiral twist so dear to the Tudor mason, and a battlemented moulding beneath the heraldic animals which they support (Plate XX.). The treatment is quite different from that of the house itself. Another point to remark about the plan is that all thoughts of defence are here abandoned, and the windows look freely out on all sides. Indeed, far from desiring to exclude people, the builder, Sir Edward Phelips, wrote up over his door, "Through this wide-opening gate, none come too early, none return too late." It will also be noticed that in order to get a truly symmetrical disposition of windows, the bay is removed from the end to the middle of the hall, which is another indication of a tendency to depart from the ancient arrangements.

47.—Montacute House, Somerset. Ground Plan (1580).

1. Hall. 2. Drawing-room. 3. Large Dining-room. 4. Small Dining-room. 5. Smoking-room. 6. Pantry. 7. Kitchen. 8. Servants' Hall. 9. Porch. 10. Garden-house.

It is true that there is a court at Montacute, but it is enclosed by an open balustrade and not by solid buildings; it is there for delight and not for defence, and everything in the planning shows that the builder considered he could occupy his house in security.

48.—Montacute House, Somerset. West Front, with Court and Garden-houses (1580).

On the top floor, over the hall and running from end to end of the building, is the gallery; it is lighted at each end and down so much of the side as is not blocked by the wings of the house, which of course it cuts off from the staircases and the other rooms. The treatment of the elevations is as symmetrical as that of the plan (Fig. 48). The area of window space is in excess of that of wall space, the strings are of some depth and of classic profile, and the whole appearance contrasts strongly with that of Hengrave. Along the topmost floor in the spaces between the windows are eight statues, which, with a ninth in the central gable, are said to represent those Nine Worthies whom Holofernes and his companions tried to represent in a more dramatic manner before the Princess of France and her lively attendants.

Plate XX.

MONTACUTE HOUSE, SOMERSET.

PART OF ENTRANCE FRONT SEEN FROM WING.

It has already been observed that the plan of Montacute is shaped roughly like the letter H. This type of plan is very frequent, and is the same in its essence as the E plan, of which many writers have made more than is needful. The 133 plan is in fact the same as the H with the side strokes curtailed. To make a just comparison, either the centre stroke of the 133 should be omitted or it should be added to the cross of the H, inasmuch as it represents the projecting porch, which was present equally in each arrangement. The fact that the 133 plan resembles the first letter of Elizabeth is probably a coincidence merely, and not a compliment to the queen. At the same time it would have been quite in accordance with the spirit of the time to have taken such a way of expressing loyalty, only in that case we should have expected to find fewer plans of the H variety, and more of the other; but as a matter of fact there are few, if any, houses with a perfectly straight front such as the back of the 133 demands.

49.—Barlborough Hall, Derbyshire. Plan of Principal Floor (1583).

At Barlborough, in Derbyshire (1583), we get again a different type. The house is built round a court, but an extremely small one, now filled with a modern staircase (Fig. 49). All the windows look out into the open country. Instead of extending itself along the ground, the house provides its accommodation by extending itself vertically, and the kitchen and servants' rooms are placed in the basement. This was an idea introduced, it is said, from Italy, but it is one which, though sometimes met with, did not commend itself to Elizabethan builders when space was plentiful. The hall is on the principal floor, and is approached from outside up a long flight of steps. The screens led to the staircase which penetrated to the kitchen in the basement. The hall had its bay window at the daÏs end, from which the great chamber was approached. We have still, therefore, the old idea of the hall as a living room, and part of a series of rooms communicating with each other; not yet as an entrance from which the living rooms are approached.

50.—Barlborough Hall, Derbyshire. Entrance Front (1583).

The detail at Barlborough is of a simple kind; the house was not of a large size and did not require much elaboration (Fig. 50). The actual classic treatment is confined to the front door, which is flanked with columns. The parapet is battlemented, the strings are narrow, and the windows are not overwhelming in size. The roof is flat, and there are none of the gables which are so marked a feature of the time. Picturesqueness of outline, however, which was always sought for, is here obtained by carrying up the bay windows as turrets, a treatment which lends much distinction to an otherwise simple exterior.

Plate XXI.

DODDINGTON HALL, LINCOLNSHIRE.

ENTRANCE FRONT WITH GATEHOUSE (1595).

Twelve years later than Barlborough we get at Doddington, in Lincolnshire (1595), a plan which reverts to the type of Montacute (Fig. 51). It has the usual characteristics of the simplest kind—wings one room thick; the entrance at the end of the hall, leading on the left to the buttery, pantry, and kitchens; the parlour at the head of the hall, and the principal staircase adjacent. Here, however, as at Montacute, the hall is only one storey in height; it has a room above it—the great chamber: and on the top floor the gallery extends over the whole central part from wing to wing.

51.—Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire. Ground Plan (1595).

There is an entrance court in front of the house enclosed by a wall. It is approached through one of the quaint gatehouses of the time, which were a reminiscence of a more turbulent state of society, when it was necessary for all who went to the house to do so under the eye of the porter, but which in the calmer times of Elizabeth were occupied by some of the numerous functionaries who ministered to the pleasures of the rich. The detail at Doddington is of the plainest, the only attempt at richness being round the front door. The windows are of reasonable size, the strings are narrow, and are all of the same quasi-classic profile. The parapet is perfectly plain, and the roof is without gables, the skyline being broken, as at Barlborough, with turrets, formed by carrying up the porch and the two projections in the internal angles of the front (Plate XXI.). The house is an example of a plain and business-like type, which may be accounted for by the fact that it was built for a business man, one Thomas Tailor, registrar to the Bishop of Lincoln.

52.—Burton Agnes, Yorkshire. Ground Plan (1602-10).

With the opening of the new century we get at Burton Agnes, in Yorkshire (1602-10), a repetition of the same leading idea which we have been following for a hundred and fifty years (Fig. 52). We have the screens at the end of the hall, the kitchens on the left, and the bay window, the family rooms and grand staircase at the head of the hall. The family apartments have increased in number. The tendency was towards having separate apartments for various uses, and on plans of the time we not infrequently find a "dining parlour" specially named. The introduction of this refinement marks the dwindling importance of the hall. The latter is ceasing to be the centre of family life, and becoming merely an entrance. The daÏs end is no longer the comfortable place it was, with its bay window and the fireplace close by: it is becoming pierced with doors, and draughty. The family find it more comfortable to have a separate room for their meals, and the servants' quarters are becoming more self-contained. The old usages of the hall are being discontinued.

53.—Aston Hall, near Birmingham. Ground Plan (1618-35).

54.—Aston Hall, Warwickshire. North Wing.

This change is quite apparent in the last plan of the series, that of Aston Hall, in Warwickshire (1618-35). The hall is still central, the kitchen is in one wing, the family rooms in the other, supplemented by a row at the back of the hall (Fig. 53). But the hall itself is now merely an entrance—it has ceased to be a living-room; it is entered from the middle of the side, no longer at the end, where indeed the fireplace now finds itself: there is no daÏs and no bay window. This is a revolution which it has taken more than a century to produce, counting from the first appearance of the Italian influence. The change no doubt was effected from the inside more than the out: from the gradual alteration of habits, rather than from the wish to Italianize our English plans. But the two tendencies co-operated with each other and combined to lead English designers further and further away from the old traditions.

Although the hall shows a departure from the old lines of planning, the general arrangement adheres to them. The symmetrical wings, the mullioned windows, the turrets (Fig. 54), the forecourt with its lodges at the corners, and the open arcade on the south front, are all in keeping with Elizabethan and Jacobean methods, and offer a striking contrast to the work at Rainham Hall, in Norfolk, which was built by Inigo Jones in 1630, five years before Aston was finished.

The disappearance of the hall as a living-room, and its adoption as a vestibule, mark a great change in our domestic architecture. The tie with the mediÆval past is loosened, and with the almost contemporaneous departure of the mullioned window it is severed altogether; there is nothing now to prevent English designers from assimilating their buildings ever more and more to the models which they sought direct in Italy, without being diverted from their purpose by what they passed in intermediate countries.

Clyx.com