The New Houses of the Time of Queen Elizabeth
There were, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, in all parts of
the country, hundreds of bare, gaunt ruins where once had been
flourishing houses and centres of life and work. It may seem
strange to us that the materials left were not sold and cleared
away, and the sites made tidy. We must remember, however, that
people could not build houses either in town or country as they
chose. In Queen Elizabeth's reign the laws against building new
houses were very strict indeed, so that there was not a very great
demand for building material. Then, too, the quantity of such stone
and wood in all these many buildings, in every town and almost
every village, was enormous, so that the material was not worth
much. The ruins were left, a sad and sorry sight, for many a long
year.
In the towns some of the buildings were turned by their new owners
into private houses, and the parts of the monastery were put to
strange uses. Nobody seemed to mind; the spirit of destruction
seemed to be in the air. Then, as years went on, and buildings
needed repair, or roads wanted mending, the old ruins were the
handiest places from which to get a load of stone; and so, with
leave or without, many loads of stone were carted away from them.
We said just now that there was no encouragement given to the
building of new houses in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and yet
most of the most picturesque old houses in our towns and villages
still standing were built at that time. These, however, were not
new houses; they were rebuilt on old sites, _improved_ according to
the ideas of the time.
[Illustration: _Moreton Old Hall, Cheshire, built 1550-59.
An example of the half-timbered, Elizabethan house for which
Cheshire and Shropshire are specially famous_]
You will notice in country places a great many houses built
somewhat after this style. Many of them are now cottages, but they
were not built for cottages; they were the ordinary houses in which
yeomen lived in the sixteenth century.
There was the hall or house-place--an oblong room in the centre--on
to which other rooms were built, forming a wing at one end, or
often a wing at each end, with gables towards the street, and
projecting upper stories. A great deal might be said about this
kind of house, but there is only space for a very short account of
it.
The house was built upon a foundation of stone or brick, so that
the wooden sill should be above the ground-level. Into this wooden
sill strong upright posts of timber, quite rough, some eight or
nine inches square, were set. The posts at the angles were larger,
often being butts of trees placed roots upwards, so that the upper
story might project. Then on the main posts beams were laid, the
ends projecting, upon which the framing of the upper story was set.
It was just a timber skeleton, into which other timbers were set
eight or nine inches apart. In later times these timbers were wider
apart, and curved or diagonal braces were often used, but at first
the uprights were pretty closely set.
The spaces between the uprights were then filled in with lath and
plaster, flush with the woodwork. In some parts of the country
brick was used instead, set in herring-bone fashion. In later
times, when the lath and plaster had decayed, the spaces were often
filled in with brickwork laid in the ordinary way. Then again, in
other cases the woodwork of the house shrank and left gaps between
the lath and plaster and the wood, so the whole of the outside has
been covered with plaster, or weatherboarded and painted or tarred,
or hung over with tiles.
The windows were small, and sometimes in the upper story one was
built out, forming an oriel. The roofs were high pitched, in many
cases tiled, but more often thatched. In these old houses the
chimney-stack is a great feature outside, and the huge fireplace,
with its wide chimney-corners, takes up half the house-place
inside. From most of these nowadays the old hearth is gone, and a
small chimney-breast has been bricked up to take a modern range;
but the old chimney-corner, with its funny little window, can
usually still be traced.
There are quite a large number of village inns of this kind. Very
often these are the oldest and most picturesque buildings left in a
village, except the church. It is these old-fashioned houses which
make village scenery so pleasing to the eye after the dreary rows
of bunches of brick, with holes in them for windows, covered in
with slate, which fill the streets of our towns, all alike, and all
ugly.