of the Tudor period, and the fine range of bay windows shown on the
Elizabethan plan is borne out in all but a few minor particulars
by existing foundations. Further than this, a large portion of the
main block of buildings that crosses the fortified area from west to
east is here to corroborate the survey, and the great hall with its
apartments to the east is found upon the precise line indicated on the
drawing. The hall itself is correctly shown, except for the position
of one buttress and an adjoining piece of brickwork, and the beautiful
fifteenth-century bridge adds valuable evidence supporting the plan.
Of the things revealed by this plan, none will prove of greater
interest than the beautiful chapel which, to gain its right
orientation, was placed so picturesquely across the great courtyard.
In the Parliamentary Survey of Eltham in 1649 the “fair chapel” is
mentioned first in the list of royal apartments, before the hall
itself, and in this document we come upon a little bit of unexpected
news regarding London. Sir Theodore Mayerne, formerly physician to
James I.—he was seventy-six years of age at the time of the survey—is
found to be ranger of the park at a salary of £6 1s. 8d., paid from
the customs of the Port of London. The survey tells us, however, that
he no longer resided at Eltham, but at his house at “Chelsey,” thus
confirming the tradition that it was he who originally built the only
one of Chelsea’s old palaces that remains—the house which, rebuilt
by the Earls of Lindsey, still stands, although divided into several
dwellings, overlooking the Thames, just west of Battersea Bridge.
This survey goes on to relate that, beside the fair chapel and great
hall, there were forty-six rooms and offices on the ground floor, with
two large cellars; and on the upper floor, seventeen lodging rooms on
the king’s side, twelve on the queen’s side, and nine on the prince’s
side,—in all thirty-eight. Further research would no doubt identify
the position of these three suites of apartments, which are not, of
course, evident on a plan of the ground floor. The survey mentions the
outer “green court” with its thirty-five “bayes of building” on three
sides, which contained the offices to which we refer below.
It appears from the building accounts of the reign of Henry VI. that
the chapel was being completed in his reign, as mention is made of
the construction of a screen and of the two staircases to the gallery
above. But the “fair chapel” of the Parliamentary Survey, shown on the
Hatfield plan, was the work of Henry VIII. The accounts still exist of
the taking down of the old chapel, and of its rebuilding by Henry some
twelve feet nearer to the hall. The very massive wall standing west of
the chapel on the plan probably marks the position of the western end
of the former building. Henry VIII. has left detailed directions as to
the erection and furnishing of this chapel, which must have been one of
the most beautiful buildings of its time.
The accounts also fix the date of the great hall, which has so far
been only conjectural. One of the fortnightly returns of expenditure
when the roof was being framed together is headed “Coste and expence
don upon the bildying of the newe Halle wytn the manor of Elthm in
the charge of James Hatefeld from Sonday the xixth day of Septembr
the xixth yer of the reigne of our Sovreign lord King Edward the
iiijth unto Sonday the iiid of Octobr the yer aforeseid.” The wages
of the freemasons, hardhewers, carpenters (including chief warden and
underwarden) plumbers, smythes, labourers, and clerke are all given.
We also learn that thirty great iron “spykynggs” for the roof were
bought, such, no doubt, as were found in the framework of the roof of
Crosby Hall, and ten great “clampes of yron for the bynddyng of the
princyples.” Moreover there is a note of six loads of “Raygatestone” at
four shillings a load, the same stone employed at Crosby Hall, commonly
known as Reigate firestone. In all £140 13s. 6d. was spent in the
fortnight.
From this it appears that Crosby Hall, built in 1466, was started
some ten years or more before the hall of Eltham Palace; and yet the
former is of much later character in almost all its details, and
particularly in its panelled roof. The royal palace evidently clung to
the traditional methods of design, and they were certainly capable of
a more magnificent effect. It will be seen that the octagonal hearth,
about which there has been much conjecture, is shown clearly in the
plan in front of the throne.
The fame of Eltham will ultimately rest upon the exquisite beauty of
this great hall with its timbered roof, heavily moulded and adorned
with finely shaped pendants, its two rectangular bay or oriel windows
with their elaborate vaulting and the splendid range of windows along
both sides, which set the scale and still enrich the design in spite
of mutilation and decay. All these have been happily recorded with
infinite care and loving detail by Pugin, in the seven plates which
form almost the best work in his _Examples of Gothic Architecture_
(Vol. I.).
We are reminded by Mr. Arthur Stratton, in his notice of the hall
roof at Eltham, in _The Domestic Architecture of England during the
Tudor Period_, of an interesting point regarding the oak pendants.
Pugin, in the description which accompanied his drawings, quotes Mr.
J. C. Buckler’s book on Eltham to the effect that the long shafts of
the pendants, above the moulded drops, were originally surrounded by
delicate carved tracery, one example of which he measured and recorded
before it fell from the roof. The present bareness of the pendants
has often been noticed, and we are glad to see that Mr. Stratton has
included a copy of Buckler’s sketch in his work, Pugin having merely
shown it in dotted lines around his own detail of the roof. There is
little doubt that the mediæval carpenter regarded the timber roof as
the highest subject on which to exercise his skill, and both in vigour
of design and delicacy in carving and modelling his efforts at Eltham
met with wonderful success.
There has been much discussion as to the existence of one or more
courts on the south side of the hall, and the plan seems to show that
the space was gradually utilised for extensions of the kitchens and
offices, since considerable capacity was required from the royal custom
of keeping Christmas at Eltham. The outbuildings which are nearest the
hall were in all probability but single-story erections, and may have
been late in date.
The survey of the green or outer court gives greater difficulty. All
evidence of the courtyard has disappeared; its gatehouse has gone, and
what must have been a superbly picturesque approach to the palace, with
its timbered buildings on either side as it widened towards the moat,
is now a curtailed strip of greensward, occupied by lofty trees, and
traversed by a road which yet retains some reminiscence of its ancient
purpose in its name—“The Courtyard.” The only definite clue to the site
is a range of private houses along its western side, which chiefly date
from the eighteenth century, but of which the southern end is without
doubt much older, and is happily identical in plan with the building
described by John Thorpe as “My Lord Chancellor his Lodgings.” The
house is a most charming weatherboarded building with the upper floor
overhung, and has a fine stack of chimneys. Its southern end projects
into the courtyard and has a large timber gable which overshadows a
square bay-window below. The building is at present divided into two
houses, but Thorpe’s plan shows how complete an example it was of the
moderate-sized dwelling of the period. Its hall was approached by
the usual porch and screen, and had the accustomed oriel window and
fireplace. At the upper end was a private room or parlour, and behind
the screen was a larger room—the great chamber, whose square bay-window
overlooked the courtyard. From the screen again access was obtained to
the kitchen (which has disappeared, but is clearly shown on the plan)
and to the wooden newel staircase that still exists, furnishing an
excellent example of its type.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.—THE CHANCELLOR’S HOUSE.
_Photograph by F. W. Nunn._]
The houses to the north of the Chancellor’s Lodging continue the
frontage line, and appear to occupy the site of the rooms marked
“Buttery” and “Spicery” on Thorpe’s plan. If this is so, we have the
west side of our courtyard definitely marked out for us. The initial
difficulty, however, is that Thorpe has marked his western range at
a different angle to the moat, and the direction of his bridge does
not correspond with its relative position to the timber buildings.
But too much importance must not be attached to this, as the moat has
been apparently sketched in without the intention of placing it in its
proper position. A more serious matter is, that if the old plan be
placed so that the west side coincides with the existing buildings,
then the southern end of the eastern range trespasses on the area of
the moat as shown in the Hatfield plan of the main part of the palace.
Here, again, the draughtsman may simply have drawn the two sides
of the moat parallel to one another without measurement, and it is
possible that the present boundary of the ditch, at the western end
of its northern bank, represents the correct line, since if produced
it coincides with the southern wall of the “Privy Bakehouse,” and the
otherwise curious position of the “Scalding House” beyond becomes
explained by the return of the eastern side of the moat. Whether this
interpretation is correct or not, I have adopted it as the method
involving the least modification of Thorpe’s drawings, as I think it
is important that they should be put on record in this way before any
attempt is made to adjust any further inconsistencies.
Joined together thus, the two plans cannot fail to give us a very
fair idea of the palace, and it would be easy to construct a vivid
word-picture of the beauty and charm that must have belonged to the
whole scene which these old manuscripts can conjure up for us. Even
a cursory glance shows its infinite suggestiveness. The way up to
the gatehouse is flanked with converging walls and outbuildings of
picturesque form and disposition. The gateway itself, massively built
in contrast with the timber houses on either side, admits us to the
long green court, the irregular boundaries of which lead onwards to the
palace in a fair perspective. On each side are the low outbuildings
of half-timber work and plaster, and beyond rise the high walls of
the fortifications, Bishop Bec’s towers still amongst them, and the
gatehouse to the great court standing out in the centre. As the visitor
proceeds, he will see the waters of the wide moat, the banks of which
still show the unusual width of a hundred feet. Between him and the
gatehouse is the stone bridge, with its four beautiful pointed arches,
the last of which reaches the wall of the terrace, built probably over
the ancient place of the drawbridge (which Henry VIII. mentions) before
the porter’s gate.[16]
[16] Mr. C. R. Peers has confirmed this by discovering the actual
opening formed for the drawbridge.
Within the great court the scene is one of royal splendour. The
battlemented gable of the chapel is close at the visitor’s right hand,
and immediately opposite is Edward IV.’s great hall, which even now
is glorious in its ruinous condition.[17] Its coupled windows (like
the southern lights only of Crosby Hall) divided by buttresses, its
square oriel and doorway, its oak lantern, and Henry VIII.’s finial and
vane on the summit of the west gable, combine in this great central
feature of the mediæval palace a dignity and distinction worthy of its
purpose. And all around the court fine work in timber gives a pleasing
contrast and relief to the solidity of the masonry. For in a line with
the hall to the east were oak gables and bargeboards well moulded and
carved—three of which are yet to be seen—and King Henry VIII. himself
gave orders for the gallery from the hall to the chapel to have a
“clerestory” and to be embattled in timber, and the cloister (pentise)
on the opposite side to be likewise wrought and embattled in oak.
[17] H.M. Office of Works is now repairing the Hall, and has kindly
lent the photograph reproduced on page 56.
Henry VIII. spent much money at Eltham, and in his imperious way
effected great changes in the ancient palace, though nearly all his
work has since perished. If the visitor of the time of Thorpe’s survey
had passed through the door of the great hall and beneath the wonderful
roof of Edward IV., he would have found himself in the kitchen court,
where on the right was to be seen the “New Lodging” which Henry had
built for himself. In the south-west angle of the court a little door
gave access to the privy bridge across the moat and turning to the
right beyond this he could see the elaborate front of this building,
which was prepared with infinite care, as the king’s instructions show.
The succession of bay or oriel windows, the centre one of which was
of the elaborate form affected in his reign, must have pleased the
eye of a king who stopped at nothing in his ambition for truly royal
surroundings.
To return to Thorpe’s plan of the green court, there is one point which
requires explanation, and which presents the most serious obstacle in
the way of our accepting the precise disposition which he gives to
the buildings. Just outside the first gatehouse and to the north of
the bakehouse is a wall which bounds the outer courtyard to the east.
A portion of Tudor walling in this direction still exists, and in it
is a fine gateway in about the same relative position as the opening
shown on the plan. This wall and gateway, however, are much farther
west than those indicated on Thorpe’s plan, and should thus appear
where he shows an open space. Either he has omitted to show them, which
seems improbable, or his wall and gate are too far to the east. This
point affects the important matter of the position of the gatehouse
itself, and indeed if decided against the drawing would probably
modify the lines of the green court. The identity, indeed, of this
so-called “Tilt-yard” gate with that shown by Thorpe may prove to be
the key to the proper placing of his plan, but the evidence at present
is fragmentary, and, as I have already said, the subject invites
much careful investigation. The combined plans have been purposely
reproduced here to the scale of the Ordnance (88 ft. to the inch) to
facilitate comparison, and I have no doubt that it will not be long
before we have enough further information to give a corrected plan of
the whole building.
—W. H. G.
THE ORIGIN OF
THE DOMESTIC HALL
[Illustration: FIG. 24.—THE GUILDHALL, YORK.]
V.
THE ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC HALL.
The invariable and, indeed, the only essential feature of the English
mediæval house is the Great Hall. It is the centre alike of the castle
and the manor-house round which the lesser buildings are grouped. In
Saxon times the great or mead hall was, so far as the evidence goes,
almost always built of wood and closely resembled in form and structure
the great aisled barns, which have carried on the old tradition without
a break almost to the present day. Some indication of their remote
and semi-barbaric origin is to be found in the rude method of roof
construction, for while something in the form of a truss is always
visible, yet it is scarcely ever framed together to form a rigid whole.
On the other hand certain peculiarities, born of a long and intimate
acquaintance with the material used, are also observable, the most
striking being the constant practice of planting the posts or uprights
in the contrary position to that occupied when they were living trees,
and thus preventing the rise of the moisture from the damp earth. It
is a hall of this type that is described in the early Mercian poem of
Beowulf as the scene of the great struggle with the demon Grendel.
For some time after the coming of the Normans, the conquering race was
little more than an army of occupation, a state of affairs which was
unduly prolonged by the internecine warfare of the Great Anarchy. The
direct outcome of this unsettled and unnatural state was the erection
of the numerous Norman castles, built purely for defence, of which so
many were subsequently destroyed by King Henry II. The Norman castle at
this date consisted of a stone keep with a large enclosure or bailey,
surrounded by a wooden palisade or stone curtain and occupied by the
timber dwellings of the lord and his retainers. It cannot be too much
insisted on that the keep-tower hardly ever represents the ordinary
dwelling-house of the lord of the castle. It was, in fact, only made
use of for habitation when the stronghold was in a state of siege, and
it is probable that their enforced residence there was little relished
by its inmates, as the confined space and limited accommodation would
lead one to expect. It is consequently futile to attempt to trace in
the internal arrangements of the keep-tower the origin of the domestic
hall. Even at the Tower of London, where the Conqueror or his successor
built an immense keep, using the south-east angle of the Roman
fortifications to enclose their bailey, a great hall was erected at an
early date against the southern curtain.
In three of the early Norman castles the great hall still remains
standing, at any rate in part. At Richmond, Yorkshire, it adjoins the
curtain on the south side, and is apparently of earlier date than the
keep at Christ Church, Twynham which stands on the east or river front
of the castle; while at Wolvesley, by Winchester, the ruined Norman
hall is ascribed to Bishop Henry of Blois.
The comparatively small number of halls of this date remaining is some
evidence that the majority of these structures were of wood, and there
is documentary evidence that in several important cases, as at Hertford
and Pleshy, the halls were still of this material at the time of their
destruction in the seventeenth century.
The Norman conquerors of England brought with them their own
architecture, and must necessarily, at any rate at first, have
introduced their own masons and craftsmen to carry it out. The wealth
of the great Saxon abbeys was largely put to this use by their new
owners, for the Norman prelates, accustomed to the glories of Jumièges
and Caen, would not tolerate the insignificant proportions of Saxon
building, and the result was perhaps one of the greatest eras of local
building activity the world has seen. The great Benedictine houses,
whose numbers so largely increased in the first few decades succeeding
the Conquest, built not only large churches but also conventual
buildings on a corresponding scale. The conventual establishment
consisted of the claustral block, occupied by the monks themselves
and grouped round a central cloister, and a number of subsidiary and
outlying blocks of which the infirmary and guest-house were the chief,
quite detached from the main building. All except the very richest
monasteries found it impossible to reconstruct at once the whole of
these buildings in stone, and consequently we find in many instances
the claustral block only was erected in this material, while the
infirmary and guest-house, as a temporary expedient, were constructed
of timber. The truth of this is evidenced by the discovery in several
instances (_e.g._ Kirkstall and Waverley) of the original posts of the
early infirmary hall encased in later masonry.
Now, the domestic portions of a monastery fulfilled most if not all
of the functions of a mediæval house, or rather cluster of houses,
as in each case the claustral block, the infirmary, and guest-house
possessed its great hall, its separate kitchen, and the usual adjuncts.
At a somewhat later date in the abbot’s or prior’s lodging yet another
complete dwelling was added to the list. With regard to the guest-house
particularly, it was in intention and fact an ordinary dwelling-house
on a large scale. The inviolability of monastic property even in the
dark period of the Great Anarchy has preserved more trace of the early
arrangement of these buildings than is to be found in most of the
purely secular houses of the same early date. The superior wealth and
greater culture of the Church tended to make it the leader in domestic
architecture no less than in ecclesiastical. All through the Middle
Ages the purely secular-house plan showed a tendency to a closer
approximation to the monastic type, until the quadrangular dwelling
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries becomes almost its exact
counterpart even to the cloister alleys on each side, the place of the
great church being taken by the gatehouse. It is consequently amongst
the monastic remains of the country, and not amongst the Norman keeps,
that we are most likely to recover the early type of the domestic hall.
The conventual plan affords examples of two very different types of
hall. The first is that almost always adopted for the great frater
or dining hall in the claustral block, and is a plain rectangular
apartment solidly built of stone; the second type is found only in the
infirmary or guest-houses, and is in the form of a nave with one or two
aisles.
We have shown that the frater was part of the block first rebuilt by
the Norman abbots and priors. It was consequently built in stone after
the Norman fashion by Norman masons. The infirmary and guest-halls on
the contrary were commonly first constructed of wood, and consequently
present all the features of native planning in that material. In most
cases this latter class of building was subsequently reconstructed in
the more durable material, but even then in many instances the original
form was preserved, and stone columns and arcades like the aisles of a
church took the place of the original barn-like structure of the Saxon
type.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.—PLANS OF HALLS OF WINCHESTER CASTLE, YORK
GUILDHALL AND OAKHAM CASTLE.
_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]
Turning now to the contemporary castle-building, we find precisely the
same varying plans in common use. The three halls mentioned above, at
Richmond, Christchurch, and Wolvesley, follow the model of the monastic
frater, while the halls at Oakham, Warnford (Hants), and probably
Westminster are examples of the aisle type, which survived in isolated
instances right through the Middle Ages, one of the latest examples,
the Guildhall of York, being an interesting return to the timber
originals of this class of structure.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.—PLANS OF HALLS OF ASHBY CASTLE, HERTFORD
CASTLE, AND WARNFORD.
_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]
The aisled hall is so uncommon a feature in purely domestic
architecture that a brief reference to the most important examples will
be of value in this connection. Four examples at least remain intact,
the well-known structure at Oakham (65 ft. by 43½ ft.) being the
earliest. The great hall of Winchester Castle is a thirteenth-century
building, five bays long (111 ft. by 56 ft.), and another example
of similar date is to be found at Bishop Auckland, where, with the
addition of a clerestory, it now does duty as a chapel. The Guildhall
at York dates from the fifteenth century, and its long ranges of oak
columns and handsome roof are exceedingly effective. (See p. 68.) The
ruined examples include the halls of Ashby-de-la-Zouche (56½ ft. by 38
ft.) and Warkworth (58 ft. long, with one aisle only), the latter a
thirteenth-century structure with a later porch and traces of a central
hearth. Lastly the timber hall of Hertford Castle, which has entirely
disappeared, bore a close resemblance on plan to the stone structure at
Ashby Castle. The hall of Nurstead Court, Kent, has been destroyed,
and that at Leicester Castle and at the “Savoy,” Denham, Bucks, have
been cut up into rooms and much altered.
These halls are, however, chiefly of interest as examples of an ancient
and discarded method of construction, and it is to the other type that
we must turn for the true origins of the domestic hall.