appearance of houses; there they had to rely on their own merits.
Nevertheless the disposition of the streets often lent picturesqueness
to the houses that formed them. It is one of the charms of most English
towns that their appearance is the result of fortuitous causes, or
of some necessity which is no longer obvious. In some towns, like
Marlborough or Dunstable, it is the width of the main street which
gives character to the place; in others, like York, Canterbury, and
(in a less degree) Warwick, it is the narrowness which strikes the
visitor. In the one case the open spaces of the country are embodied in
the town; there is room enough and to spare. In the other it is clear
that every foot of room was utilised. Yarmouth has a very interesting
lay out, evidently the result of premeditated design and not of chance.
The river upon which it is built turns suddenly to the right as it
approaches the sea, and runs for some distance parallel to the sea
front, leaving a certain space between itself and the shore. Upon
this restricted space the town was built; streets of no great width
were formed parallel with the river, next to which was a broad quay;
then at right angles to the streets a series of narrow passages were
formed, called “rows.” Although these “rows” are not more than 4 or 5
ft. wide, they were formed of good houses, and it is surprising, in
traversing them to-day, when they have become degraded into slums, to
find remains of houses which must have been the residences of wealthy
people. But the circumstances of Yarmouth were peculiar. At King’s
Lynn, another ancient port in the same county, although most of the
old streets are narrow, judged by modern standards, there is a very
fine open space known as the Tuesday market-place, which still retains
much of its old-world flavour. The old print of it which is reproduced
in Fig. 209 rather exaggerates its size, owing to the perspective
of the draughtsman; the market hall and its circular adjuncts have
disappeared, but the Georgian buildings in the front and on either side
still remain, and that on the left retains its steps and obelisks.
Another old print--one of Chelmsford (Fig. 210)--gives a good idea of
that town in Georgian times. Most of the houses are of the eighteenth
century, and must have been quite modern at the time when the print
was published; others are of an earlier date. Their disposition is the
result of a long period of growth, and could never be achieved under a
scheme of town-planning. One of the most prominent objects in the
view is the inn sign, a good solid structure, thrust well out into the
public way; it is characteristic of the times, both in its size and in
the wrought-iron scroll-work which surrounds the swinging lion; indeed
bits of fanciful ironwork such as this were prodigally used during the
eighteenth century, and give interest to a house or a street which
otherwise would attract no attention. In the middle distance is another
sign typical of many which used to exist, but which are seldom found in
the present day. Here it stretches across a large part of the public
road, but in many cases these signs were made to span the whole width
of the street. An example of an elaborate sign may be seen at the Swan
Inn, Market Harborough (Fig. 212), and an unpretentious but effective
specimen is shown in Fig. 213.
[Illustration: FIG. 210.--Chelmsford, Essex.
From an Old Print. ]
[Illustration: FIG. 211.--Somerset Buildings, Milsom Street,
Bath.
From an Engraving by Thomas Malton. ]
[Illustration: FIG. 212.--SIGN OF THE SWAN HOTEL, MARKET
HARBOROUGH.]
[Illustration: FIG. 213.--The Sign of an Inn at Salisbury.]
In most of the county towns the gentry of the district used to have
their winter residences, to which they repaired when the state of
the roads rendered locomotion difficult. It must be remembered that
the roads in those days, except the most important, were little more
than tracks across the country; nothing was done to make them hard or
permanent--they merely traversed the natural soil. “Where there is good
land there is foul way,” was a saying of the time; and conversely,
where the ground was stony the roads were fairly hard. Horace Walpole,
among other writers, recounts the difficulties he experienced on
country roads in bad weather, and this condition of things accounts for
the number of horses which, according to old prints, were harnessed to
family coaches. These in their turn were built in a strong and heavy
fashion, in order to withstand the shocks to which they were inevitably
subjected. When the wet weather came on, families who lived in country
houses betook themselves to the town for society and amusement. In
places like Nottingham and Derby there still remain a fair number of
houses which were built for county magnates, but in every instance they
have been diverted from their original purpose and have become business
premises. This affords another proof, if such were needed, that no lay
out can be expected to retain in perpetuity its original character.
Half the squares of London point the same moral.
[Illustration: FIG. 214.--RALPH ALLEN’S HOUSE AT BATH.]
[Illustration: FIG. 215.--The Aylesford Hotel, Warwick.]
No doubt the house at Warwick, which, for the time being, is the
Aylesford Hotel (Fig. 215), was built for some such purpose as has
just been indicated; it is a handsome and interesting example of the
early part of the eighteenth century. Just outside the east gate is
the house where Walter Savage Landor was born in 1775. Another house
of the same kind is that of Ralph Allen at Bath (Fig. 214), which is
an architectural composition of much greater pretensions, now almost
hidden from public view. It will be remembered that his country house
was Prior Park.
[Illustration: FIG. 216.--Shops at Cirencester.]
[Illustration: FIG. 217.--Shops, Montpellier, Cheltenham.]
[Illustration: FIG. 218.--Shop in East Street, Wareham,
Dorset.]
Bath, of course, is full of good examples of town houses; but Bath was
much more than a town to which the neighbouring gentry resorted for
the winter. It was a fashionable watering place, and provision had to
be made for visitors throughout the year. Some of its buildings have
already been mentioned, but the accompanying engraving of Milsom
Street (Fig. 211) gives a good idea of its street architecture, devoted
partly to residential purposes and partly to business premises. This
mixture of dwellings and shops is still met with in old-fashioned
towns, where the principal streets are made up of houses--some large
and some small--interspersed with shops and inns. But in places where
factories are introduced and the population increases, the universal
tendency is towards the multiplication of shops and the diminution
of houses. Every growing town experiences this change. As the houses
part with their tenants, whether through death or otherwise, they
are either converted into shops and offices, or they are pulled down
to make room for tradesmen seeking the best situations for their
business; the tradesmen themselves seek the cheaper and larger spaces
of the suburbs for their own dwellings. The intentional combination
of shop and dwelling, such as those at Cirencester (Fig. 216) or
Cheltenham (Fig. 217), seldom occurs in the present day, when by-laws
require for a house a certain amount of open space which can be more
profitably used for business pure and simple. In the example from
Cirencester the ground story, if not actually of the same date as the
superstructure, has been skilfully designed to harmonise with it, and
appears sufficiently sturdy to support it. But most tradesmen of the
present day require so much room for the display of their goods, that
they grudge every inch given to the purposes of support, and they would
regard with equal disfavour the columns employed at Cirencester and
the caryatides at Cheltenham.
[Illustration: FIG. 219.--Shop Front at Dorking, Surrey.]
Needless to say, the little old-fashioned shop fronts with small panes
are quite out of the question in the present day, except for a very few
trades. They would fill a modern shop fitter with contempt, yet there
is something quite refreshing about such a front as that at Wareham
(Fig. 218) or that at Dorking (Fig. 219). The outward curve, according
to the simple ideas of the time, brought the goods into prominence, and
when as yet it was unnecessary for rivals to shout each other down,
the modest depth of the frieze was sufficient to display the name and
calling of the occupier. The delicate ornament in the cornice is
in scale with its surroundings, but it would be out of place on the
top of a sheet of plate glass two or three hundred feet in area, or
surmounting a name board with letters two feet high.
[Illustration: FIG. 220.--Houses at Bristol.]
Bristol still retains many interesting old houses, some dating from
the early seventeenth century, and bearing witness to the wealth of
its inhabitants at that period. These are to be found within a short
distance of the quays, where the trade of the town centred. As the
town spread further out more good houses were built, and there are
still to be found in the outlying parts of the old town such houses as
that shown in Fig. 220. It has a handsome, substantial front treated
with more than usual richness; but if the pediments over the windows
and the pilasters were removed, the residue would resemble one of the
ordinary plain brick houses of the time. That is to say, the ornamental
features are merely applied, and have no vital connection with the
structure. The house is set a little way back from the street, thus
leaving a narrow forecourt, which is enclosed by a railing abutting
at each end on a handsome stone pier; two similar piers carry a pair
of elaborate iron gates in the middle of the front. The piers lend an
air of dignity to the whole. In some instances, where a good house was
built in a crowded street, it was set back some sixteen or twenty feet,
thus forming a forecourt; and high walls were built at the sides of the
court from the house up to the street, thus providing screens to mask
the ends of the adjoining houses, which were built on the actual street
front. There is such a case in Eastgate, Gloucester, but the forecourt
is now filled with a shop, above which can be seen the front of the
house and the screen walls. Nearly all our old towns retain relics of
ancient grandeur such as this, but they are gradually disappearing
before the march of modern improvements.
[Illustration: FIG. 221.--Houses in Bedford Square, London,
1780.]
[Illustration: FIG. 222.--Houses in Finsbury Square, London,
_cir._ 1780.]
[Illustration: FIG. 223.--Plan of a London House.]
London, as may well be supposed, has innumerable examples of late
eighteenth-century houses in such districts as Bloomsbury and
Piccadilly. Bedford Square was built about 1780, and presents to
the world some inoffensive, although not very exciting fronts. The
central feature of one side is shown in Fig. 221; there is nothing of
striking originality in its design, but enough to break the monotony
of the general treatment, and give a little interest to this rather
dull though highly respectable square. Contemporary with this is
Finsbury Square, which was laid out by George Dance, the younger,
between 1777 and 1791.[80] A part of it is illustrated in Fig. 222. By
simple expedients the designer has imparted variety to his front, and
has emphasised the principal floor, where, according to custom, the
drawing-room is placed. The difficulty attending on the ornamenting
of a row of houses with architectural features is illustrated here by
the fact that one of the pilasters, which belongs in common to two
houses, has been painted of two colours, which meet in a vertical
line down the whole length of the pilaster--an effect certainly not
contemplated by the architect. All these London houses have their
kitchens in the basement, which is lighted from a sunk area between
the house and the pavement. The plan generally adopted consisted
of two rooms on each floor, one lighted from the front, the other
from the back. Alongside the front room on the ground floor was the
entrance passage, and next to the back room was the staircase, with
its gangway of communication from flight to flight (Fig. 223). On the
first floor the drawing-room occupied the whole of the front, behind
it was a bedroom; the other floors repeated the arrangement. Sometimes
the drawing-room included the space elsewhere devoted to the bedroom,
thus making a large L-shaped room. This plan was used for houses of
fair size and also for artisans’ dwellings; it is still the staple
plan for houses in the long streets which make up the modern extension
of growing towns, with the important exception that the kitchen and
scullery are not in a basement, but on the ground floor, occupying the
back room and the annexe. Of the London examples here illustrated this
arrangement applies only to the houses in Finsbury Square; the others
are double-fronted. It is said to have been brought from Holland with
William III., and this at least is tolerably certain, that no plan of
this type is to be found in any collection of English drawings before
this period, although there are plenty of plans with underground
kitchens and offices. Thorpe has some plans for small houses in the
city, with four rooms on the ground floor, one of which is a kitchen;
he also has a house occupying the space of “three ordinary tenements,”
from which we gather that an ordinary tenement had a frontage of 17 ft.
[Illustration: FIG. 224.--House at the Corner of Stratton
Street, Piccadilly, London.]
The house at the corner of Stratton Street, Piccadilly (Fig. 224),
is typical of many of its contemporaries in London. It is plain
to baldness, the most interesting things about it being the iron
balustrades. This appears to be an early example of that method of
designing which works on the supposition that the various faces of a
building are as distinct in execution as they are on the drawings,
and that a rich treatment of the front need not be continued along
the side, nor even find an echo there, although the side is equally
visible.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century a much plainer and duller
type of house was in vogue than had been the case at the beginning of
the eighteenth. The trend of design had been always in this direction,
always towards a more severe treatment. This severity was endurable in
large buildings where variety could be obtained by a skilful grouping
of the masses, but in rows of small houses, or even in small detached
houses, it resulted in a baldness that can only rouse admiration when
other means of enjoyment are exhausted. Tennyson’s “long unlovely”
street consisted of buildings thus plainly treated. Another cause
of this lack of interest was the erection of houses by speculative
builders and owners. Such houses had of necessity to be cheap, and
where cheapness is the first consideration the amenities of design are
generally the last. Design indeed had lost itself; the traditions which
had been its guides were worn out; in looking for help it appealed for
a time to Greece, and with its assistance planted a copy of the Temple
of Erectheus in St Pancras and of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates
in Regent Street. Upon many a country garden it bestowed a Grecian
temple, set amid winding shrubberies, towards which some heroine of
Jane Austen would steal to indulge her love-sick fancies.
Such pagan architecture eventually roused protests in this Christian
country, and Pugin initiated the Gothic revival. But the consideration
of this development is beyond our present scope, and it is only
mentioned in order to show how completely design had lost its way.
Its last effort in the old paths was to cover in part the plain front
of a small house with a verandah enclosed by trellis-work, in which
originality is still to be found. There is a good example in Finsbury
Circus (Fig. 225), which was built about 1814. Others may be found
in Kennington Park Road (Figs. 226, 227), somewhat more elaborate in
treatment. Kennington Park was at that time a common, and was the place
where malefactors from this part of Surrey expiated their crimes on
the gallows. The progress of civilisation has not only reduced the
number of crimes for which the penalty was paid on Kennington Common,
but has withdrawn the last scene from public gaze. Doubtless, however,
balconies such as these were often crowded by persons eager to watch
the irrevocable punishment of offences now adequately purged by a few
months’ imprisonment.
[Illustration: FIG. 225.--No. 18 Finsbury Circus, London,
1814.]
[Illustration: FIG. 226.--From a House, No. 272 Kennington
Park Road, London.]
[Illustration: FIG. 227.--From a House, No. 282 Kennington
Park Road, London.]
With the improved methods of road making which were adopted at the end
of the eighteenth century, there came greater inducements for citizens
to retire to the suburbs of London after finishing their labours in
town. Probably no great city had such beautiful suburbs as those which
surrounded London a hundred years ago. They were full of fine trees
embowering large houses which stood in their own spacious grounds. But
year by year these remains of the past are disappearing, and their
sites are being covered with dwellings of a humbler kind, towards which
an immense population gravitates every evening. Yet in spite of these
changes there still remain, along most of the great roads which lead
out of London, houses of moderate size dating back to some period of
the eighteenth century or the early years of the nineteenth.
[Illustration: FIG. 228.--House in the High Street, Lewes,
Sussex.]
During the eighteenth century, especially as it grew older, the play
of fancy which marks the work of earlier times diminished more and
more. Consequently less interest attaches to particular features than
was the case in the days of Elizabeth, James, and the Charleses.
Chimneys and parapets had but slight variety, and so also the windows,
for the sash-window has very little elasticity compared with the
mullioned. Baywindows went almost out of fashion, so unyielding were
the sashes with which they would have had to be fitted. In small
houses a bay-window is sometimes to be found, such as those in a house
in the High Street at Lewes, in Sussex (Fig. 228). Chimneys grew
plainer and plainer, and came to be regarded rather as a necessary
evil than as a means of adorning the house. Nearly all those on the
houses illustrated in this chapter are of the simplest character, far
removed, for instance, from that on the north front of Kirby Hall, in
Northamptonshire (Fig. 230), which is part of the work attributed to
Inigo Jones. The dormer window included in the same group is allied
to the Jacobean type, inasmuch as it is in effect part of the wall,
whereas from Webb’s time onwards dormers were part of the roof, and
were susceptible of very little variety of treatment. The stone chimney
from a house at Wansford (Fig. 229, 2) dates from the end of the
seventeenth century, and although much plainer, it is clear that pains
have been taken with its design. So, too, with the four brick examples
in Fig. 229; they are all interesting, though not elaborate. In later
years even the touches which gave these their character were withheld,
and chimney-stacks became mere oblong masses with the scantiest of
caps.
[Illustration: FIG. 229.--EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHIMNEYS.
1. Meopham, Kent.
2. Wansford, Northamptonshire.
3. Sturmer, Essex.
4. Silchester, Hampshire.
5. Bignor, Sussex. ]
[Illustration: FIG. 230.--Chimney and Dormer Window at Kirby
Hall, Northamptonshire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 231.--The Stables, Neville Holt,
Leicestershire.]
Some compensation was afforded, however, by the introduction of the
cupolas or lantern lights which were prevalent during the last half
of the seventeenth century and the first few years of the eighteenth.
There is an interesting drawing of such a feature for Whitehall by
Inigo Jones in the Worcester College collection (Fig. 232). It is
entitled in Jones’s writing--“June 1, 1627, for the Cloke house Whight
hall.” Webb made use of the same kind of feature, and so did Wren and
his contemporaries. There is a fine example on the stables at Neville
Holt, in Leicestershire (Fig. 231), a building of great interest,
possessing doorways of curious seventeenth-century detail; and another
good specimen is at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (Fig. 233). The old hall
was altered about the year 1742, when it was described as “very gloomy
and dark,” and as being “roofed with old Oak Beams, very black & dismal
from y^e Charcoal w^{ch} is burnt in y^e middle of y^e Hall; and over
it in y^e middle of y^e Roof was an old awkward kind of Cupulo to let
out y^e Smoak.”[81] The new cupola was considered, presumably, more
elegant and less awkward than the old one. The reference to the ancient
method of warming the hall by a fire in the middle of the floor is
interesting, as showing how long the old practice lingered in places
where those in authority were averse to change. A further example is
shown in Fig. 234.
[Illustration: FIG. 232.--Clock Turret, Whitehall.
From a Drawing by Inigo Jones, dated 1st June 1627. ]
[Illustration: FIG. 233.--Cupola at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.]
[Illustration: FIG. 234.--Cupola at Caius College, Cambridge.]
While fancy still played a part in the work of local masons, the little
date-stones shown in Fig. 235 were built into some unpretentious houses
in the Midlands; but a hundred years later the diligent pursuit of
correctitude had banished such touches from the work of architects, and
masons had lost the feeling which gave rise to them. They are, however,
quite suggestive, and provide ideas for the perpetuation of the owner’s
name and the date of his work--facts which are of interest in respect
of all buildings. The example from Amersham is rather more ambitious,
but hardly more successful (Fig. 236).
Another feature of interest to be found on many an eighteenth-century
house is the sundial. A specimen from High Wycombe is shown in Fig.
237, but almost every market town, and not a few villages, can produce
examples as good. Sometimes an appropriate sentiment or an apt
quotation was inscribed on the dial, but the number of cases where this
occurs is not quite so great as the literature on the subject would
lead one to suppose. In those days, when no cheap watches were to be
had, when indeed a watch was handed down from one generation to another
as a valuable possession, sundials were of real use, even though they
told none but sunny hours. “The Art of Dialling” was a recognised
branch of polite learning, and an intricate subject it was; dealing not
only with horizontal and vertical dials, but with those which faced
in some other direction than due south. Dial stones may sometimes be
seen with one side brought slightly forward, so that the face is not
quite parallel with the wall in which it is set. This is an expedient
to make the face look due south, in order to simplify the setting out
of the lines. Needless to say that when the sun was relied on to tell
the hour of the day, the introduction of “Summer time” would have been
impossible; for the power to set back the shadow on the dial, as it was
set back on that of Ahaz, has never been given to man.
[Illustration: FIG. 235.--Seventeenth-Century Date-Stones.
1. Bulwick, Northamptonshire.
2. Drayton, Leicestershire.
3. Moulton, Northamptonshire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 236.--Date-Stone from Amersham,
Buckinghamshire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 237.--Sundial from High Wycombe,
Buckinghamshire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 238.--GATE-PIERS AT CANONS ASHBY,
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
Drawn by H. Inigo Triggs.]
[Illustration: FIG. 239.--Wooden Gates, Canons Ashby.]
[Illustration: FIG. 240.--Design for Temple Bar, London, by
Inigo Jones, 1636.
From the Burlington-Devonshire Collection at the R.I.B.A.]
[Illustration: FIG. 241.--Drawing of Gateway by Inigo Jones.]
[Illustration: FIG. 242.--Gate-Piers at Coleshill, Berkshire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 243.--Gate-Piers at St John’s College,
Cambridge.]
[Illustration: FIG. 244.--Gate-Pier at Hampton Court.]
[Illustration: FIG. 245.--GATEWAY AT BURLEY-ON-THE HILL,
RUTLAND.]
[Illustration: FIG. 246.--Lion Lodge, Ince Blundell,
Lancashire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 247.--Gateway at Castor, Northamptonshire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 248.--Gate-Piers at Rundhurst, Sussex.
J. A. Gotch, _del._]