LARGER ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES
1. We have said that the Tudor period was a time of building of big
houses and mansions. Every county in England has some such houses to
show. Many of them were built of =stone=, some partly of =brick and
stone=. Their style shows that the English or old fashion of Gothic
building was dying out. Italian ideas and Italian ornament were
coming into favour. No doubt one reason why so much of the old work
was ruthlessly destroyed was because it was out of fashion. It is
astonishing, even in these days, how much good work is destroyed just
because it has gone out of date. Among the most famous of these houses
we may mention Burleigh House "by Stamford Town", Haddon Hall, and
Knebworth; and, belonging to a rather later date, Hatfield House.
[Illustration: Photo. Photochrom Co., Ltd.
HADDON HALL, FROM THE STEPS (page 163)]
2. For a big house the idea was to build it round a quadrangle. Smaller
houses were in plan very like the half-timbered houses of the yeomen,
only on a larger scale, and more richly ornamented. The hall and its
wings were extended considerably, and, with a handsome porch, formed in
plan a big capital =E=, thus:--
[Illustration]
Some people have thought that this plan was chosen in honour of Queen
Elizabeth, but the truth is that it was the most convenient form,
and fitted in best with the ideas of the time. It had grown up quite
naturally, in the course of many generations, from the simple hall with
the hearth in the middle, the beginnings of which we saw in the huts of
the pit-dwellers.
3. Quite early in the fourteenth century =brick= had begun to come
into use for building, but the first bricks were probably imported
from Flanders. Hull, which had been founded by King Edward I, had many
buildings of brick, and by about the year 1320 it had brick-yards
of its own. Flemish weavers were encouraged to settle in England by
King Edward III, and they used brick in buildings which they set up.
There are a good many houses in the eastern counties and in Kent still
standing, which show Flemish and Dutch ideas.
4. Cardinal Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court is a good specimen of the
brickwork of his time; and all through the reign of King Henry VIII
the chief material used was brick, terra-cotta[13] being employed for
mouldings and ornament. This was chiefly the work of Italian artists,
and they produced also some very beautiful ceilings in plaster-work[14]
for many of their fine houses.
[Illustration: Photo. Photochrom Co., Ltd.
HAMPTON COURT PALACE (page 164)]
5. After King Henry VIII's quarrel with Rome fewer Italians were
employed, and English artists were left to work out these new ideas in
their own way. From about the middle of the sixteenth century the use
of terra-cotta dropped out, and moulded and shaped bricks began to be
used, though stone was used for the more ornamental portions.
6. When we reach the reign of King James I, we find that the leading
architect was Inigo Jones. We do not hear very much of =architects=
during the Middle Ages. The man employed to do the actual work was
allowed to select his own materials and carry out his own ideas pretty
much in his own way. But in the sixteenth century the architect became
a more important person than the craftsman, and the craftsman had to
work according to the pattern and design provided for him.
7. The =Jacobean[15] houses= show that the old English styles of
building were being left behind, and a newer type of house, plainer and
heavier, was taking its place. The Civil War was a very bad time for
architects and craftsmen, but after the Restoration a better time came
to them again.
8. The Great Fire of London, which swept away almost every mediæval
building in the city, gave a great _impetus_, or push forward, to
building. You can quite understand that, with so much building going
on, the work would be somewhat hurried and very much plainer than it
had been. So London became a city of bricks and mortar. Middlesex has
large quantities of good brick-earth; and, though bricks were made
in that county long before the Great Fire, the Great Fire developed
the industry greatly. There was a worthy old Royalist knight of
Hammersmith, Sir Nicholas Crispe, who, after the execution of King
Charles I, went over to Holland, as so many other Royalists did. There
he watched very closely bricks and brick-making, and when he came back
to England he introduced many improvements in the art of brick-making
along the Thames valley.
=Summary.=--Italian ideas gradually were adopted in place of
Gothic. Many of the finest houses, like Burleigh House and Haddon
Hall, belong to this time. The Elizabethan house often took the
form of a letter =E=.
Brick has been used in Hull and in other places on the east coast
from the thirteenth century, but the brick at first was imported
from Flanders. It came into fashion about the time that Cardinal
Wolsey built Hampton Court Palace. Italian artists were much
employed at first, and _terra-cotta_ and _plaster_ were much used.
After the Great Fire of London brick became the chief building
material in London, and the houses became much plainer. Sir
Nicholas Crispe, after the Restoration, introduced many
improvements into brick-making along the Thames valley.