THE LATER MANOR HOUSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
During the fifteenth century a further advance was made in the
amenities of house planning, and although considerable attention was
still paid to defensive precautions, there was nevertheless a great
expansion in accommodation, and a more determined effort towards
obtaining a distinct architectural effect. A certain symmetry of
treatment is almost inherent in architecture. It is to be found in the
early keeps, where the shallow buttresses or piers and the windows are
to a large extent symmetrically placed. But no attempt was made at that
time, nor indeed for some centuries, to give a symmetrical disposition
to the buildings as a whole. Ranges of rooms were either built entirely
new or added to existing buildings as convenience seemed to dictate,
and it has already been observed that this haphazard method of planning
was extravagant and wasteful. In the fifteenth century there was a
noticeable tendency towards symmetry, which easily led in the sixteenth
to that very exact balance of part with part so characteristic of the
Italian manner, which was to exert an overpowering influence on English
designers. Examples of this tendency are to be seen in the beautiful
keep at Warkworth in Northumberland (1435–40, Fig. 45, p. 82); in the
ruins of Kirby Muxloe in Leicestershire, built by Sir William Hastings
about the year 1460 (Figs. 47, 48, pp. 84, 85); and at Cowdray in
Sussex, also built in the later years of the same century.
The endeavour to achieve effect by an ordered grouping of the masses
of a building is a higher proof of architectural skill than merely to
ornament with attractive detail its various parts. Such an attempt,
although not very determined, had been made at Kenilworth in the
closing years of the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth not only
was this idea still further pursued, but a softer and more refined
appearance was given to the detail of ornament. The somewhat gaunt
character which accorded so well with sterner times often gave way to
a pleasant play of fancy, and to that careful and painstaking design
which is observable in the Perpendicular style. Men began to desire to
have fine houses, the fear of damage and destruction was growing less,
and the whole tendency was towards increased refinement. The change
is visible in the great manor house of South Wingfield in Derbyshire,
where there is not only much charming detail, but an obvious attempt to
obtain effect by the handling of masses of building, notably in boldly
projecting the _garde-robes_ and chimney-stacks from the faces of
the walls. Irregularity is still the prevailing characteristic, but
among it may be observed a certain striving after rhythmical treatment.
South Wingfield rivals its more famous neighbour, Haddon, in extent;
but in some respects it is less interesting, inasmuch as it is more
ruinous, and has not the same variety of work to link it up with all
periods from the thirteenth century onwards. Wingfield is practically
all of one date, having been built by Ralph Cromwell, Lord Treasurer
to Henry VI., about 1435–40. A glance at the plan (Fig. 35) shows how
ample the accommodation must have been before the house was destroyed.
There are two large courts, the outer (or southern), formed of barns,
stables, guard-houses and other inferior buildings, the inner (or
northern), of the hall, kitchen, and the chambers occupied by the
family. This arrangement is an advance in classification, and it is one
which controlled the planning of some of the finest of the mansions
of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Here, however, the courts are
irregular in shape and disposition; there is no attempt at symmetry,
nor much at alignment. The outer court is entered at the south-east
corner, and although the gateway to the inner is fairly central, and
is placed almost opposite to the porch of the hall, there is little of
that accuracy of planning which marks the great houses of a hundred and
fifty years later. Some attempt at alignment there is, for standing
in the south court, the eye obtains a vista through the large arch of
the gatehouse, across the north court, through the porch and the doors
beyond, and so on to the distant woods. There is a curious variation
from the customary relation of the great hall and kitchens, caused by
the insertion on the upper floor of a large state apartment between the
hall and the servants’ quarters. This is an arrangement not usually
found either before or after this period. It does not mark the first
step in a new departure. The hall stands on a vaulted undercroft,
and must have been a fine room; it measures 71 ft. 7 in. long by 36
ft. 5 in. wide, and is considerably larger than the hall at Haddon,
which is 43 ft. by 28 ft. It is now roofless and ruinous, but the bay
window (Fig. 36), and porch, which still survive, are fine examples of
late Perpendicular work, as also is the adjacent gable of the state
apartment (Fig. 37). There is nothing to indicate where the hall
fireplace was situated. The probability is that it was in one of the
long side walls, but even as late as a hundred years after this time
fires were sometimes placed upon central hearths, and it may have been
so here.
[Illustration: 35. South Wingfield Manor House, Derbyshire (_cir._
1435–40).
_Ground Plan._
1, 1. Porter.
2. Guardroom.
3. Site of buildings destroyed.
4. Serving-place.
5. Wing traditionally said to have been occupied by Mary, Queen
of Scots.
The state apartments at the west end of the hall were on the
upper floor: on the ground floor were the buttery, passage to
kitchen, &c.]
The apartments devoted to the use of the family, which we should
expect to find at the upper end of the hall (in this case the east
end), did in fact once exist, as may be seen by various indications
on the building itself and the adjacent ground, but they have all been
destroyed, leaving their extent and nature as a matter for conjecture.
They were reached by means of the circular staircase at the north-east
corner of the hall (see plan, Fig. 35), which still retains the
doorways that led into them.
[Illustration: 36. South Wingfield Manor House.
Bay Window of Hall.]
[Illustration: 37. South Wingfield Manor House.
Porch of Great Hall and Gable of State Apartments.]
[Illustration: 38. South Wingfield Manor House.
Undercroft beneath Great Hall.]
The undercroft beneath the hall is one of the finest pieces of work
left (Fig. 38). It is vaulted with heavy stone ribs springing from
columns down the middle, and responds on the walls. The ribs meet
at the summit on large traceried bosses, and the junction of the
ceiling-ribs with the wall-ribs is emphasised in certain cases by
carved grotesques. In spite of the care bestowed upon the work, there
is no reason to suppose that the undercroft was put to noble uses;
it was in all probability merely a cellar and store place. It is
approached from four directions--externally from under the porch, and
through the east wall, whence there is easy access to the north-east
stair-turret: and internally from one of the rooms beneath the state
chamber, and from the bay of the hall (Fig. 39); as the buffet often
stood in the hall bay, this staircase gave easy access for replenishing
the buffet from the cellar. The kitchen department is well supplied
with rooms and with large fireplaces. A straight passage led from the
middle of the lower end of the hall direct to the kitchen. It passed
beneath the state apartment, and along the side of a small room which
was probably the “survaying-place” or serving-room, since the wall is
pierced with two large openings, through which the dishes would be
passed, and thence carried to the hall. The kitchen itself has three
huge fireplaces, in two of which there are ovens. In later years it
became customary to place the ovens in a room by themselves, called the
“pastry.” Some of the walls and fireplaces in this part of the house
are clearly after-insertions, and point to the fact that the original
means of cooking were inadequate for the needs of the large household,
which found accommodation in the long ranges of rooms most of which are
now destroyed.
[Illustration: 39. South Wingfield Manor House.
Interior of Bay Window of Hall; showing Door to Undercroft.]
The wing on the west of the inner court is traditionally assigned to
the use of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was detained in confinement
here from 1569 onwards, under the care of George, sixth Earl of
Shrewsbury, whose ancestor, the second earl, had purchased the estate
from the builder of the house. An interesting light is thrown upon the
sanitary habits of the time by the fact that three weeks after her
installation at Wingfield she fell ill; two physicians deputed by the
Privy Council reported that the sanitary conditions of her quarters
were bad, whereupon her custodian, the Earl of Shrewsbury, retorted
that the evil state of her rooms arose from the uncleanly habits of her
own retinue. There seems to be little doubt that in Elizabeth’s time
the care bestowed upon sanitary arrangements was not nearly so great as
in the preceding centuries. An examination of house plans of the end of
the sixteenth century shows that the isolation of _garde-robes_
or the grouping of them together in separate towers was no longer
carried out; they were often placed with a view to convenience of
access regardless of their unsavoury characteristics. In the case
of the particular complaint at Wingfield, however, the inference is
that they were not sufficiently convenient for the views of Mary’s
household, and yet the west wing, which she is said to have occupied,
is well furnished with _garde-robes_ placed in the large square
projections on this face, two in each on each floor.
The gatehouses have each a large and a small archway (Fig. 40), the
large one for vehicles, the small for foot passengers. This double
archway was now coming into vogue, and was very generally adopted in
gatehouses of the fifteenth century. It indicates, among other things,
that vehicles had come into more general use. Adjoining the outer
gatehouse is a barn, still in excellent preservation, and offering an
interesting example of this kind of building.
Although the accommodation at Wingfield is more elaborate than in
houses of earlier date, it is still rather roughly and unscientifically
thrown together, involving much waste both of space and material.
It is also worthy of note that in spite of its great extent and its
magnificent rooms, the only staircases were the old-fashioned circular
turret stairs of no great diameter. There was indeed as yet no other
fashion to follow, for the ancient newel stair held its own until the
time of Elizabeth, when it was suddenly and without any transitional
form replaced by wide wooden staircases in straight flights. England
has no examples of the magnificent development of circular staircases
which are to be seen in so many of the great châteaux of France.
Wingfield, it is also to be noted, was carefully built for defence.
It stands nearly at the end of a spur of land, and the ground on
three of its sides slopes steeply away, rendering access difficult.
At the north end, where the ground is in part rather flatter, it is
protected by a deep dry moat and a wall. The south side is the most
level, and consequently the outer and inferior court was placed on
this side. Even supposing that an attacking force gained possession
of this court, there was still the mass of its north wing (Fig. 40)
between them and the principal part of the house. The only internal
communication between the two courts was through an exceedingly narrow
doorway leading to a narrow crooked passage. The external walls of the
north court are practically devoid of windows on the ground floor;
those of the hall and adjoining rooms looked out on to a garden which
lay between them and the high wall overhanging the moat. Here, then,
as in other houses, the hall was placed in a secure position, and one
in which it was possible to make use of large windows. That this part
of the house was tolerably secure is proved by the fact that so much
of it remains; for when the place was besieged and captured during the
Civil Wars, it was the south court through which the breach was made
and entrance was effected. It is to the Civil Wars that Wingfield owes
its destruction, for, having caused some trouble to the Parliamentary
forces, it was ordered to be “slighted,” and was so far destroyed as to
be rendered uninhabitable. It passed from the descendants of the Earl
of Shrewsbury, and the hall was for a time patched up as a dwelling.
Subsequently it was further dismantled in order to build a new house at
the foot of the hill. Since then time, as destructive as siege-guns,
has wrought further havoc, for no more than “summer’s honey breath” can
an unprotected building
“hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days.”
But fortunately in recent years the owners have realised this, and have
taken what steps they can to arrest further decay.
[Illustration: 40. South Wingfield Manor House.
The North Side of South Courtyard.]
[Illustration: 41. Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire (_cir._ 1440).]
Another interesting and remarkable house of this period is Tattershall
Castle in Lincolnshire, which was built by the same Lord Treasurer who
built Wingfield. In Elizabeth’s time several of her great officials
built more than one large house, and the fact that Ralph Cromwell did
so in the fifteenth century, seems to indicate that house-building
had already begun to be a pleasure for the great and wealthy, and
was not merely undertaken of necessity. It is difficult to say for
certain how large the house at Tattershall was originally, or of what
its accommodation consisted. There are considerable remains of walls
extending over a large area, but the only habitable portion left, if we
except the small house now occupied by the caretaker, is the splendid
brick tower built after the fashion of a luxurious keep. The reversion
to the earlier type is curious, and it seems tolerably certain that,
whatever the buildings may have been which have disappeared, the tower
was the chief part of the house (Fig. 41). It rises sheer from the
ground to a vast height--some 120 ft. to the top of the turrets, and
more than 100 ft. to the battlements. It can only be called “vast”
speaking in terms of English architecture of the time; dwellers in
American cities of to-day where buildings soar to 400 ft., would regard
it as puny. It contained, in addition to the cellar, four lofty storeys
(of which the second and third are shown on Fig. 42), and above them a
flat roof with a rampart walk. Each floor consisted of one large room
about 38 ft. by 22 ft., supplemented by small chambers in three of the
turrets, and by one or two others in the walls, which are some 12 ft.
thick. There are _garde-robes_ on each floor (except the first)
and on the battlements; each of the large rooms has a fireplace, and
access from floor to floor is obtained by a circular staircase, 10 ft.
in diameter. The rooms are approached from the stairs through vaulted
lobbies, and on the third floor through a long vaulted passage in the
thickness of the wall.
[Illustration: 42. Tattershall Castle.
Plans of Second and Third Storeys.]
[Illustration: 43. Tattershall Castle.
The Staircase.]
The accommodation is of much the same character and extent as in the
early keeps, and although the windows are larger, there are but three
two-light windows to the large rooms, except to that on the ground
floor, which has four. The workmanship is excellent. The passages and
window-recesses are vaulted in brick and are adorned with many shields
of arms, as also are the chimney-pieces. Everything tends to show
that the amenities of life were respected, and it is not a little odd
that so much care should have been spent upon the embellishment of a
dwelling which, although lordly in character, must have been gloomy and
uncomfortable, much more so than the spacious manor house at Wingfield.
It is, of course, possible that among the buildings which have
disappeared, there may have been more commodious and cheerful rooms,
but there is no record of them; and it is clear from the amount of care
spent upon the tower, that it was intended for ordinary occupation.
The jambs of the doors and windows and the tracery of the latter, as
well as the machicolations and the coping of the parapet, are all of
stone; so too are the chimney-pieces. But the walls are of brick, and,
as already mentioned, so is the vaulting of the passages; the whole
work being a curious mixture of wrought stone and brick. The brick
staircase has stone steps and a stone handrail built into the wall
(Figs. 43, 44).
[Illustration: 44. Tattershall Castle.
The Stone Handrail.]
The whole place is an interesting example of a reversion to out-of-date
arrangements leading back to the past, combined with a desire for
beautiful embellishment which points the way to the magnificence which
was to become prevalent in the future.
Another interesting mixture of the ancient and the modern is to be seen
at Warkworth Castle in Northumberland. This was a very old foundation
retaining much early work in its walls and gatehouse, but about the
same time when the Lord Treasurer was building Wingfield, _i.e._,
1435–40, one of the Percies, Henry, the son of Hotspur, rebuilt the
keep at Warkworth. It stands on a steep mound at one end of the castle
enclosure, overlooking the little town (Fig. 45). It is planned in the
form of a large square with a great bay projecting from the middle of
each side, and within this symmetrical outline are ingeniously packed
all the rooms which then went to compose a complete house (Fig. 46).
It has cellars and a great hall, with buttery and kitchens at one
end, while from the other, access is obtained to the chapel and great
chamber. On the same floor, occupying odd spaces where they could be
contrived, are a few smaller rooms suitable for bedrooms. Numerous
small staircases, mostly circular, but some comprised of straight
runs in the thickness of the walls, lead up and down in a bewildering
fashion. In the centre of the building is an open shaft giving a
modicum of light and air to the adjacent rooms. The whole building
is a triumph of ingenuity, but a glance at the plan shows that the
lighting must have been bad; the great hall, for instance, has only two
windows on an outside wall (one being over the fireplace), and one,
almost valueless, into the central shaft; the kitchen has but one. It
is not therefore surprising to find that after some thirty years had
elapsed, a new great hall and kitchen were erected on another part of
the castle close. Most of these latter buildings have perished, but
enough remains to show that this second hall had the large windows of
the late Perpendicular period, and must consequently have been a far
more cheerful apartment than anything in the keep.
[Illustration: 45. Warkworth Castle, Northumberland.
The Keep (_cir._ 1435–40).]
[Illustration: 46. Warkworth Castle, Northumberland.
Plan of the Keep.
1. Vestibule (leading from entrance in basement).
2. Hall.
3. Chapel.
4. Great chamber.
5. Kitchens.
6. Pantry and buttery.]
The “worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,” as Rumour designates Warkworth
Castle in the Second Part of King Henry IV., hardly deserves that
description so far as the keep is concerned, for the stonework is in
a state of excellent preservation, and the lion of the Percies is
still rampant in full vigour high up on the wing facing the town. The
view (Fig. 45) indicates how careful the builders were to place no
large windows near the ground, while showing at the same time that
they paid great attention to the appearance and careful execution
of their design. The side illustrated faces into the castle yard,
where most secure from attack, and is more cheerfully lighted than
those which face the town. It is obvious in all these illustrations
of fifteenth-century buildings that the old haphazard methods are
gradually giving way to a desire for more rhythmical arrangement.
[Illustration: 47. Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire (_cir._ 1460).
Plans of remaining Buildings.]
One of the last houses to be built with any serious intention to have
it strongly fortified must have been the “Castle” at Kirby Muxloe
in Leicestershire, of which some interesting ruins remain. It was
surrounded by a moat, and had a gateway protected by a drawbridge, a
portcullis, and two projecting towers (Fig. 47). The recess into which
the drawbridge fitted when drawn up, is plainly visible (Fig. 48) as
are the holes in the wall through which the chains worked. When thus
elevated it completely closed the gateway. Behind it was the portcullis
which slid up and down in a groove. There is a recess in the wall
of the room over the gateway into which it fitted when raised. The
projecting towers are furnished with circular openings of about 6 in.
diameter for the purpose of admitting the muzzle of a cannon, thus
replacing the long vertical openings or oillets which were in vogue
when arrows were the principal missiles. There are not many examples
of such provision for the use of artillery, but among them may be
mentioned Hurstmonceux Castle in Sussex, of about the same date.
[Illustration: 48. Kirby Muxloe. The Entrance Gateway.]
The remains are not extensive, but they are enough to show that the
building was arranged with strict symmetry round a courtyard (Fig. 49);
another curious instance of the mixture of ancient methods of defence
with modern effort after architectural effect. The chief material
employed is brick, but the dressings are of stone with bold, simple
mouldings. Ornament is very sparingly introduced; there are indications
of diaper work in darker bricks, and these are also employed to trace a
heraldic maunch in the walls of the towers, this being the cognizance
of the Sir William Hastings who built the castle about the year 1460.
Owing to its ruinous condition the place throws but little light on the
domestic arrangements of the times. The gatehouse was clearly occupied
by the guards; the corner tower evidently contained living rooms; both
buildings are well supplied with latrines, or _garde-robes._
In all probability the great hall stood in the side opposite to the
entrance. The chief interest of the house lies in its symmetrical plan
and in its well-marked means of defence.
[Illustration: 49. Kirby Muxloe.
Block Plan.]
With the close of the fifteenth century the necessity for anything like
strong fortification disappeared; a new era was approaching in which
men were to build for pleasure, comfort, cheerfulness, magnificence.
The dark ages were past, the Renaissance was at hand. This, therefore,
will be a convenient point at which to break off for a time the
story of the growth of the house, and turn our attention to some of
the features which lend interest to such dwellings as we have been
considering.