known by the name of Perpendicular—and this merely from a detail of its
window tracery—yet the term might be applied with great truth to the
whole style in contrast to the strong preference which the classical
builders showed for the horizontal line. The Greek architects confined
all their buildings within the uncompromisingly horizontal limits of
their cornice or entablature, and even the Romans who had learned to
construct the most elaborate edifices with their semi-circular arches
were not content until they had imprisoned each row of arches beneath
the long cornice of the Greeks. It was not until the Byzantine builders
began to design great churches for the Christian faith, and when the
Western Church took up the work, that an attempt was made to free the
design from its horizontal limits and to encourage its growth upwards,
as a symbol of its religious aspiration. The consummation of these
efforts, continued for many hundreds of years, was the sudden birth of
Gothic art at the end of the twelfth century, and the wonderful forests
of vertical lines leading up to a thousand pointed or—as the French
say—broken arches, which we see in our great cathedrals. For a time the
classical idea was banished—architecture had broken away from the human
scale imposed upon it by the Greek artists, and it was striving to
express something superhuman, mysterious, and divine. This spirit could
not, however, last for long—it was of too ideal a nature—and just as
the finest period of Greek architecture is confined to at most a couple
of centuries, so in the case of Gothic the same number of years saw the
shadow of approaching change. The Renaissance, the great reversion to
classical conceptions, did not obtain a firm footing in England until
the sixteenth century, but in the fifteenth we can already see signs
of its coming if we look for them, and in no detail is it plainer than
in the enclosing of the fifteenth-century pointed arch within a square
frame. It can be seen most clearly in Crosby Hall in the case of the
fireplace, the north-west door, and the main arch to the great oriel
window. It appears also in the arches to the ordinary windows which are
confined by a square frame of woodwork, in those of the oriel window
in its lower lights and its panels, and in every little pierced arch
of the oak roof and cornice. The top lights of the oriel window alone
cling to the original idea of the Gothic arch, and point upwards amid
the curving ribs of the stone vaults, without any check. At the same
time that the arch was imprisoned within a square moulded frame, the
arch itself became flatter or more depressed, and assumed the familiar
shape which architects call four-centred from its being a composite
arch of four distinct curves. The arch over the oriel window and that
to the fireplace are two good instances of this in Crosby Hall.
This altered character of the arch is the chief architectural point to
notice, and the second is the introduction of panelling. Practically
all the design in the earlier and purer Gothic work was confined to
definite structural forms and to their adornment and enrichment. In
the fifteenth century, however, there began the custom of dividing
wall and other surfaces up into panels, again by the introduction of
horizontal lines among the vertical ones—and thus was started the
type of decoration which remained the most popular method from the
sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. First the long lights of the
windows were divided by transomes or horizontal bars as in the oriel
window, which is separated into three tiers. Then the vaults themselves
were no longer divided only by the structural ribs which carried the
weight of the stone roof, but were subdivided again by cross-ribs into
the delightful network of panels which is shown in the vault of the
oriel, where each intersection has a beautiful carved boss. From this
it was an easy matter to repeat the outlines of the windows in stone
upon the walls as is here done on those sides of the oriel that did not
admit of being pierced for light. The square frames round the arches
provided little triangular panels or spandrils, such as those above
the oriel and fireplace, and in other similar places. Above all, the
timber framing of the roof was specially suited to the panel treatment,
and whether we look at the long rectangular divisions into which the
great arched ceiling is divided, or at the succession of little squares
with pierced quatrefoils in the cornice and round the stone corbels,
we cannot fail to appreciate how completely this method of design had
gained favour with the fifteenth-century builders.
Let us now consider briefly what light Crosby Hall has to throw upon
the arrangements and planning of a mediæval house.
[Illustration: FIG. 50.—THE HALL FROM THE WEST.
_Photograph by Architectural Review._]
[Illustration: FIG. 51.—INTERIOR OF HALL.
_Photograph by Architectural Review._]
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the English country
house—apart from the castles and other fortified places—was a very
simple but most dignified building. Its main apartment was the Great
Hall, where the whole household lived, dined, and sometimes slept—a
room designed on such a scale as to give the necessary shelter to
all the servants as well as to the members of the family. To this
hall was generally attached, at the upper end, a small withdrawing room
or sleeping chamber for the master and mistress of the house, and to
the lower end a kitchen for the preparation of food. The system of the
family and its dependents, as assembled in their hall, constituted a
little hierarchy like that of the feudal State or that of the Church.
Privacy was discouraged; every man lived his life in the presence of
his fellows, and beneath the fine timber roofs of the great Gothic
halls the plan worked out well and produced good men and noble women.
Community of living was understood by the people of the Middle Ages in
a way that is hard for us to understand now; it was a familiar thing
to them, and it is illustrated over and over again in their social
customs. So much was this so, that when at the end of the fourteenth
and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries we find people adding
private apartments to their houses, we also meet with protests from men
like William Langland, who saw in this new practice a loss of interest
in the household and a consequent shirking of duty towards its members.
In his _Vision of Piers Plowman_ we read concerning the Great Hall:—
“Each day in the week
There the lord nor the lady liketh not to sit,
Now hath each rich man a rule, to eat by himself
In a privy parlour—for poor men’s sake.
Or in a chamber with a chimney, and leave the chief hall,
That was made for meals, for men to eat in,
And all to spare to spill that spend shall another.”
Now, by the time that Sir John Crosby came to build his mansion,
the privy parlour had become a settled institution, and with it a
multitude of other private rooms had found their way into the necessary
domestic equipment. But these new rooms had not yet completely ousted
the Great Hall, nor was this time-honoured and central feature of
the house superseded until well on into the seventeenth century. The
Hall was still used on many important family occasions it was still
the place for general meeting and the exchange of courtesies, and it
happily retained its mediæval plan and arrangement with scarcely any
modification of importance.
We have, therefore, in Crosby Hall the Great Hall of a fifteenth-century
mansion, which resembles those of two centuries before and two
centuries after its time, all of which followed the same pattern, if
with certain slight modifications in design.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.—THE ORIEL, EXTERIOR.
_Photograph by Architectural Review._]
[Illustration: FIG. 53.-THE ORIEL, INTERIOR.
_Photograph by Architectural Review._]
Let us imagine that we have entered the front courtyard of Crosby Place
through the gatehouse in Bishopsgate Street. We approach the Hall which
lies directly in front of us, passing the Chapel on our right and the
private apartments on our left. We enter at the chief door, and find
ourselves at the lower end of the Hall behind a beautiful oak screen
and beneath a projecting gallery. Every Hall was provided with a screen
to divide the entrance passage from the room. Here unfortunately we
have lost all trace of this end of Crosby Hall. Quite probably it
suffered in the fire that destroyed the southern part of the mansion
in the seventeenth century. We have not even the old doorway left to
us, for a large archway had been driven through the walls and under
the gallery to Crosby Square, and horses and carts passed to and fro.
Only when we came to pull down the building did we find some traces
of the original beams of the gallery still left in the ceiling over
this roadway. It can be seen that the gallery formed part of the hall,
and its windows were designed to harmonise with the long range on the
west side. The high roof of the hall, however, was not carried over
the gallery, and so its two windows were drawn together, there being
no need for a stone corbel between them. Some doubts have been cast on
the genuineness of this double window since it had been much restored,
probably when the archway was made. I have little doubt, however, that
it shows the original arrangement, and it may be noted in its support
that all the windows in Eltham Palace are grouped together in this way
in twos, the stone corbels and roof beams being divided by each
coupled window. The corresponding wall on the east side of the gallery
had long been destroyed, but from the presumptive evidence of the rest
of the hall and of its careful balance of features, we have ventured to
place a new counterpart of the double window here also. The oak roof
over the gallery is again a conjectural restoration, and it is hoped
before the rest of the buildings are completed that we shall be able to
replace the missing screen as well with one which will properly fulfil
its function and reflect in part at least the beauty of the hall roof.
Having passed through the screen into the hall, the visitor would be
at leisure to examine its various features. The windows on either side
are placed high in the wall, but towards the upper end a beautiful
bay-window or oriel is thrown out in order that the principal members
of the family might have the use of its space for comparative privacy
and from its lowered windows might look out upon the courtyard. Beyond
the oriel on the same side is the door to the great parlour or private
dining-room, above which was the great chamber—a reception room in much
favour in this and the succeeding century. Mr. Gotch reminds us that
Slender in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ boasts of his Great Chamber.
The blank windows between the oriel and the end wall show the position
of this room which was misnamed the Throne Room while Crosby Hall was
still a restaurant, and it was felt advisable to keep up the legend of
Richard III. and his crown. These and the two windows on the east wall,
corresponding to the blank ones, are a smaller size than the others,
perhaps to allow loftier hangings to be placed round the dais. Opposite
to the oriel was the beautiful fireplace of a size and proportion
befitting this fine apartment. By it the upper end was well warmed, but
it was not sufficient to heat the lower hall where the servants were
gathered, and it is more than probable that the _louvre_, or opening in
the fifth bay of the roof, represents the position below of the central
hearth which would be used in addition to the fireplace.
Fireplaces had been known and used since Norman times, but they were
never so popular in the great halls as the open brazier, and we find
that even in the King’s Palace at Eltham there was an open hearth
provided to the exclusion of the fireplace, though, as we have seen, it
was built several years afterwards. This I think disposes to a large
extent of the popular assumption that the open hearth was primitive and
inconvenient.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.—VAULT OF ORIEL.
_Photograph by Architectural Review._]
[Illustration: FIG. 55.—DETAIL OF ROOF AND WINDOW.
_Photograph by Architectural Review._]
All these features above described constitute together the normal
arrangement in practically every mediæval domestic building of any
size. Whether one visits the halls of Hampton Court, Eltham, or Croydon
Palace, or the later halls at the Charterhouse, the Middle Temple,
Gray’s Inn, or Lambeth, one recognises the same scheme with such
slight variations as the two oriels at Eltham and the Temple, and the
occasional absence of the fireplace already noticed. But the greatest
glory of these mediæval halls was the timber roof which crowned
the whole building and which, here in Crosby Hall, constitutes the
most valuable part of the original work. This roof is of particular
interest, as it represents a transition from the open timber roof to
the later ceiling. The roof of Westminster Hall and those of Hampton
Court and Eltham belong to the former class and are among the finest
examples of the famous hammer-beam construction. The tradition of
the open timber roof remained, indeed, so strong that even in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the hammer-beam was still employed,
and the Halls of the Temple and Lambeth Palace show it in its later
treatment. But in the case of most of the buildings of the latter half
of the fifteenth century the curved and panelled ceiling had come into
vogue, and it became the most fashionable method of roofing our parish
churches. At Crosby Hall we have, as far as I know, a unique example of
this type, for its little forest of pendants—from each of which spring
four arches in different directions—make a most original design of
great charm. It has been likened to an attempt to gain the effect of
fan-vaulting in wood, and no doubt its elaborate detail prevented
its repetition in other places. It would have been a great loss to
students of architecture if this roof had perished. Happily it was in
beautiful preservation, and no single feature of any importance was
lacking when put together.
It should be noticed most especially how the roof governs the design of
the whole room, bringing each part into harmony with the rest. It is
divided into eight bays or compartments by seven arched principals. In
each of these compartments on the wall below is a window of two lights
brought beneath one deeply moulded arch. The oriel itself occupies two
bays. Each roof-principal is carried down to a fine stone corbel which
exactly fills the space between the windows and is an integral part
of the massive wall stones. Unfortunately one or two of these corbels
were replaced at the restoration of the building in the last century.
Between the windows and the roof runs the simple cornice of battlements
and quatrefoils, the spandrels, or triangular panels on either side of
the windows being filled with pierced tracery.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.—SECTION THROUGH ROOF.]
[Illustration: FIG. 57.—PLAN OF HALL AT CHELSEA.]
It remains now to state how much of this building is old and how
much new, for the visitor will notice a great difference between its
appearance here in Chelsea and its old aspect in its restaurant days.
It must be remembered that although the fine roof, windows, and other
features had remained intact, yet the old hall had suffered grievously
from various alterations and additions. Several architects of the
Gothic revival period had given it such features as a modern gallery
to the south, an organ loft, arch and screen at the north end, and
doorways which were not of its original plan. Besides these additions
in questionable taste, the west wall which fronted Bishopsgate had
been robbed of its original Reigate stone facing and covered with
perishable Bath stone, and the eastern wall had been disfigured to a
terrible extent by the modern buildings which adjoined it. The chief
aim in rebuilding the Hall was to set each original piece which had
form or beauty left to it in its proper relative position to the
main building. It was necessary, therefore, to use all that was left
and to discard the faulty modern reparation, supplying their place
with durable work to ensure the safety of what was genuinely old. The
walls were built of brick in place of the old rubble which was of
little use. The Bath facing stones were replaced with Portland, and
each window and door stone was carefully set in its place. Only on the
east wall had the external masonry to be entirely replaced, and the
stones of the windows severed to preserve the old work on the inside.
The two end walls were formerly internal walls of Crosby Place, but
they had completely perished. Their position is taken by what will be
similarly the internal walls of the College. The original walls were
plastered within, and the same treatment was followed here; in fact,
the old example was followed minutely in every particular, with the one
exception of the floor. There is evidence that the old floor was of
Purbeck marble unpolished—but it was decided that it would be unwise
to attempt to replace this, and an oak door has been made instead. The
Hall, therefore, is older on the inside than the outside, and this is
perhaps as it should be, for it may be claimed that wherever a building
be planted its interior can never lose its old associations, but its
removal destroys much of the historical significance of the external
appearance which rightly belongs to its old site in Bishopsgate.
The most interesting part of the work of rebuilding was not the roof
but the little vault over the oriel. No one who had not seen it would
believe the wonderful precision and delicacy with which each of its
numerous parts fitted into their places. The joints of each rib of
Reigate stone were so beautifully cut and had required so little
cement to join them together that the original lines drawn upon them
by the fifteenth century builders, in setting out, were still plainly
visible. Only one temporary support was required beneath the central
boss, which is richly carved with Sir John Crosby’s helm and crest.
This and one of the similar bosses, which bears an almost obliterated
coat of arms, are the only evidences left of the builder of the Hall,
since all the stained glass with its heraldic shields has perished. The
present glass, the best pieces of which were designed by Willement, is
all subsequent to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Finally
Sir John Crosby’s armorial bearings have been used as a basis for the
design on the back of the fireplace.
—W. H. G.
THE PALACES OF
HERTFORD AND HAVERING
[Illustration: FIG. 58.—GATEHOUSE, HERTFORD.]
IX.
THE PALACES OF HERTFORD AND HAVERING.
The two palaces which are the subject of the present article differ
from most of those in the neighbourhood of London in being of very
early origin, their history in each case stretching back to Saxon
times. They differ also from each other, one, Hertford Castle, being a
fortress of no mean strength, and the other, Havering Bower, a country
retreat entirely without means of defence; while together they present
examples of early domestic planning on a large scale such as are,
perhaps, available in no other quarter.
The Castle of Hertford was one of a ring of strongholds, of early
Norman date, forming an advanced and outer line of defence to the
capital. This series began at Windsor and passed via Berkhampstead,
Hertford, Stortford, and Ongar to Rayleigh, and in most instances, save
for massive earthworks, has left comparatively little trace of its
existence.
The remains at Hertford consist at present of the red brick Tudor
gatehouse, the ruins of a small tower, and a long line of curtain
wall, enclosing broad lawns and gardens, by the side of the River
Lea. Hitherto there has been no available information with regard to
the internal arrangements of the castle, but amongst the State Papers
of Edward VI. is preserved a large scale plan of an important and
extensive building arranged for the accommodation of the courts of law.
During Tudor and later times the courts were housed at Westminster
Palace, and consequently the plan was assumed to represent some portion
of that building. I have been able to identify it, however, as a part
of the palace of Hertford Castle, to which the courts were temporarily
removed in 1582, and again in 1592, owing to the prevalence of the
Plague in London.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.—GROUND PLAN, HERTFORD.
_From the Public Record Office._]
The plan, unfortunately mutilated, is the work of H. Hawthorne, who
was also employed upon the alterations to Windsor in the early part of
Elizabeth’s reign.
Hertford Castle in its early days was evidently a place of considerable
strength and importance, for when besieged in 1216 by the forces
of Louis of France it held out for twenty-four days, while the
neighbouring castle of Berkhampstead (the elaborate earthworks of which
remain) was reduced by the same army in a fortnight.
Hertford was the occasional residence of the later Plantagenet and
Tudor kings, and was successively held in dower by the consorts of the
three Lancastrian sovereigns. Later it was found to be a convenient
residence for the children of Henry VIII.—Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth
having all resided there at various times during their father’s life.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.—PLAN OF FORTIFICATIONS.
_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]
Five documents in the nature of surveys of the castle exist at the
Record Office, dated respectively 1327, 1523, 1559, 1589 and 1610. The
first of these is the most interesting. The castle then consisted of a
great inner ward surrounded by a double moat with a circular shell keep
at the north-east angle, and a massive curtain wall. The narrow space
between the inner and outer moats was defended by a wooden palisade,
and at the western end broadened out into a large outer ward.
Henry VIII.’s survey describes “a fair river running along by the north
side of the said castle and arear a very little garden ground, but
there is a fair courtyard and large, which is almost finished round
about with fair houses.”
By 1610 most of the buildings had been destroyed, and mention is only
made of “one fair gatehouse of brick, one tower of brick, and the old
walls of the said castle.”
This represents fairly accurately the present condition of the castle.
The brick gatehouse, though somewhat altered, is still entire, the
outer archway being obscured by a modern porch, while the inner one
is converted into a window. Above the former is a sunk panel with the
royal arms of the Tudors surmounted by a crown. The “tower of brick”
is the great angle bastion shown on the plan. It formed the segment of
a circle externally about 60 ft. in diameter, the chord of which is a
brick wall which is the only portion of the structure now standing.
On the outer face at the southern end are the remains of the circular
stair, including a ramped portion of the brick handrail sunk in the
wall.
The most noticeable feature of the plan is the extreme thinness of the
walls. This can hardly be ascribed to faulty draughtsmanship, as the
curtain and bastion walls, together with the fireplace backs, are all
shown of reasonable thickness. One is bound to conclude that the whole
structure was timber-framed on dwarf walls, the remains of which have
from time to time come to light under the present lawn. This would
largely account for the continual state of disrepair in which the
buildings are found on every occasion on which there is evidence of
their condition.
On the east side of the great courtyard, opposite the gatehouse, stood
the hall, a comparatively small building of very early type. The aisled
hall is now to be found only in comparatively few instances (as at
Oakham and Winchester Castle) and is almost certainly a survival of
the Saxon type of wooden structure whose form has been preserved in
use almost to our own times in the great timber barns, of which there
are numerous examples. The contemporary Norman type is preserved at
Richmond, Wolvesley, and Christchurch, and in a number of monastic
frater-houses, and was a plain rectangular structure of quite a
different character. (_Vide ante_ p. 70.)
The hall at Hertford was only three bays long, with screens and two
porches at the northern and a square oriel at the southern end. One
large fireplace appears at the back of the dais, and a small lantern in
the centre of the roof is shown on Speed’s bird’s-eye view of the town
(probably taken just before its destruction, 1610).
The lesser court on the south side was probably of early Tudor date,
and evidently had galleries on the first floor with projecting bays,
an arrangement similar to that of the second quadrangle of Queen’s
College, Cambridge. At the south-eastern angle was a small building
projecting into the court and clearly a chapel or oratory.
The arrangement of the kitchen and offices at the north end of the
great hall is by no means clear. The only apartment with a fireplace
of sufficient dimensions for the kitchen is that marked “Court
of Requests,” but the lack of direct communication with the hall
itself renders this identification doubtful. In spite of its lack
of completeness and the difficulty surrounding it, the plan is of
considerable interest both on account of its early form and the
importance of the building which it delineates.