1. We have said that the Tudor period was a time of building of big houses and mansions. Every county in England has some such houses to show. Many of them were built of stone, some partly of brick and stone. Their style shows that the English or old fashion of Gothic building was dying out. Italian ideas and Italian ornament were coming into favour. No doubt one reason why so much of the old work was ruthlessly destroyed was because it was out of fashion. It is astonishing, even in these days, how much good work is destroyed just because it has gone out of date. Among the most famous of these houses we may mention Burleigh House "by Stamford Town", Haddon Hall, and Knebworth; and, belonging to a rather later date, Hatfield House.

2. For a big house the idea was to build it round a quadrangle. Smaller houses were in plan very like the half-timbered houses of the yeomen, only on a larger scale, and more richly ornamented. The hall and its wings were extended considerably, and, with a handsome porch, formed in plan a big capital E, thus:—

Some people have thought that this plan was chosen in honour of Queen Elizabeth, but the truth is that it was the most convenient form, and fitted in best with the ideas of the time. It had grown up quite naturally, in the course of many generations, from the simple hall with the hearth in the middle, the beginnings of which we saw in the huts of the pit-dwellers.

3. Quite early in the fourteenth century brick had begun to come into use for building, but the first bricks were probably imported from Flanders. Hull, which had been founded by King Edward I, had many buildings of brick, and by about the year 1320 it had brick-yards of its own. Flemish weavers were encouraged to settle in England by King Edward III, and they used brick in buildings which they set up. There are a good many houses in the eastern counties and in Kent still standing, which show Flemish and Dutch ideas.

4. Cardinal Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court is a good specimen of the brickwork of his time; and all through the reign of King Henry VIII the chief material used was brick, terra-cotta [13] being employed for mouldings and ornament. This was chiefly the work of Italian artists, and they produced also some very beautiful ceilings in plaster-work [14] for many of their fine houses.

5. After King Henry VIII's quarrel with Rome fewer Italians were employed, and English artists were left to work out these new ideas in their own way. From about the middle of the sixteenth century the use of terra-cotta dropped out, and moulded and shaped bricks began to be used, though stone was used for the more ornamental portions.

6. When we reach the reign of King James I, we find that the leading architect was Inigo Jones. We do not hear very much of architects during the Middle Ages. The man employed to do the actual work was allowed to select his own materials and carry out his own ideas pretty much in his own way. But in the sixteenth century the architect became a more important person than the craftsman, and the craftsman had to work according to the pattern and design provided for him.

7. The Jacobean [15] houses show that the old English styles of building were being left behind, and a newer type of house, plainer and heavier, was taking its place. The Civil War was a very bad time for architects and craftsmen, but after the Restoration a better time came to them again.

8. The Great Fire of London, which swept away almost every mediÆval building in the city, gave a great impetus, or push forward, to building. You can quite understand that, with so much building going on, the work would be somewhat hurried and very much plainer than it had been. So London became a city of bricks and mortar. Middlesex has large quantities of good brick-earth; and, though bricks were made in that county long before the Great Fire, the Great Fire developed the industry greatly. There was a worthy old Royalist knight of Hammersmith, Sir Nicholas Crispe, who, after the execution of King Charles I, went over to Holland, as so many other Royalists did. There he watched very closely bricks and brick-making, and when he came back to England he introduced many improvements in the art of brick-making along the Thames valley.

Summary.—Italian ideas gradually were adopted in place of Gothic. Many of the finest houses, like Burleigh House and Haddon Hall, belong to this time. The Elizabethan house often took the form of a letter E.

Brick has been used in Hull and in other places on the east coast from the thirteenth century, but the brick at first was imported from Flanders. It came into fashion about the time that Cardinal Wolsey built Hampton Court Palace. Italian artists were much employed at first, and terra-cotta and plaster were much used.

After the Great Fire of London brick became the chief building material in London, and the houses became much plainer. Sir Nicholas Crispe, after the Restoration, introduced many improvements into brick-making along the Thames valley.