It was satisfying and beautiful because every bit of ornamental detail
grew out of the necessary structure. The plainer framing of cottage and
farmhouse became enriched in the manor-house into a wealth of moulding
and carving and other kinds of decoration. External panel ornament
gained a rich quality by the repetition of symmetrical form, while the
overhanging of the successive stories and the indentations between
projecting wings and porches threw the various faces of the building
into interesting masses of light and shade. Then, in delightful and
restful contrast to the “busy” wall-spaces, are the roofs, with their
long quiet lines of ridge and their covering of tile or stone, painted
by the ages with the loveliest tinting of moss and lichen.
Within, these fine old wooden houses show the good English oak as
worthily treated as without. For the whole structure is of wood from end
to end, built as soundly and strongly as were the old wooden ships. The
inner walls, where they were not panelled with oak, were hung with
tapestry. Ceilings of the best rooms were wrought with plaster ornament;
lesser rooms showed the beams and often the thick joists that fitted
into them and upheld the floor above. Where, as was usual, there was a
long gallery in the topmost floor, its ceiling would show a tracery of
oak with plaster filling, partly following the line of the roof. The
whole structure, blossoming out in its more important parts into
beautiful decorative enrichment, showed the worker’s delight in his
craft, and his mastery of mind and hand in conceiving and carrying out
the possibilities offered by what was then the most usual building
material of the country.
Such another house as Speke is Moreton Old Hall in Cheshire, but the
latter is still more richly decorated, with carved strings, some of
which were painted, and wood and plaster panels of great elaboration,
and lead-quarried windows of large size and beautiful design.
The destruction of large numbers of these timber buildings in the
eighteenth century can never be sufficiently deplored. There was a time
when the fashion for buildings of classical form was spreading over
England, when they were considered barbarous relics of a bygone age, and
when the delightful gardens that had grown up around them were alike
condemned and in many cases destroyed.
There is not a large garden at Speke, but just enough of simple groups
of flowers to grace the beautiful timber front. The picture shows that
the gardening is just right for the place; not asserting itself overmuch
but doing its own part with a restful, quiet charm that has a right
relation to the lovely old dwelling.