EXTERIOR FEATURES (continued).

GABLES, PARAPETS, FINIALS, CHIMNEYS, RAIN-WATER HEADS, GARDENS.

Gables.

The gable is one of the characteristic features of the period. As a rule it was of steep pitch—indeed, in many thatched barns and cottages the apex is very acute (Fig. 100). In such cases the cottages generally had attic-rooms in the roof, which were lighted by dormer windows, over which the thatch was worked in such a way that they appeared to be a growth out the main roof rather than an extraneous window applied to it. In stone and brick houses the gable wall rose above the roof, and was coped with stone to prevent the wet penetrating into it. The coping rested at the bottom on a kneeler, which projected sufficiently to accommodate itself to the projection of the eaves, and at the apex it was usually crowned by a finial. A considerable amount of variety was introduced into the design of the kneelers and finials, and many a small house and cottage is redeemed from insignificance by the possession of one or two of these features (Fig. 101). Even where there was no finial, the mere fact of the apex of the coping projecting above the line of the ridge produced a point that showed against the sky, and helped towards the general picturesqueness of effect. In some of the more important houses the finials were worked with greater elaboration, and were placed not only on the apex of the gable but on the kneelers at its foot (see Fig. 108), and the dormer on Fig. 113; also Plate XXX.). The effect of plain gables contrasted with those having simple finials is shown on Plate XXXV., while examples of larger and more important finials may be seen at Kirby and Rushton (Figs. 107, 113), the prevailing forms being some variety of the obelisk.

The use of simple gables or their combination with dormer windows and chimneys, all without elaborate detail, is quite sufficient to impart interest to a building, which otherwise would have little claim to attention. Examples of these unpretentious houses are to be met with in every county; one or two are illustrated here from Finstock, in Oxfordshire (Fig. 102), Broadway, in Worcestershire (Plate XXXV.), and Holmshurst, in Sussex (Plate XXXV.). There is very little conscious effort about the design of either of these, beyond the introduction of a certain amount of symmetry. At Finstock Manor House there is a range of three equal gables occupying most of the front, and the door is in the centre. At Tudor House, Broadway, there are three gables, but they are detached from each other, and the middle one is rather larger than its neighbours; a bay window of two storeys occupies the centre of the front, and the very plainly treated door is at one end. The house at Holmshurst is, like most of those in the Weald, built of brick: it has stone windows, but very little detail, its effect depending upon the two gables, each flanked with a large chimney-stack.

The style which was prevalent at the end of the sixteenth century lingered on far into the seventeenth in buildings that were not subject to the passing fashion: indeed, the treatment was hardly adopted consciously, but was rather the obvious and natural way of building, otherwise it would not have been applied to such cottages as that at Rothwell (Fig. 103) and Treeton, near Sheffield (Fig. 104).

In houses which were constructed of timber and plaster it was impossible to carry up the gables above the roof; the method of building did not admit of it, and there would have been no adequate means of covering them from the weather. They were finished, therefore, with projecting verge-boards, which served to protect the surface of the walls, and which were often carved or cut and moulded. A simple instance applied to a cottage is to be found at Steventon (Fig. 105), but there are plenty to be seen in different parts of the country, particularly in the west.

In the more important houses the gables were not infrequently curved, especially in later times, that is to say, the curved gable is more frequent in Jacobean work than in Elizabethan. This idea no doubt came from the Low Countries, where it was very extensively adopted, but the extravagant and fantastic curves which the Dutchman loved were much simplified by his English imitator. Some of the more ambitious efforts, such as Wollaton, went near in their elaborate strap-work to rival the original models. A study of one of the corner pavilions (Fig. 106) will show how, not only in the gables but in the whole treatment, the foreign influence is predominant. The simplicity of the native type is entirely wanting. There are no plain surfaces of any extent; the columns are broken by a projecting band; the pedestals on which they stand are adorned with panels of double projection; not only are the corner piers of the parapet crowned with an obelisk, but the pediment at the top of each gable carries a small statue on a pedestal: everything is done to add to the picturesqueness and richness of effect. Nevertheless, through all the ornament with which the design is overloaded, its main ideas are plainly visible: the large and simple windows, the emphasizing of the angles, the gables of studiously irregular outline. In some Dutch and German work the designers seemed to lose sight of their purpose in the exuberance of their ornament, but here it is not so. It will be seen that the circular niches on the side faces are filled with busts, although the vertical niches between the pilasters are empty. The busts, so far as they are named or can be identified, are those of classic personages—Plato, Aristoteles, Vergilius—and are said to have been brought over from Italy.

The west front of Kirby (Fig. 107) offers a great contrast to Wollaton. Here everything up as high as the parapet is as simple as it can well be; there are no pilasters, no niches, no strap-work panels. The windows and the cornices which make the circuit of the building are the only architectural features. The gables have the strap-work, but it is of a simpler form than that at Wollaton: the irregularity of their outline, combined with the tapering obelisks, some of which have open stone bows at the bottom, something after the fashion of a jug handle, imparts the necessary picturesqueness, without having recourse to the expensive devices employed at Wollaton. The latter house was built between the years 1580 and 1588, and the gables may therefore be taken as dating from 1588: the date of the west front of Kirby is not recorded, but from the character of the work it may very well have been subsequent to the main building operations in 1570-75, and, as already stated, these gables were not improbably added towards the close of the sixteenth century. One curious point about this front is the care which was taken to make the quoins perfectly regular in size: in some cases where the quoin stone was larger than the regulation size, the overplus was slightly sunk, and then scored with false joint-lines to match those of the adjacent rubble.

There was a simpler type of curved gable which was freely used, as in the courtyard at Rushton (Fig. 108), and it was sometimes combined with steps, as at Apethorpe (Fig. 109), the result being picturesque without being fussy. The date of the example at Apethorpe is 1623-24, and that at Rushton 1627. The curve, instead of being ogee-shaped as in these instances, was sometimes composed of two curves of similar form, with a square shoulder between them, like those at Blickling (Plate XXXVII.), or the sweep of the ogee was broken by the introduction of a vertical line, such as may be seen in the gables at Lilford (Plate XXXIV.). Further varieties occur at Montacute (Fig. 48), Stanway (Plate XXII.), and Westwood (Plate XXIII.).

Parapets.

The gables and the dormer windows in the larger houses were often connected by a parapet, broken at intervals by a shallow pilaster carried up to form the base of a finial or the seat for some heraldic animal. Sometimes the parapet was solid, as at Apethorpe (Fig. 109), Doddington (Plate XXI.), and the courtyard at Kirby (Fig. 76); sometimes it was formed of a series of arches, as at Exton (Fig. 110, and Plate XXIX.), and at Hambleton (Fig. 71); sometimes of stone panels pierced with a pattern, as at Bramshill (Fig. 111) and Audley End (Fig. 112); and sometimes of stone balusters, of which Rushton Hall offers one example (Fig. 113) and Wollaton Hall (Plate XXVII.) another. There was a considerable amount of variety, according to the ability of the mason to design and of the owner to pay. The effect of the pierced panels carried along a considerable length of parapet is very rich and lace-like. The stone balusters were occasionally of very meagre proportion, and used with too sparing a hand, but at Rushton this is not felt to be the case. The parapet to the main roofs here is more satisfactory than the rather confused ornament which serves a similar purpose for the bay. This gable also affords a good example of the manner in which the lights of the mullioned windows were stepped up so as to follow roughly the slope of the roof. In one or two houses (Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire, and Temple Newsam in Yorkshire) the parapets are formed of stone letters forming a series of legends which make, more or less, the circuit of the house.

Chimneys.

The chimneys were always dealt with boldly. In many cases, as already said, they were massed into great stacks at intervals along the walls, and made the dominating features of the whole design. Wherever they occurred their presence was frankly accepted, and, as a rule, much skill and ingenuity were bestowed upon them. In later centuries chimneys appear to have become a source of considerable annoyance to architectural designers, and a great deal of misapplied ingenuity was expended in trying to conceal their existence, owing to the idea that they interfered with the purity of classic faÇades. But in the early days of the introduction of classic features, the problem of making chimneys harmonize with the rest of the building seems to have been a source of delight instead of annoyance.

The general use of chimneys was at this time rather a novelty. So late as the time of Henry VII., in the new palace called Richmond Court, built to replace an older structure destroyed by fire in 1498, the great hall was warmed by a fire in the middle of the floor with a lantern in the roof over it. There is a description of the Court in the return of the Commissioners of Parliament made in 1649, which is interesting not only as mentioning the fire, but as bearing out what has already been said of the hall of a large house. The higher storey, they say,[14] "contains one fayr and large room 100 feet in length and 40 in breadth, called the Great Hall. This room hath a screen at the lower end thereof, over which is a little gallery, and a fayr foot-pace in the higher end thereof [the daÏs]; the pavement is square tile, and it is very well lighted and seeled [i.e., panelled with wood], and adorned with eleven statues in the sides thereof; in the midst a brick hearth for a charcoal fire, having a large lanthorn in the roof of the hall fitted for that purpose, turreted and covered with lead." But early in the sixteenth century chimneys came into general use, and they are one of the most characteristic features of a Tudor house. They were generally built of moulded brick, and were fashioned in elaborate and complicated ways. An illustration from Droitwich is given in Fig. Fig. 114, in which the moulded bases stand on panelled pedestals; the shafts also are moulded, each after a different manner, and the caps are crowned with a battlemented ornament. Some of the simpler forms are illustrated among the details from Layer Marney (Plate XIII.), also from Huddington Court House, in Worcestershire (Fig. 115), Bardwell, in Suffolk (Fig. 116), and a stone example from Toller Fratrum, in Dorset (Fig. 117). But far richer specimens are to be seen at Compton Winyates (Plate XI.) or at Hengrave (Fig. 43), besides many other places. With the death of Henry VIII. this elaboration disappeared, and a plainer treatment prevailed. In some of the more pretentious edifices the chimneys were cast into the form of columns, as they were at Wollaton (Plate XXVII.) and Burghley (Plate XXVIII.), and at Montacute also, where the column carries a kind of stone cowl. The columnar form had occasionally been used in earlier days; there is a well-proportioned and excellently wrought example at Lacock Abbey (Plate XXXVI.), where the shafts are fashioned into fluted columns, and the cap takes the shape of a short length of classic entablature with architrave, frieze, and cornice complete. The columns stand upon a pedestal, the face of which is occupied with a panel surrounded by strap-work; and as there seems every reason to suppose the work to be part of Sharington's prior to his death in 1553, the whole idea and its mode of execution is unusually early, strap-work being associated as a rule with a period fifteen or twenty years later. The consoles carrying the projection of the base are an additional feature, and the whole group is carefully designed. The notion, however, of making the chimney-flue into a column and taking a short length of entablature as a cap is hardly satisfactory, and a more reasonable type was employed at Kirby (Fig. 118), while throughout the stone district of the Midlands the usual form is that in Fig. 119, a form which, with modifications, has lingered on even down to the present day. A somewhat ornamental variety of the same idea is to be seen at Chipping Campden (Fig. 120), and another variation at Drayton House, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 121). The quaint triangular chimney of the Triangular Lodge at Rushton (Fig. 122) is really the same in principle, but its unusual apex and carved panels place it in a class by itself. The brick chimneys of Elizabeth's time have straight stalks and an oversailing cap of thin bricks, occasionally varied with still thinner courses of tiles. The profile is nearly always the same, but considerable variety is imparted by varying the plan, and by adding square or triangular projections to the plain faces of the flues. A simple but effective example may be seen at Bean Lodge, near Petworth (Fig. 123). More elaborate specimens are found at Knole House and Cobham Hall, in Kent; Blickling Hall, in Norfolk (Plate XXXVII.); at Moyns Park, in Essex, and indeed on almost every brick house of the time.

Blickling Hall affords examples of many of the features which have been described. It has fine stacks of chimneys, curved gables, and pierced parapets over the windows; on each gable is a dainty little statue. The front doorway is richly embellished, and over it are the owner's arms set forth with much heraldic display. Classic features are used with moderation and restraint; a cornice marks the level of the first floor; other cornices crown the bay windows; and columns flank the archway. But they are all used because they answered the designer's purpose, and not because he hoped by loading his building with classic features to give it a character which, without such help, he was powerless to impart.

Rain-Water Heads.

Attention should be drawn to another feature of which nothing hitherto has been said, but which was one of the recognized means of obtaining effect—namely, the rain-water pipes. These necessary adjuncts to a building have ceased to play the important part which once they did; they are still tolerated, because they cannot be abolished, but they are only admitted grudgingly and of necessity. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a large amount of care was bestowed upon their design, and being made of lead they were susceptible of interesting treatment. Their use was in the nature of a novelty, since up to this time the water from the roofs had been allowed to splash on to the ground from projecting gargoyles. They very frequently carried either the date or the family crest upon them, and were often ornamented with pierced work. The examples shown in Figs. 124-126 are from Haddon Hall; two of them bear the cognizance of the Vernon family (the boar's head), and one that of the Manners family in addition (the peacock). Haddon passed into the possession of Sir John Manners, by his marriage with Dorothy Vernon, in the year 1567, and these lead heads must be ascribed to a date subsequent to the marriage, otherwise they would not bear the peacock of the Manners family. They still retain in their ornament some trace of Gothic feeling, but the topmost moulding, with the dentils beneath it, is clearly of classic derivation. The third head with the cresting of fleur-de-lys may well be of rather earlier date, and the work of Sir George Vernon, the father of Dorothy. Allied to the last example from Haddon is the rain-water head from Sherborne, Dorset (Fig. 127), dated 1579, also with a battlemented cresting. At Knole, in Kent, is another good example (Fig. 128) with a pierced front and two triangular projections ending in a pendant; the top is ornamented with a battlemented cresting, now mutilated. Another specimen, of somewhat plainer character, comes from Bramshill (Fig. 129); it is dated 1612, and has its outlet towards one end, so as to bring the water horizontally along the wall for a short distance in order that the pipe may not interfere with some feature in the wall below. At Rushton there are some lead heads bearing the date 1627, which depend for their effect upon their shape rather than upon their decoration, which is practically limited to a very simple treatment of the cresting. These are two or three examples out of a great many that still remain, some of them being even more ornamental; the greater number, however, were more nearly allied to the plainer than the richer examples.

LEAD RAIN-WATER HEADS

124.—Lead Rain-water Head from Haddon Hall, Derbyshire.

125.—Lead Rain-water Head from Haddon Hall, Derbyshire.

126.—Lead Rain-water Head from Haddon Hall, Derbyshire.

127.—Pipe Head from Sherborne, Dorset.

128.—Lead Pipe Head from Knole, Kent.

129.—Lead Pipe Head from Bramshill.

Plate XXXVIIIa.

Haddon Hall, Derbyshire. Steps to Terrace.

Plate XXXVIIIb.

Claverton, Somerset. Terrace Wall.

Gardens.

This is not the place to enter into an elaborate account of gardens, but they touch the subject under discussion so far as this—that there was a certain amount of architectural design bestowed upon them in the shape of terraces, flights of steps, balustrades and garden-houses. The view of Montacute shown in Fig. 48 gives a good idea of the manner in which the house was set off by a formal garden enclosed by stone walls and balustrades, which were emphasized at the angles by garden-houses, and along their lengths either by gateways or some kind of special object, such as the quaint kind of temple, which serves no purpose but to vary the monotony of the balustrade. The well-known terrace at Haddon is as good an example as can be found of the fine effect of a raised walk approached by a broad flight of steps, and protected by an arcaded balustrade (Plate XXXVIII.). The detail is quite simple, there is no particular effort visible, every thing seems to be there because it is wanted, but the whole effect is extremely picturesque. At Claverton, near Bath, are the remains of a fine house and garden, of which a long terrace wall is also illustrated on Plate XXXVIII. Here the straight length is broken by the large gate-piers, which rise some twelve feet high before tapering off into the universal obelisk. Claverton must have been a splendid example of Jacobean work, judging by the illustrations in Richardson's Elizabethan Architecture, but unhappily little of it now remains. At Gayhurst, in Buckinghamshire, there are a number of quaint stone piers flanking the main approach, set a few yards apart (Fig. 130), the space between them being filled in with cut yew hedges. Hedges do not enter into the scope of the present work, but they were much in vogue, as were also pleached alleys and the green shaded walks so much desired by the Noble Gentleman in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of that name. With arches in walls we have more concern, and have already dealt with them in dealing with the approaches to the house; but an additional example from a garden at Lingfield, in Sussex, is illustrated in Fig. 131; and another from Highlow Hall, in Derbyshire, on Plate XXXIX.

130.—Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire. Stone Pillar in Garden.

131.—Gateway in Garden, Lingfield, Sussex (1617).

The lay-out of a late sixteenth century garden was tolerably simple, the whole being treated on a definite system, and with straight lines. The bowling-green was an important adjunct, and the larger houses had mounts for prospect, and also a "wilderness" of considerable extent. The description of the gardens at Nonesuch, given by the Parliamentary Commissioners in their survey of April, 1650[15] (already quoted), gives a good idea of the gardens attached to the larger sort of houses. The "frontispiece," or approach, was railed with handsome rails and balusters of stone; at a distance of eight yards from the house was the bowling-green, from which a fair and straight path led along an avenue to the park gate, which (they say) being very high, well-built, and placed in a direct line opposite to the house, was, in consequence, a good ornament to it. On three outward sides of the inner court lay the "Privy Garden," surrounded with a brick wall 14 feet high, and cut out and divided into various alleys, quarters, and rounds, set about with thorn hedges. Adjoining this garden was the kitchen garden, also enclosed by a 14 feet wall: on the west of this lay the wilderness. In the privy garden was a spiral pyramid of marble, set upon a base of similar material, "grounded upon a rise of freestone;" and near this there was a large marble wash basin, over which stood a marble pelican, fed with water through a lead pipe. There were also two other marble obelisks, and between them a fountain of white marble, set round with six lilac trees, "which trees bear no fruit, but only a very pleasant flower." In the highest part of the park stood the banqueting-house, a three-storey timber building of quadrangular form, enclosed within a brick wall. The ground floor was occupied by the hall, the upper storeys had respectively three and five rooms, and they were all panelled with oak. In each of the four corners of the whole house there was a balcony placed for prospect. This is worth remembering, for the desire to obtain a prospect is generally considered to be of modern growth; and no doubt until quite recently it was necessary to a beautiful view that it should be obtained in ease and comfort. The notion of climbing a wild mountain for the sake of the view was probably never entertained before the beginning of this century.

[15]ArchÆologia, Vol. V. p. 429.

There is a good example of the lay-out of a forecourt to a small house at Eyam Hall, in Derbyshire, and although tradition and the only date to be found about the building (on a spout-head) place the erection of the house in the latter part of the seventeenth century, it looks much earlier, and is characteristic of the beginning of the century rather than of the end. There is very little detail about it; but the formal disposition and the broad and simple treatment combine (with the assistance of time) to impart a fine and dignified effect. It will be seen from the plan (Fig. 133) that the court is nearly square. It is entered from the road through a pillared gateway up a short flight of semicircular steps; a broad paved walk leads to another flight which lands on to a wide paved terrace extending along the whole front of the house (Plate XXXIX.). Exactly opposite the steps is the front door, placed centrally in the main face of the house, which is recessed from the faces of the projecting wings. At either end of the terrace is a doorway, one leading to the kitchen approach, the other to the garden, which is reached down another flight of semicircular steps. The paths in the vicinity of the house are straight, and the rise of the ground necessitates still more steps, which give access eventually to a long, straight walk beneath a south-west wall. Away from the house the treatment has lapsed into less formality; but the house itself, together with the court, the terraces, and the flights of steps, the whole gay with flowers, makes a very attractive picture.

132.—Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. Garden-house.

Plate XXXIXa.

Gateway at Highlow Hall, near Hathersage, Derbyshire.

Plate XXXIXb.

Eyam Hall, Derbyshire. Terrace Steps.

The banqueting-house at Nonesuch was, like the other part of the house itself, built of timber. So, also, in all probability, was the "goodly banqueting-house" which the Lord Admiral built for the Queen when she went to his place in the year 1559 from Hampton Court. It was richly gilded and painted (we are told), "that lord having for that end kept a great many painters for a good while there in the country." But the more usual material was brick or stone, and a fair number of examples of such buildings still survive. One of the most elaborate is to be seen at Chipping Campden (Fig. 132), in Gloucestershire, where the fall of the site enables an under-storey to be obtained without being buried in the ground. The illustration shows the ground floor only, but there is a storey below it approached by a substantial staircase. The work is elaborate, and has lasted well in spite of its rather unworkmanlike treatment, as for instance in the jointing of the stone parapets. The detail is too fanciful, and the building is illustrated not so much for the sake of its design, as to show how much trouble and expense were lavished upon a structure which could only have been used a few times during the year. It and its fellow on the opposite side were, however, important features in the general lay-out.

133.—Eyam Hall. Plan of Lay-out.

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