EARLY HOUSES
1. When we go from a big modern manufacturing town into an old town
or village, we cannot help noticing the old buildings, the ancient
churches, the old town-hall, the alms-houses, and the old houses with
their plastered fronts, tiled roofs, and huge chimney-stacks.
2. As years go by, the number of these old houses gets less and less.
In the course of time many of the smaller ones especially, which have
been neglected and allowed to fall into bad repair, become dangerous
to live in. The sanitary inspector and the medical officer of health
condemn them as unfit for human habitation, and the houses are shut
up. Then, perhaps, they stand empty for some years; mischievous boys
throw stones and break the glass left in the queer little windows;
bill-posters paste notices of all kinds on the doors, walls, and
window-shutters; holes are knocked in the plaster, bits of the
woodwork are torn away, chalk-marks are scrawled on the walls, and the
buildings very shortly look disgracefully untidy. Then some day the
"house-breaker" appears on the scene, and the houses, which have stood
for centuries, are cleared away, and modern buildings take their places.
3. Thoughtful people, who know something of the history of the town or
village, are always sorry to see old buildings disappear; because there
is much to be learned from them, and they help us to recall many things
of great value and importance which we very easily lose sight of.
4. But, old as the houses in our streets and villages are, there are
very few of them which date back more than three hundred or three
hundred and fifty years. Most of them only date back to the time of
Queen Elizabeth--the latter part of the sixteenth century.
5. There are, however, a number of fine old houses which have work in
them of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and some people can
point out to you traces of work in some old houses of an earlier date
than that. There is at Lincoln, for instance, a fine old stone house
called "the Jew's House", which was built late in the twelfth century.
But stone houses for ordinary people, both in towns and villages, were
very rare then--wood was the common material. Of course in parts of the
country where stone was plentiful and wood scarce, stone would be very
largely used. For instance, amongst the Cotswolds stone has always
been the handiest material for building walls, and for covering roofs.
[Illustration: Norman Dwelling.--The Jew's House, Lincoln]
6. Nowadays, both in town and country, houses are commonly "bunches of
bricks". The Romans knew how to make bricks or tiles, and in places
near old Roman cities Roman tile is still to be seen, which has been
used up over and over again in the walls of old buildings. The big
tower of St. Alban's Cathedral is built of Roman tiles which had been
used centuries before in the walls of Roman houses in Verulamium. That
tower has been standing as it is now for over 800 years.
7. But in Saxon times the _art_ of brick-making was lost, and Saxons
and Normans, it appears, were quite ignorant of it. There is an old
brick house--Little Wenham Hall, in Suffolk--which is believed to have
been built in the latter part of the thirteenth century. That is the
oldest brick house in England. In the fifteenth century the art of
brick-making had been rediscovered, and it seems to have been imported
from Flanders. The old palace at Hatfield is one of the brick buildings
of this period; but brick did not come much into use until quite a
century later. In the county of Middlesex, where there is found clay
which is very suitable for brick-making, the art was not used to any
great extent till the time of King James I. After the Great Fire of
London, in the year 1666, there was a great demand for bricks, and the
use of that material has quite changed the character of the houses in
our towns and villages.
[Illustration: THE OLD PALACE, HATFIELD (page 84)]
=Summary.=--The oldest buildings in a town are usually the church,
the town-hall, and alms-houses. Most of the houses with gabled
roofs and plastered fronts do not go back farther than the time
of Queen Elizabeth. There are a very few houses older than this:
one at Lincoln, called the Jew's House, dates back to the twelfth
century. Wood was the common material for house-building; but in
_stone districts_, like the Cotswolds, stone took the place of
wood. Brick is now the _ordinary_ material for house-building. The
Romans made and used tiles, but the art was lost. The earliest
_brick_ houses, like Little Wenham Hall in Suffolk, were built
of material brought from Holland. The art of brick-making began
to revive in this country in the fifteenth century, but was not
very extensively practised till after the Great Fire of London, in
1666, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis.