ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES--EXTERIORS.
The characteristic feature of Elizabethan and Jacobean houses is the
square-headed mullioned windows (see Fig. 110). Previous to the time
of Elizabeth, the plain square head hardly ever occurs; it is always
pointed. Down to the end of the fifteenth century it was usually cusped
(see Fig. 66). In the early part of the sixteenth century, that is, in
Tudor houses, it became flat pointed and the cuspings disappeared. This
form lingered on until it was superseded by the square head. It may,
however, be found in a few instances as late as the second decade in
the seventeenth century, but the cases are not many.
The use of the bay window was greatly developed in Elizabethan and
Jacobean times. It was, as already stated, frequently utilised as one
of the most important architectural features of a façade. This may be
observed on some of Thorpe’s plans (Figs. 99, 100, 104), in Kip’s view
of Longleat (Fig. 107), as well as in nearly all the illustrations
given of the houses of this period (see Figs. 116, 119, 124, 125,
126). Besides the simple and dignified forms which were chiefly used,
there were a few cases in which the plan was more complicated, and in
which it took one shape on the ground floor and another on the floor
above. Thorpe has several instances of this quaint treatment; an actual
example exists at Thornbury Castle (Fig. 108) where the result is not
very happy. A more successful attempt was made at Sir Paul Pindar’s
house in Bishopsgate Street, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum
(Fig. 109). Here the different planes of the straight lights combined
with the circular projection in the middle, the busy pattern of the
glazing, and the carved panels, produce an extremely rich effect.
[Illustration: 107. Longleat House, Wiltshire (_cir._ 1550–80),
Kip’s View.]
[Illustration: 108. Bay Window at Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire.]
Another characteristic of the Elizabethan house is the employment
of the classic cornice. In Gothic buildings the horizontal
“string-course,” or projecting moulding of stone, was very frequently
used. It served to bind the design together and to give it unity and
coherence. It was usually of small depth and slight projection. But
with the invasion of Italian fashions, came the Italian profiles of
stonework, and the string-courses of the old days were replaced by
cornices, more elaborate in section, of greater depth and greater
projection. The old thin string-courses were not entirely abandoned,
but they received a slightly different section, more in harmony than
the old forms with the new classic profiles. Pilasters were also
introduced with the cornices, and some of the grander buildings were
adorned with several of the “orders” placed one over the other.
In time it became “correct” to use the Doric order on the first
storey, the Ionic on the second, and the Corinthian on the third.
These pilasters were generally of no practical use: they were merely
ornamental features, and were sometimes carried up not with a view
to supporting a crowning cornice, but to finish with a finial--a
heraldic animal or what-not--altogether out of scale with what it
stood on. Such pilasters and cornices were never employed previous to
the reign of Henry VIII., and did not come into general use until the
time of Elizabeth. The courtyard at Kirby Hall is furnished with them
(Fig. 110); nevertheless, however wrong they may be judged from the
academic stand-point, it cannot be denied that they materially help the
composition, and combine with the many lights of the mullioned windows
to produce a picturesque and romantic effect.
[Illustration: 109. Window from Sir Paul Pindar’s House, Bishopsgate.
_Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: 110. Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire.
A Corner of the Courtyard (1575).]
[Illustration: 111. Tudor Chimneys from Aston Bury, Herts.]
[Illustration: 112. Tudor Chimneys from Droitwich, Worcestershire.
(Now destroyed.)]
[Illustration: 113. Pilton Manor House, Northamptonshire. (Now the
Rectory.)]
The chimneys of Elizabethan houses are far simpler than those of Tudor
times. It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that chimneys assumed their
most elaborate forms, whether in stone or brick. They were twisted,
counter-twisted, minutely panelled, or surrounded by spiral bands of
various profiles (Figs. 111, 112), with a profusion of complication
that must have taxed the skill of the craftsman of the time, as it
certainly does the skill of the draughtsman of to-day. But with the
more “regular” feeling which came with Italian detail, this excessive
play of fancy died out, and chimneys became simpler in their design,
often consisting merely of straight shafts standing on a good base
and covered with an ample cap (Fig. 106). Sometimes this plain form
was Italianised into a complete column with its appropriate base and
cap, and crowned with a short length of the corresponding classic
entablature. But whatever form their detail may have taken, the
designers of the time ordinarily used the mass of their chimneys as an
important architectural feature. They grouped two or three fireplaces
together, carried up a great stack of stone or brickwork, and placed
their flues in single shafts upon it, thus combining solidity below
with a pleasing lightness against the sky.
[Illustration: 114. Sydenham House, Devonshire (_cir._ 1600).]
In the larger houses these various features--mullioned windows,
cornices, pilasters, and chimneys--were used with a lavish hand. The
mullioned windows of many lights were framed in pilasters furnished
with their appropriate pedestals, bases, and caps; at every floor
level a great entablature with architrave, ornamental frieze, and far
projecting cornice made the circuit of the building: above all rose the
gables, often straight of outline, but not infrequently fashioned into
graceful curves; from gable to gable extended a balustraded parapet;
at due intervals along the walls projected great chimney-stacks
carrying slender shafts separated from each other by narrow spaces of
daylight. The whole was a serious and determined effort at design,
widely different from the simple and often fortuitous arrangement of a
mediæval house, where the various parts, beautiful though they were in
themselves, were not coordinated in the same resolute manner.
In the smaller houses effort was not so conspicuous. The designers
drew upon the same sources for their effects--mullioned windows,
classic string-courses, steep gables, and fine chimney-stacks--but they
were more modest in their use of them, and refrained from employing
pilasters, except perhaps to a doorway. Between the simplicity of the
small manor house and the magnificence of the nobleman’s mansion lay
every degree of elaboration, and a series of examples might be brought
together forming a continuous _crescendo_ from a squire’s home
like Pilton Manor house in Northamptonshire (Fig. 113), through such
houses as Sydenham in Devonshire (Fig. 114), or Moyns Park in Essex
(Fig. 115), up to splendid mansions like the home of the younger branch
of the Cecils at Hatfield (Fig. 116).
[Illustration: 115. Moyns Park, Essex.]
[Illustration: 116. Hatfield House, the North Front (1611).]
[Illustration: 117. Derwent Hall, Derbyshire.]
Moyns Park has a special interest, inasmuch as it is one of the fairly
numerous cases in which a house of the first half of the sixteenth
century was superseded by a finer one in the second half. Here the
low, gabled, half-timber building is of the earlier date, and the lofty
one, with its row of fine brick chimneys, is of the later. There could
hardly have been forty years between the two buildings; the earlier has
some excellent detail, especially on the long front not shown in the
illustration: it was a fine house of its kind; and yet such was the
passion for new houses that it was soon superseded by its loftier and
more monumental neighbour.
The general appearance of houses of this time may be gathered from
the illustrations, which comprise examples from various districts
of England, and serve to show, among other things, that the same
treatment was adopted over the whole country, varied according to local
circumstances. Where stone was abundant, the houses were of stone,
with more or less elaborate detail according to the hardness of the
material. On the great beds of easily worked Oolite which stretch
from Somerset and Wiltshire through Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire
and Northamptonshire into Lincolnshire, the work is often both rich
and delicate, and has acquired through time and weather a soft grey
tint enlivened by the partial incrustation of many-hued lichens. In
Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire where the stone is much harder,
the work is of a plainer and more severe type, such as may be seen at
Derwent Hall (Fig. 117), and the colour is more sombre. In the eastern
counties brick is frequently the chief material, with stone where
wrought detail is required, such as quoins, cornices, parapets, and
pilasters. Felbrigge Hall in Norfolk (Fig. 118), probably built by
Thomas Windham, who died in 1653 at the age of eighty-two, is a good
example. In some instances where stone was not easily to be had, the
detail which would otherwise have been in that material, was worked in
plaster to imitate it.
[Illustration: 118. Felbrigge Hall, Norfolk.
(Early 17th cent.)]
[Illustration: 119. Marton Hall, Cheshire. (Now destroyed.)]
In the western counties timber and plaster were freely used; Cheshire,
Lancashire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire afford the finest and
most ornamental examples of this method of construction, while Kent,
Surrey, and Sussex in the south have a fair amount of plainer work
of the same kind. In these houses the main walls are formed of stout
timber framed together, with the interstices filled in with lath and
plaster. The structural timbers are left visible; most of them are
vertical, but they are braced together at intervals by horizontal
timbers, and are occasionally further strengthened by sloping struts.
This framework itself makes a pleasing pattern and satisfies the eye as
to the strength and stability of the fabric. The timbers are always of
large scantling, and are nearly equal in their total area to the spaces
that are left between them. These characteristics are common to all
the examples illustrated (Figs. 119–123). But whereas in the southern
counties, and to a great extent in Worcestershire, the designers
were satisfied to leave their work in this simple form, in Lancashire,
and more particularly in Cheshire, they added interest and richness to
the effect by placing curved braces within some of the panels, thus
producing patterns of more or less intricacy. Variations in the shape
of the curves resulted in variations of pattern, and the variety of
effects thus obtained is quite remarkable. A simple example is Marton
Hall, near Congleton, now destroyed (Fig. 119); a more elaborate one
is the well-known Little Moreton Hall in the same district. But the
finest specimen of a half-timber house is Bramhall Hall, near Stockport
(Fig. 120), which is not only quaint and picturesque, but in places
approaches as near to stateliness as such homely materials allow.
Lancashire at one time fell little short of Cheshire in attractive
examples, but before the constant spread of its manufacturing
centres they are rapidly disappearing. Throughout large districts of
Worcestershire such black-and-white houses as that at Shell Farm (Fig.
121) may be seen. They are quite simple, but they give a cheerful
aspect to the countryside, especially when the spring time surrounds
them with bright green foliage and the pink and white blossoms of the
orchards. In Sussex and Kent the use of half-timber work was not so
general, nor was there nearly as much play of fancy as in Cheshire,
the design being seldom of more elaborate character than that at
Sedlescombe (Fig. 122) and Brad Street (Fig. 123).
[Illustration: 120. Bramhall Hall, near Stockport, Cheshire.]
[Illustration: 121. Shell Farm, near Droitwich, Worcestershire.]
[Illustration: 122. The Manor House, Sedlescombe, Sussex.]
[Illustration: 123. House at Brad Street, Kent.]
In Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, too, occurs in its perfection the quaint
and picturesque custom of hanging external walls with tiles, the
relative softness of which is favourable to the growth of lichens, and
results in those brilliant bits of colour so dear to the water-colour
sketcher. Every district has its own character, and the wise man will
enjoy each in turn; no more expecting to find the brilliance of Surrey
among the greys of Northamptonshire, than lamenting the absence of the
soft tones of the Midlands among the wild moorlands of the North.
One great charm of the houses of this period is their marvellous
variety of treatment, although nearly always subject to a symmetrical
arrangement and a general similarity of plan. A central porch between
projecting wings of greater or less length is almost universal,
although there are not a few instances of square houses, such as
Felbrigge (Fig. 118) or Heath Hall (Fig. 124). The windows, too, are
practically always composed of numerous rectangular lights. But some
houses had turrets; some had gables either straight or curved; some
had flat lead-covered roofs as at Longleat, Quenby in Leicestershire
(Fig. 125), or Temple Newsam in Yorkshire; and some combine both
treatments, as at Gayhurst in Buckinghamshire (Fig. 126). This house
is said to have been built by a Mulsho in 1597, and to have been
much improved a few years afterwards by William Mulsho. This double
period of building may, perhaps, account for the combination of the
flat roofs and the gables. It subsequently passed by marriage to
Everard Digby, and is one of the innumerable places where, tradition
says, the Gunpowder Plot was hatched. There was a marked desire for a
picturesque sky-line, which led, in some flat-roofed houses like Heath
Hall, Barlborough in Derbyshire, and Hatfield House (Fig. 116), to the
carrying up of bay windows to form turrets above the parapet. Chimneys
were most frequently taken up in separate flues, but occasionally in
solid stacks. Parapets were sometimes solid as at Gayhurst and Quenby;
more frequently balustraded as at Longleat, and occasionally formed
of stone letters making a sentence. Felbrigge Hall has a short one,
“Gloria Deo in excelsis”; Temple Newsam in Yorkshire and Castle Ashby
in Northamptonshire bear long sentences which make almost the complete
circuit of the roofs.
[Illustration: 124. Heath Hall, near Wakefield Yorkshire.
(Early 17th cent.)]
[Illustration: 125. Quenby Hall, Leicestershire (_cir._ 1620).]
[Illustration: 126. Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire (1597 and later).]
[Illustration: 127. Entrance Gateway at West Burton, Sussex.]
[Illustration: 128. Brome Hall, Suffolk (_cir._ 1580).]
Every house of any importance was surrounded with some kind of lay-out.
The external courtyard, which originated from a desire for protection,
was converted into a place of pleasure or state, yet still retaining
the advantage of preventing unrestricted access. Small manor houses,
such as that at Cold Ashton in Somerset, or Eyam Hall in Derbyshire,
had at least a walled garden in front with a terrace approached up a
flight of steps. Large houses had several courts in front, which had
each to be traversed in turn before the front door was reached, as well
as side courts and walled gardens. Many of them had a small entrance
archway in the wall of the courtyard, generally of simple design, but
imparting a touch of interest and romance to an otherwise unpretentious
home, as is the case at West Burton in Sussex (Fig. 127). Nearly all
these characteristic adjuncts have now been cleared away from our
English houses, to their grievous detriment; and it has been remarked
that had we but retained the shelter of our ancient garden walls, we
should be under much less necessity to seek the warmth of the Riviera
during the cold winds of spring. No better idea of the ancient aspect
of Jacobean houses can be gained than from the views of Knyff and Kip;
and although the accuracy of every detail cannot be guaranteed, there
can be no doubt that the general disposition is fairly true to the
facts. At Brome Hall in Suffolk (Fig. 128) the approach to the entrance
front is across at least two courts, and if the outermost enclosure
is anything more than the end of an avenue, there would be three.
The other fronts are surrounded with walled gardens which extend a
considerable distance on every side, and are backed up by plantations
and a wide avenue. The house itself is plain in character, depending
for its effect largely upon its symmetrical arrangement. There is a
certain amount of richness about the porch and the tower over it;
elsewhere the prominent chimney-stacks and the dormer windows are the
dominating features. It will be observed that the sides of the first
garden court (beyond the avenue) are formed of subsidiary buildings,
the range on the left being one side of the stable court. It was quite
customary to give architectural importance to the principal approach
by means of inferior buildings, which in the present day are kept
out of observation. At Longleat (Fig. 107) the lay-out is confined
to three sides of the house; the approach lies along a raised paved
walk. The “regular” and symmetrical fronts, which here also depend
upon bay windows for their interest, enclose buildings which are less
severely treated and which blossom out into many turrets. Much of this
inside work is of somewhat earlier date, for Longleat was the result
of several different building efforts which extended over a period of
about thirty years, and concluded about 1580. In these descriptions it
is Kip’s views which are referred to, not the present buildings, which
have in most cases undergone alterations, especially in respect of
their lay-outs.
[Illustration: 129. Plan of the Lay-out of Lord Exeter’s House and
Garden at Wimbledon, 1609.
_From the Smithson Collection._]
[Illustration: 130. Powis Castle, Wales.]
The grand period of garden design was to come later, in the early years
of the eighteenth century, at the time when Knyff and Kip published
their book. But if proof were wanted that the later draughtsman did
not invent the elaborate surroundings of his houses, it is to be found
among the Smithson drawings which were made in the first quarter of
the seventeenth century. There are several plans of lay-outs in the
collection, the most notable being the survey of Wimbledon House,
made in 1609 (Fig. 129). This was a Cecil house, having been built in
the year 1588 by either Lord Burghley or his son, afterwards Earl of
Exeter. It stood on the edge of a high hill with a splendid prospect
towards the north. The steepness of the ground on this side led to
the formation of two courts, approached by fine flights of steps,
and leading to a terrace off which the front door opened. Behind the
house, to the south, lay the great garden, and on the east was a small
sunk garden, called in later years the Orange garden. Smithson’s notes
indicate the principal features: a banqueting house, hedges of thorn
and quick-set cut very finely, quarters set with knots of flowers, rows
of cherry trees, rows of lime trees, “both for shade and sweetness,”
and various orchards. Here again we have striking evidence of how far
we have travelled from the enclosures which surrounded the castles of
two centuries earlier, even the largest, such as Kenilworth.
Everything, indeed, points to the new delight which people were taking
in their homes; how they loved not only fine houses but fine gardens,
seizing upon every change of level to introduce a terrace, and charmed
with any opportunity to form a handsome flight of steps, such as that
at Heath Hall (Fig. 124), or Powis Castle in Wales (Fig. 130). It is
quite clear that the days were past when men merely ornamented what
was essential to safety: they now revelled in their freedom from
restriction, and indulged themselves in attractive design for its own
sake.