Chapter V: Part 5

In the time of Elizabeth and James I. were erected many mansions upon splendid and extensive scales. John Thorpe built five palaces for Elizabeth's ministers: for Lord Burghley, Theobalds and Burghley; Wimbledon, for Sir Robert Cecil; Hollenby and Kirby, for Lord Chancellor Hatton; and Buckhurst for the Earl of Dorset. Thorpe also built for Sir Walter Cope, Holland House, Kensington, about 1606, which received its name from Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, by whom the mansion was greatly altered. Its plan is that of half the letter H, of deep red brick, with pilasters and their entablature; the window dressings, and coping, of stone. Few of the apartments retain their original character; some of the interior is supposed to be by Inigo Jones. The gilt room is by Cleyn, an artist largely employed by James I. and Charles I.; the figures over the fireplace are worthy of Parmegiano, and here is a very fine collection of modern busts.

Burghley, Northamptonshire, has the rare fortune of remaining to this time the seat of the descendants of the great Lord Burghley, for whom the mansion was built; the present noble owner being the Marquis of Exeter: in approaching it from Stamford, its singular chimneys, the variety of its turrets, towers, and cupolas, and the steeple of its chapel rising from its centre, give it the appearance more of a small city than a single building.

Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, which has been a palace, episcopal, royal, and noble, for upwards of seven centuries, was mostly built by Thorpe, in 1611. The old palace was of the twelfth century: here is the chamber in which the Princess Elizabeth was kept for some time a state prisoner; and in the present mansion, Charles I. was confined. In plan, Hatfield is in the form of half the letter H: each front differs from the other, but in unity of design the Tudor period is remarkably prevalent, and it is believed that no house in the kingdom erected at so early a date, remains so entire as this.

A stately mansion of this period was erected at Campden, in Gloucestershire, at an expense of 29,000_l_.; it occupied eight acres, was of splendid architecture, and had a large dome rising from the roof, which was illuminated nightly for the guidance of travellers. Campden was burnt during the Civil War.

Haddon Hall, near Bakewell, in Derbyshire, erected at various periods, affords excellent examples of the several styles of domestic architecture, from the early pointed, to the Tudor and Elizabethan. It was originally a barton, or farm, given by William the Conqueror to his natural son, William Peverell. The mansion is preserved intact: the tapestry and paneling remain; the carved wainscoting and ornamented ceiling of the long gallery are of the time of Elizabeth; the banqueting-hall is equally perfect; the chapel is a good specimen of the early Pointed Gothic. Haddon is one of the curiosities of the Peak country. Many years since Mr. Reinagle painted a picture of this famous old place, which evoked the following poetical tribute to its truthfulness:--

"Gre weeds o'ertop thy ruin'd wall,
Grey, venerable Haddon Hall;
The swallow twitters through thee:
Who would have thought, when, in their pride,
Thy battlements the storm defied,
That Time should thus subdue thee?

"While with a famed and far renown
England's third Edward wore the crown,
Up sprang'st thou in thy glory;
And surely thine (if thou couldst tell,
Like the old Delphian Oracle)
Would be a wondrous story.

"How many a Vernon thou hast seen,
Kings of the Peak thy walls within;
How many a maiden tender;
How many a warrior stem and steel'd,
In burganet, and lance, and shield,
Array'd with martial splendour.

"Then, as the soft autumnal breeze
Just curl'd the lake, just stirr'd the trees,
In the blue cloudless weather,
How many a gallant hunting train,
With hawk in hood, and horse in rein,
Forsook thy courts together!

"The grandeur of the olden time
Mounted thy towers with pride sublime,
Enlivening all who near'd them;
From Hippocras and Sherris sack
Palmer or pilgrim turn'd not back
Before thy cellars cheer'd them.

"Since thine unbroken early day,
How many a race hath pass'd away,
In charnel vault to moulder--
Yet Nature round thee breathes an air
Serenely bright, and softly fair,
To charm the awed beholder.

"The past is but a gorgeous dream,
And Time glides by us like a stream,
While musing on thy story;
And sorrow prompts a deep alas!
That, like a pageant thus, should pass
To wreck all human glory."

It is now time to speak more in detail of the main apartment--the chief feature of an ancient residence of every class--the Great Hall, which often gave its name to the whole house. A very able writer has thus lucidly yet briefly told its history:--"In the early houses, the hall is almost the whole house; there is nothing besides, except the requisite offices and a room or two for the lord and the lady. The mass of the household slept how they might in the hall. Gradually, as civilization increased, the accommodation in a house became greater, and the relative importance--sometimes the positive size--of the Hall gradually diminishes. The family gradually deserted it, and the modern luxury of the dining-room was introduced. The _with_drawing-room, that into which they withdrew from the hall, had already appeared. At last, in the sixteenth century, the Hall, though still a grand feature, became, as now, a mere entrance, often with rooms over it."

Sometimes, the Great Hall was raised upon an undercroft of stone vaulting, as we see in the Guildhall, the undercroft of which is the finest specimen of its class in the metropolis. Gerard's Hall, in Basing-lane, built by John Gisors, pepperer, Mayor of London in 1245, and is described by Stow as "a great house of old time, builded upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Cane, in Normandy."

Aubrey, writing in the seventeenth century, thus describes, in his quaint way, the characteristics of the old manorial or hall houses of the times of the Plantagenets and Tudors: "The architecture of an old English gentleman's house (especially in Wiltshire and thereabouts) was a high strong wall, a gate-house, a Great Hall, and parlours, and within the little green court, where you come in, stood on one side the _barne_. _They then thought not the noise of the threshold ill musique._"

To come to details. The Great Hall corresponded to the refectory of the abbey. The principal entrance to the main building, from the front or outer court, opened into a _thorough lobby_, having on one side several doors or arches, leading to the buttery,[33] kitchen, and domestic offices; on the other side, the Hall, parted off by a screen, generally of wood, elaborately carved, and enriched with shields and a variety of ornaments, and pierced with several arches, having folding-doors. Above the screen, and over the lobby, was the minstrels' gallery; on its front were usually hung armour, antlers, and similar memorials of the family exploits.

The Hall itself was a large and lofty room, in the shape of a parallelogram; the roof, the timbers of which were framed with pendants, generally richly carved and emblazoned with arms, formed one of the most striking features. "The top beam of the Hall," in allusion to the position of his coat-of-arms, was a symbolical manner of drinking the health of the master of the house. At the upper end of the apartment, furthest from the entrance, the floor was usually raised a step, and this part was styled the _daïs_, or high place. On one side of the daïs was a deep embayed window, reaching nearly down to the floor; the other windows ranged along one or both sides of the Hall, at some height above the ground, so as to leave room for wainscoting, or arras, below them. We see this arrangement to great advantage in the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace, where the wall beneath the windows is hung with Flemish tapestry, in eight compartments, the arabesque borders of which are very beautiful; the subject is the History of Abraham. The tapestry at the entrance of the Hall is of much earlier date, being in the school of Albert Durer: the subject, Justice and Mercy pleading before Kings or Judges. The withdrawing-room is also hung with tapestry, the subjects mostly mythological; and the oriel-window is filled with armorial stained glass.

The Hall windows generally were enriched with stained glass, representing the armorial bearings of the family, their connexions, and royal patrons; and between the windows were hung full-length portraits of the same persons. The windows were not, however, permanently glazed till the fifteenth century. Before that, it was the custom for the glazed casements to be carried about from manor to manor along with the other furniture; every man of rank, whether civil or ecclesiastical, was in the habit of travelling with all his retinue, from one estate to another, so as to consume the produce of each estate upon the spot. It is this custom, or rather necessity, which explains the multitude of manorial houses possessed by every mediæval magnate, and the constant migrations from one to the other. Royal writs and documents are frequently dated from the most insignificant places where the court, on its progress from one royal manor to another, might happen to be staying.[34]

To return to the Hall. The Royal arms usually occupied a conspicuous station at either end of the room. The head-table was laid for the lord and principal guests on the raised place, parallel with the upper end wall; and other tables were ranged along the sides for inferior visitors and retainers. Tables, thus placed, were said to stand _banquet-wise_. In the centre of the Hall was the rere-dosse, or fire-iron, against which fagots were piled, and burnt upon the stone floor, the smoke passing through an aperture in the roof immediately overhead, which was generally formed into an elevated lantern, a conspicuous ornament to the exterior of the building. In later times, a wide-arched fireplace was formed in the wall on one side of the room.

The Halls, in fact, of our colleges, at either University, and the Inns of Court, still remain as in Aubrey's time, accurate examples of the ancient and baronial and conventual Halls: preserving not merely their original form and appearance, but the identical arrangement and service of the table. Even the central fire has been, in some instances, kept up, being of charcoal, burnt in a large braziere, in lieu of the rere-dosse. The open fire was so kept up, at Westminster School, so late as 1850. The Halls of the temple, Gray's Inn, and Staple Inn, have their lanterns; and even the Hall of Barnard's Inn, the oldest and the smallest, has its lantern; the newly built Hall of Lincoln's Inn has a very ornamental one; and the new roof of the Guildhall is to have a lantern with a lofty spire. The lantern of Westminster Hall is large and picturesque; it is modern, of cast-iron, but is an exact copy of the original one, erected near the end of the fourteenth century. As the existing lanterns are no longer required for the egress of smoke, they are glazed.

In other respects, probably, little, if anything, has been altered since the Tudor era; and he who is anxious to know the mode in which our ancestors dined in the reigns of the Henrys and Edwards, may be gratified by attending that meal in the Great Halls of Christchurch or Trinity, and tasking his imagination to convert the principal and fellows at the upper table, into the stately baron, his family, and guests; and the gowned commoners at the side-tables, into the liveried retainers. The service of the kitchen, buttery, and cellar is conducted, at the present day, precisely according to the ancient custom.[35]

Gradually, the solar or private sitting-room of the matron or mistress of the house increased in importance. Its most usual position was at one end of the Hall, on an upper level, raised above an apartment which was used as a cellar or a store-room.

The Hall is, of course, the part of a house or castle where the art of architecture proper has the best opportunity of displaying itself. So, in a monastery, the refectory comes next in grandeur to the church and chapter-house. Indeed, some of the early Halls were built not unlike churches, with two rows of pillars. In a wooden construction this is not uncommon both in halls and barns; but the examples we mean have two regular aisles with stone pillars and arches. Such was the original Westminster Hall, till Richard II. threw it into one body under the present magnificent single roof. The finest existing example is perhaps that superb one at Oakham Castle, of the best architecture of the end of the twelfth century. In the next century we have the Hall of the Royal Palace at Winchester used like that at Oakham, for an assize-court. Of single-bodied halls of the fourteenth century, nothing can surpass those of Caerphilly Castle in Glamorganshire, and Mayfield Palace in Sussex. Mayfield has, and Caerphilly seems to have been designed to have, a very effective arrangement of stone arches thrown across at intervals to support the roof, and to produce something of the effect of actual vaulting. The same is the case at Conway. Most of these examples are ruined.[36] Mayfield has lately been restored.

The gallery was brought into use with the Elizabethan style of architecture, and became a prominent feature among the apartments of houses in that style. The gallery at Hatfield, with a magnificently gilded ceiling--a blaze of gold--is a fine specimen: it was regilt just previous to the visit of Queen Victoria to Hatfield in 1846: a state ball was given in this gallery, and we remember to have been told the day after the Royal visit, that during the dance there fell from Her Majesty's hand a rose, which was immediately taken up by a gentleman of the company; on bended knee he presented it to the Queen, who most graciously returned the flower, which, we doubt not, is preserved.

The extensive passages in some ancient houses have, no doubt, been originally similar to the open galleries round our old inns, of which we have examples, year by year, diminishing in number. These passages were ultimately inclosed for comfort and convenience. The staircases, in ancient times, were usually cylindrical, and were carried up in a separate turret: it was not until the age of Elizabeth that the massive staircase, with its broad hand-rails, balustrades, and enriched ornaments, was introduced into the mansion; that of a later period is familiarly known as a "Queen Anne staircase."

The royal parlour of Eltham is a perfect specimen of the banqueting-hall, and was the frequent residence of our kings before Henry VIII.; and here they held their great Christmas feasts. Two thousand guests in 1483 were entertained here at Christmas, by Edward IV., the royal builder of the Hall. His badges--the falcon, the fetterlock, and rose-en-soleil--are sculptured over the chief entrance; and Edward is represented by Skelton as saying:

"I made Nottingham a palace royal,
Windsor, Eltham, and many mo'."

Princesses have been cradled here, Parliaments have met in the Great Hall, and kings and queens have betaken themselves here to meditate upon the waning earthly greatness. The gloomy Henry VII. at intervals retired to Eltham; Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth would spend a few days in the almost forsaken palace; and James I. had been known to pass a morning here.

Eltham is now a regal ruin. "The fair pleasaunce, the echoing courts, the king's lodging, presence and guard chamber, and the rooms in which the royal attendants lodged, have all disappeared. The gateway and high walls of ruddy brick only remain to mark the site of the tilt-yard. The moat is half dry, and the sluggish stream is still spanned by the bridge of four arches, which is contemporaneous with the Hall; but 'the gateway and the fair front towards the moat,' built by Henry VII., have been replaced by two modern houses; and another, with three barge-board gables, and corbelled attics, to the east end of the Hall, retains the designation of the Buttery. There is a view of the Hall by Buck, dated 1735, which represents a great portion of the palace, with its quaint water-towers and moated walls still standing; but, although Parliament in 1827 spent £700 upon the repairs, the state of the Hall is sad enough now: full of litter of every sort, its windows unglazed or bricked up; with damp fastenings in the naked walls, and rough rafters stretching across from side to side, and reaching above the corbels. It is now used as a barn. It was at once an audience-chamber and refectory, 100 feet in length, 55 in height, and 36 feet broad. But the windows now admit broad streams of cheerful sunshine, which light up the thick trails of ivy that flow over the empty panes; its deep bay-window, now stripped of glazing, but enriched with groining and tracery which flanked the daïs, betoken the progress which elegance and security had made at the period of their erection: the lofty walls continue to support a high pitched roof of oak, in tolerable preservation, with hammer-beams, carved pendants, and braces supported on corbels of hewn stone; and although the royal table, the hearth, and louvre have disappeared, there are still remains of the minstrels' gallery, and the doors in the oak screen below it, which lead to the capacious kitchen, the butteries, and cellars, to tell each their several tale of former state."[37]

Hitherto, we have mostly spoken of palaces and mansions. It is, however, very difficult to discover any fragments of houses inhabited by the gentry, before the reign, at soonest, of Edward III., or even to trace them by engravings in the older topographical works; not only from the dilapidations of time, but because very few considerable mansions had been erected by that class. It is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in stately, or even in well-sized houses. They usually consisted of an entrance-passage, running through the house, with a hall on one side, a parlour beyond, and one or two chambers above; and on the opposite side, a kitchen, pantry, and other offices. Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. "In the remains of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Somersetshire is especially rich. Almost every village has a house, a parsonage, or some building or other of this class, to say nothing of extensive monastic remains, as at Glastonbury, Woodspring, Muchelney, and Old Cleve. Among the Somersetshire houses, the original portions of Clevedon Court may claim the first place. Then comes a long list, of which, perhaps, the manor-house and 'fish-house' of Meare, near Glastonbury, are the most curious and beautiful."[38]

Larger houses were erected by men of great estates during the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV.; but very few can be traced higher; and Mr. Hallam, in his _History of the Middle Ages_, conceives it to be difficult to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman, and not of the castle description, the principal apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII. There may be a few solitary specimens of earlier date. The Rev. Mr. Lysons says:--"The most remarkable fragment of early building which I have anywhere found mentioned, is at a house in Berkshire, called Appleton, where there is a sort of prodigy--an entrance-passage with circular arches in the Saxon (? Norman) style, which must, probably, be as old as the reign of Henry II. No other private house in England, as I conceive, can boast of such a monument of antiquity."

Wood and stone were the earliest materials used in house-building; but as great part of England affords no stone fit for building, her oak-forests were thinned, and less durable dwellings were erected with inferior timber. Stone houses are, however, mentioned as belonging to the citizens of London, even in the latter half of the twelfth century. Flints bound together with strong cement were employed in building manor-houses. Hewn stone was employed for castles, and the larger mansions: much stone was, in early times, brought from Normandy. Chestnut was much employed. Evelyn, in his _Sylva_, states that "The chestnut is, next the oak, one of the most sought after by the carpenter and joiner. It hath formerly built a good part of our ancient houses in the City of London, as does yet appear. I had once a very large barn near the City, framed entirely of this timber; and certainly the trees grew not far off, probably in some woods near the town; for in that description of London, written by Fitz-Stephen, in the reign of Henry II. he speaks of a very noble and large forest which grew on the boreal [north] part of it."[39]

Ducarel, in his _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, says: "Rudhall, near Ross, in Herefordshire, is built with chestnut, which probably grew on the estate, although no tree of the kind is now to be found growing wild in that part of the country. The old houses in the city of Gloucester are constructed of chestnut, derived assuredly from the chestnut-trees in the forest of Dean. In some of the oldest houses of Faversham much genuine chestnut as well as oak is employed. In the nunnery of Davington, near Faversham (now entire), the timber consists of oak, intermingled with chestnut."

In the fourteenth century, ornamental carpentry had reached a high degree of excellence. There are many examples of ancient timber houses yet remaining in this country: they have massive beams and timbers, and are generally of unnecessary strength. The intermixture of wood, brick, and stone, or wood and plaster, in the exterior of houses, was, for a considerable period, the common style of building in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Weatherboard--that is, planks overlapping each other--was formerly much used for house-fronts, and possessed great durability. Overhanging roofs, walls of plaster with lofty gables, bay-windows, and porches of timber, with each story projecting beyond the other, are so many characteristics of a mixed style, when the rude dangers of the timber houses became progressively intermingled with the massive architecture of a subsequent period; and the external use of timber in the walls continued to prevail for a very long time. Beaconsfield Rectory, of the sixteenth century, has the basement story completely built of glazed bricks in chequered patterns; the superincumbent story has elevated roofs and gables, and is constructed with massive timbers placed near together, and plastered between. The staircase, which is semi-cylindrical and composed of timber, is added to the north side of the house. The entire structure forms three sides of a quadrangle, with a lofty wall and entrance on the fourth; its interior is rude and massive.

In an account of a topographical excursion in 1634, the hall of Kenilworth is described with a roof "all of Irish wood, neatly and handsomely framed;" in it are five chimneys, "answerable to so great a room:" then we read of the Guard, Presence, and Privy chambers, fretted above richly with coats of arms, and all adorned with fair and rich chimney-pieces of alabaster, black marble, and joiners' work in curiously carved wood; all the fair and rich rooms and lodgings in the spacious tower not long since built, and repaired at great cost by Leicester. "The priuate, plaine, retiring-chamber wherein or renowned Queene of euer famous memory, alwayes made choice to repose her Selfe. Also the famous, strong old tower, called Julius Cæsar's, on top whereof was view'd the pleasant, large Poole continually sporting and playing on the Castle: the Parke, and the fforest contiguous thereto." Kenilworth has been already described at pp. 101-103.

Many a middle-aged reader can recollect the disappearance of rows of gabled houses, with timber and plaster fronts, from the metropolis: great part of the High-street of Southwark, built in this manner, was taken down between 1810 and 1831; at the latter period, some houses with ornamental plaster fronts disappeared. In Chancery-lane, a very old thoroughfare, several houses of this class have been taken down within memory; and many an old house-front, with ornamental carving, is missed from the Strand; a few linger in Holywell-street and Wych-street. And, in 1865, was taken down one side of Great Winchester-street, stated to be one of the oldest specimens of domestic architecture remaining in the metropolis. The casement hung on hinges was the earliest form of window, properly so called. Sash-windows were not introduced till the early part of the reign of Charles I., and were not general till the latter part of the time of Queen Anne.

In the construction of farm-houses and cottages there have been, probably, fewer changes than in large mansions. Cottages in England seem to have generally consisted of a single room, without division of stories. The Spaniards who came to England in Queen Mary's time, wondered when they saw the large diet used by the inmates of the most homely-looking cottages. "The English, they said, make their houses of sticks and dirt, but they fare as well as the king; whereby it appeareth (says Harrison), that they like better of our goode fare in such coarse cabins, than of their own thin diet in their princelike habitations and palaces."

In various counties we can scarcely fail to be struck with the difference in the forms of the cottages, as in the height of the building, the pitch of the roof, as well as the materials. Only let the traveller on the Brighton railway look out after he has passed Redhill, and he may see evidence of the truth of the above remark. Cobbett has left us this charming picture of the Sussex cottages in one of his _Rural Rides_:--

"I never had," he writes, "that I recollect, a more pleasant
journey, or ride, than this into Sussex. The weather was pleasant,
the elder-trees in full bloom, and they make a fine show; the
woods just in their greatest beauty; the grass-fields generally
uncut; and the little gardens of the labourers full of flowers;
the roses and honeysuckles perfuming the air at every cottage
door. Throughout all England, these cottages and gardens are the
most interesting objects that the country presents, and they are
particularly so in Kent and Sussex. This part of these counties
has the great blessing of numerous woods; these furnish fuel,
nice, sweet fuel, for the heating of ovens and all other purposes:
they afford materials for the making of pretty pigsties, hurdles,
and dead fences, of various sorts; they afford materials for
making little cow-sheds; for the sticking of peas and beans in the
gardens; and for giving to everything a neat and substantial
appearance. These gardens, and the look of the cottages, the
little flower-gardens, which you everywhere see, and the beautiful
hedges of thorn and of privet,--these are the objects to delight
the eyes, to gladden the heart, and to fill it with gratitude to
God, and love for the people; and as far as my observation has
gone, they are objects to be seen in no other country in the
world. Those who see nothing but the nasty, slovenly places in
which labourers live round London, know nothing of England. The
fruit-trees are all kept in the nicest order; every bit of paling
or wall is made use of, for the training of some sort or other. At
Lamberhurst, which is one of the most beautiful villages that ever
man set his eyes on, I saw what I never saw before, namely, _a
gooseberry-tree trained against a house_. The house was one of
those ancient buildings, consisting of a frame of oak-wood, the
interval filled up with brick, plastered over. The tree had been
planted at the foot of one of the perpendicular pieces of wood;
from the stem which mounted up this piece of wood were taken side
limbs, to run along the horizontal pieces. There were two windows,
round the frame of each of which the limbs had been trained. The
height of the highest shoot was about ten feet from the ground,
and the horizontal shoots from each side were from eight to ten
feet in length. The tree had been judiciously pruned, and all the
limbs were full of very large gooseberries, considering the age of
the fruit. This is only one instance out of thousands that I saw
of extraordinary pains taken with the gardens."

Those who love the picturesque will excuse our halting to sketch an episode from the history of the royal forest of Ashdown, in Sussex, once possessed by John of Gaunt, and hence called "Lancaster great Park." Upon the borders of the forest lies the manor of Brambertie of Domesday, and Brambletye of Horace Smith; the home of the Comptons, and in the tale of fiction, as in fact, dismantled by Parliament troopers, and within two centuries a ruin. Richard Lewknor is the first person described as of Brambletye. He most probably built in one of the forest glens the moated mansion known as "Old Brambletye House," which, with its gables and clustered chimneys, and its moat and drawbridge, long remained an interesting specimen of the fortified manor-house of the reign of Henry VII. We remember the old place, some sixty years since, but it has long been taken down. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, Brambletye came into the possession of the Comptons, an ancient Roman Catholic family; and here Sir Henry Compton built himself, from an Italian design, another Brambletye House, of the white stone of the country. Over the principal entrance to the mansion were sculptured the coat-armour of Compton, with the arms of Spencer, in a shield, on the dexter side: and on the upper story was cut in stone, C. H. M. 1631. This fixes the period when the house was built; and when Sir Henry Compton, who had before inhabited the old moated house in the neighbourhood, abandoned it to take up his residence in this once elegant and substantial baronial mansion.

From the court-rolls of the manor, it does not appear who succeeded the Comptons in the property; but Sir James Rickards, in his patent of baronetcy, 1683-4, is described as of Brambletye House. The story goes, that "a proprietor of the mansion being suspected of treasonable purposes, officers of justice were dispatched to search the premises, when a considerable quantity of arms and military stores was discovered and removed; he was out hunting at the time, but receiving intimation of the circumstance, deemed it most prudent to abscond." The historical version is, that in the Civil War, Sir John Compton, a true Royalist, took an active part against the Parliament armies: although never capable of any regular defence, yet Brambletye, being partially fortified, refused the summons of the Parliamentary Colonel Okey, by whom it was invested and speedily taken. The mansion was subsequently deserted. From a sketch taken in 1780, the principal front was nearly entire: it consisted of three square towers, the entrance doorway being in the central tower; the two wings had handsome bay-windows; the three towers were surmounted with cupolas and weather-vanes; but one had half its cupola shattered away, and was internally blackened, as if with gunpowder. In front of the house were an inclosed courtyard and two entrance-gates, one flanked by two massive, square towers, with cupolas. Horace Smith having named his romance _Brambletye House_, the opening scenes being laid there, has sent hundreds of tourists to pic-nic among the ruins; but the spoilers were constantly at work. Some fifteen years ago, "all that remained of Brambletye House was one of the towers clothed with stately ivy, and little more than one story of each of the other towers; the intervening portions, with their bay-windows, had disappeared. Nature had, however, lent a helping hand: by the shrubby trees and the ivy, the ruins had gained that picturesqueness which so often lends a graceful charm to scenes of decaying art."[40]

FOOTNOTES:

[32] In the noble park of Cowdray, the home of the Montagues, Queen Elizabeth, in 1591, killed three or four deer with her cross-bow, while on a visit to Lord Montague. Three deaths in one family by drowning, and the almost total destruction of a fine mansion by fire, within the memory of living man, are enough to make one tread the beautiful grounds of Cowdray with feelings of awe, and to invest it with a superstitious melancholy. Three hundred years ago, however, there was no more festive house in England, when "three oxen and 120 geese" figured in its bill of fare for breakfast. The then proprietor was a strict disciplinarian, and the "Orders and Rules of Sir Anthony Browne" curiously illustrate the domestic economy of a great man's family in the sixteenth century, especially as regards its important departments of the "ewerye" and the "buttyre," and those pet officers, "my server" and "my carver."--_Quarterly Review_, 1861.

[33] "The cat's behind the _buttery_-shelf."--_Old Ditty._

[34] _Saturday Review_, 1861.

[35] There is an oft-quoted passage in the Aubrey MSS. which may be appositely represented here as a life-like picture of the economy of the Hall: "The lords of manouers did eate in their great gothicque halls, at the high tables or oreile, the folk at the side-tables. The meat was served up by watchwords. Jacks are but an invention of the other days; the poor boys did turn the spitts, and licked the dripping-pan, and grew to be huge lusty knaves. The body of the servants were in the Great Hall, as now in the guard-chamber, privy-chamber, &c. The hearth was commonly in the midst, as at colleges, whence the saying, 'round about our coal-fire.' Here, in the Halls were the mummings, cob-loaf stealing, and great number of old Christmas playes performed. In great houses were lords of misrule during the twelve dayes after Christmas. The halls of justices were dreadful to behold. The screens were garnished with corslets and helmets gaping with open mouth, with coates of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown-bills, battle-axes, bucklers, and the modern callivers, petronells, and (in King Charles's time) muskets and pistolls."

[36] _Saturday Review_, 1859.

[37] Abridged from a paper in _Once a Week_, 1860.

[38] _Saturday Review_, 1859.

[39] In times anterior to this date, the greater part of the City was built of wood. The houses being roofed with straw, reeds, &c. frequent fires took place, owing to this mode of building: thus, in the first year of the reign of Stephen, a conflagration spread from London Bridge to the church of St. Clement Danes, in the Strand. Thenceforth, the houses were built of stone, covered and protected by thick tiles against the fury of fire, whenever it arose. The change from wood to stone dates from this period.

[40] _Something for Everybody, and a Garland for the Year._ By the Author of the present volume. Pp. 170-176, Second Edition.

THE ENGLISHMAN'S FIRESIDE.

Healthful Warmth and Ventilation are to this day problems to be worked out; and few practical subjects have so extensively enlisted ingenious minds in their service. Yet, much remains to be done.

Dr. Arnott, the worthy successor of Count Rumford[41] in _heat philosophy_, when seeking to shame us out of using ill-contrived fireplaces and scientific bunglings, tells us that the savages of North America place fire in the middle of the floor of their huts, and sit around in the smoke, for which there is escape only in the one opening in the hut, which serves as chimney, window, and door. Some of the peasantry in remote parts of Ireland and Scotland still place their fires in the middle of their floors, and, for the escape of the smoke, leave only a small opening in the roof, often not directly over the fire. In Italy and Spain, almost the only fires seen in sitting-rooms are large dishes of live charcoal, or braziers, placed in the middle, with the inmates sitting around, and having to breathe the noxious carbonic-acid gas which ascends from the fire, and mixes with the air in the room; there being no chimney, the ventilation of the room is imperfectly accomplished by the windows and doors. The difference between the burned air from a charcoal fire, and smoke from a fire of coal or wood, is that in the latter there are added to the chief ingredient, carbonic acid, which is little perceived, others which disagreeably affect the eyes and nose, and so force attention.

With these facts before us, it is not difficult to imagine how our ancestors tolerated the nuisance of wood smoke filling their rooms till it found its way through the roof lantern, as was generally the case until the general introduction of chimneys late in the reign of Elizabeth. It should, however, be mentioned that the temperature of their apartments was kept considerably below that of our sitting-rooms in the present day. Before the fourteenth century, except for culinary and smithery purposes, robust Englishmen appear to have cared little about heating their dwellings, and to have dispensed with it altogether during the warmer months of the year. Even so late as the reign of Henry VIII. it seems that no fire was allowed in the University of Oxford: after supping at eight o'clock, the students went to their books till nine in winter, and then took a run for half an hour to warm themselves previously to going to bed. Therefore, all ideas of the firesides of our forefathers should be confined to four centuries.

The usage of making the fire in the middle of the hall, a lover of olden architecture says, "was not without its advantages: not only was a greater amount of heat obtained, but the warmth became more generally diffused, which, when we consider the size of the hall, was a matter of some importance. The huge logs were piled upon the andirons or thrown upon the hearth, and the use of wood and charcoal had few of those inconveniences which would have resulted from coal;" an opinion strangely at variance with that of the heat philosopher already quoted.

We are now approaching the age of Chimneys. A practical writer has thus pictured the domestic contrivance, _ad interim_: "The hearth recess was generally wide, high, deep, and had a large flue. The hearth, usually raised a few inches above the floor, had sometimes a halpas or daïs made before it, as in the King's and Queen's chambers in the Tower. Before the hearth recess, or on the halpas, when there was one, a piece of green cloth or tapestry was spread, as a substitute for the rushes that covered the lower part of the floor. On this were placed a very high-backed chair or two, and foot-stools, that sometimes had cushions; and above all high-backed forms, and screens, both most admirable inventions for neutralizing draughts of cold air in these dank and chilling apartments. Andirons, fire-forks, fire-pans, and tongs were the implements to supply and arrange the fuel. Hearth recesses with flues were common in the principal chambers and houses of persons of condition; and were superseding what Aubrey calls flues, like loover holes, in the habitations of all classes. The adage that 'one good fire heats the whole house,' was found true only in the humbler dwellings; for in palace and mansion, though great fires blazed in the presence-chamber, or hall, or parlour, the domestics were literally famishing with cold. This discomfort did not, however, proceed from selfish or stingy housekeeping, but rather from an affectation of hardihood, particularly among the lower classes, when effeminacy was reckoned a reproach. Besides, few could know what comfort really was; but those who did, valued it highly. Sanders relates that Henry VIII. gave the revenues of a convent, which he had confiscated, to a person who placed a chair for him commodiously before the fire and out of all draughts."

On the introduction of chimneys, in the year 1200, only one chimney was allowed in a manor-house, and one in the great hall of a castle or lord's house: other houses had only the rere-dosse, a sort of raised hearth, where the inmates cooked their food. Harrison, in a passage prefixed to _Holinshed's Chronicle_, writes in the reign of Elizabeth: "There are old men dwelling in the village where I remayne, who have noted three things to be marvellously altered in England, within their sound remembrance. One is the multitude of chimneys lately erected; whereas, in their younger days, there was not about two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm (the religious houses and manor places of the lords always excepted, and peradventure some great personage's); but each made his fire against a reré-dosse in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat."

Numerous instances, however, remain of fireplaces and chimneys of the fourteenth century, even in the hall, though they were more usual in the smaller apartments. In the hall at Meare, in Somersetshire, the fireplace had a hood of stone, perfect, finely corbelled out; and by the side of the fireplace is a bracket for a light, ornamented with foliage.

It is curious to find chimneys constructed of so combustible a material as wood. In the _Liber Albus_ of the City of London, 1419, it is ordered by Wardmote "that no chimney be henceforth made, except of stone, tiles, or plaster, and _not of timber_, under pain of being pulled down."

In the metropolis, we possess a hall of the fifteenth century, which has a fireplace, the existence of which, in a hall of this age, is singular, if not unique. In the north wall of the celebrated hall of Crosby Place, Bishopsgate Street, is a fireplace with a low pointed arch. The builder must have possessed a more refined taste than his contemporaries, and feeling the inconvenience attending a fire of the old description (in the middle of the hall) adopted the plan of confining it to the recessed fireplace and the chimney.[42] Here we may mention the "smoke-loft," which seems to mean the wide space in the old-fashioned chimney.

It is curious to find that a tax was once paid upon a fire in England. Such was "the smoke farthings" levied by the clergy upon every person who kept a fire. The "hearth money" was a similar tax, but was paid to the king: it was first levied in 1653, and its last collection was in 1690.

In the Tapestry room of St. James's Palace is a stone Tudor arched fireplace, sculptured with H. A. (Henry and Anne), united by a true lover's knot, surmounted by the regal crown and the lily of France, the portcullis of Westminster, and the rose of Lancaster.

By a record of 1511, it appears that the hall-fire was discontinued on Easter Day, then called God's Sunday. In the _Festival_, published in the above year, we read: "This day is called, in many places, _Goddes Sundaye_: ye know well that it is the maner at this daye to do the fire out of the hall, and the black wynter brondes, and all thynges that is foule with fume and smoke, shall be done awaye, and where the fyre was shall be gayly arayed with fayre floures, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute." The andirons being cleared away, the space whereon the fire was made, on the hearth, was strewed with green rushes; whence the custom, in our time, of decorating, in the country, stove-grates with evergreens, and flowers, and paper ornaments, when they are not used for fires. Rushes were, at this time, much in use. At Canterbury, one of the oldest cities in England, at the end of Mercery-lane, is pointed out the site of the ancient _rush-market_, in which stood a great cross, painted and gilt. We still employ rushes made into matting, for the floors of churches.

Coal is first mentioned in 1245; but the smoke was supposed to corrupt the air so much, that Edward I. forbade the use of that kind of fuel by proclamation; and among the records in the Tower, Mr. Astle found a document, importing that in the time of Edward I. a man had been tried, convicted, and executed, for the crime of burning sea-coal in London.

Coal first came into general use in the north of England.[43] Wood billets, however, long remained the principal fuel of the south; and the contrivance for burning such fuel with economy was the first deviation in metal from the rude simplicity of the rere-dosse towards the close fire-grate. This consisted of useful iron trestles, called hand-irons, or andirons, formerly common in England, and yet occasionally to be met with in old mansions and farm-houses, under the appellation of _dogs_. Originally, these articles were not only found in the houses of persons of good condition, but in the bedchamber of the king himself. Strutt, writing in 1775, says: "These awnd-irons are used at this day, and are called cob-irons: they stand on the hearth, where they burn wood, to lay it upon; their fronts are usually carved, with a round knob at the top; some of them are kept polished and bright; anciently many of them were embellished with a variety of ornaments." In another place, giving an inventory of the bedchamber of Henry VIII. in the palace of Hampton Court, including awnd-irons, with fire-fork, tongs, and fire-pan, Strutt adds, "of the awnd-irons, or as they are called by the moderns, cob-irons, myself have seen a pair which in former times belonged to some noble family. They were of copper, highly gilt, with beautiful flowers, enamelled with various colours disposed with great art and elegance." At Hever Castle in Kent,--the family seat of the Boleyns, as well as the property of Anne of Cleves, and which Henry VIII. with matchless cupidity claimed in right of a wife from whom, previously to her being beheaded, he had been divorced,--is a pair of elegant andirons, bearing the royal initials H. A. and surmounted with a royal crown. And, in an inventory of Henry's furniture in the Tower of London, we find mentioned "two round pairs of irons, upon which to make fire in, and for conveying fire from one apartment to another."

Shakspeare thus minutely describes a pair of andirons belonging to a lady's chamber:--

"Two winking Cupids
Of silver, each on one foot standing,
Depending on their brands nicely."--_Cymbeline._

A middle sort of irons, called creepers, was smaller, and usually placed within the dogs, to keep the ends of the wood and brands from the hearth, that the fire might burn more freely. A pair of these irons is thus described in one of the early volumes of the _Gentleman's Magazine_: "There being in a large house a variety of rooms of various sizes, the sizes and forms of the andirons may reasonably have been supposed to have been various too. In the kitchen, where large fires are made, and large pieces of wood are laid on, the andirons, in consequence, are proportionately large and strong, and usually plain, or with very little ornament. In the great hall, where the tenants and neighbours made entertainment, and at Christmas cheerfully regaled with good plum-porridge, mince-pies, and stout October, the andirons were commonly larger and stronger, able to sustain the weight of the roaring Christmas fire; but these were more ornamented, and, like knights with their esquires, attended by a pair of younger brothers far superior to, and therefore, not to be degraded by, the humble style of creepers; indeed, they were often seen to carry their heads at least half as high as their proud elders. A pair of such I have in my hall: they are of cast-iron, at least two and a half feet high, with round faces, and much ornamented at the bottom."

At Cotehole House, in Cornwall, may be seen a pair of richly ornamented brass dogs, upwards of four feet high; and a few years since we remember to have seen, in Windsor Castle, a pair of andirons faced with richly wrought silver. Yet these articles are eclipsed by some costly items in a list of wedding presents in the reign of James I. wherein is described "an invention," namely, "fire-shovel, tongs, and irons, creepers, and all furniture of a chimney, of silver, and a cradle of silver to burn sea-coal." This expensiveness of material, in all probability, was not matched by the manufacture, a disproportion which reminds us of the _silver furniture_ in some districts of South America, where the earth yields tons of that metal. Thus the proprietor of a productive silver mine in Peru is known to have ejected from his house all articles of glass or crockery ware, and replaced them by others made of silver. Here, likewise, might be seen pier-tables, picture-frames, mirrors, pots and pans, and even a watering-trough for mules--all of solid silver!

To return to the invention of grates. As the consumption of coal increased, the transition from andirons to fire-grates composed of connected bars, was obvious and easy. The andirons formed the end-standards, which supported the grate itself, a sort of raised cradle. Besides these supports, the back-plate, cast from a model of carved-work (often with the arms of the family), was added; and generally under the lowest bar was a filigree ornament of bright metal, which, under the designation of a fret, still retains its place in modern stoves. Movable fireplaces of the above description may be met with about two hundred years old; for at this period, as the quotation of the time of James I. proves, implements for the fireplace were in use. A magnificent fireplace of the above description has been manufactured for St. George's Hall, in Windsor Castle, so as to harmonize with the architectural character of that noble apartment.

Convenience soon suggested the fixing of fireplaces, which led to their being made with side-piers, or hobs, so as to fill the whole space within the chimney-jambs; till the snug cosy chimney-corner is only to be met with in farm-houses, where _dogs_ are used to this day.

It would be tedious to follow the improvements in fireplaces from the first introduction of stoves, about the year 1780, to the present time: from straight unornamental bars and sides, to elegant curves, pedestal hobs, and fronts embellished with designs of great classic beauty. Indeed, in no branch of manufacture are the advantages of our enlarged acquaintance with the fine arts more evident than in the taste of ornaments displayed in the stove-grates of the present day. The tasteful display at the Great Exhibition of 1851 will doubtless be remembered by the reader. "Grates," says the Supplementary Report of the Juries on Design, "rank among the principal works in hardware to which ornamental design is applied, at least on the English side; and there by far the best specimens, both as to design and workmanship, are to be found: this was to be expected from the general necessity for warmth in our cold and variable climate; an Englishman's love for his fireside having passed into a proverb."

By fire-irons are understood a shovel, a poker, and pair of tongs. These implements were not all found on the ancient hearth; nor were they necessary when wood alone was burnt. In the time of Henry VIII. the only accompaniment of the andirons was the fire-fork with two prongs, a specimen of which is preserved in Windsor Castle; still, in the apartments for the upper classes, the irons for trimming the fire were more complete. The use of coal and of close fireplaces led to the adoption of the poker; and about the same period were introduced fenders, the first of which were bent pieces of sheet-iron placed before the fire, to prevent the brands or cinders from rolling off the hearth-stone upon the wooden floors; but fenders have been improved with stoves, till the display of our fireplace is the chief ornamental feature of our rooms.

With these changes, however, the chimney-corner has disappeared, and is but remembered in poetry, or the pages of romance.

A great deal has been written of late years in disparagement of the open coal fire and the chimney, in comparison with the stove and flue; but Professor Faraday has shown the chimney to possess very important functions in sanitary economy. Thus, a parlour fire will consume in twelve hours forty pounds of coal, the combustion rendering 42,000 gallons of air unfit to support life. Not only is that large amount of deleterious product carried away, and rendered innoxious by the chimney, but five times that quantity of air is also carried up by the draught, and ventilation is thus effectually maintained.

Since the ascent of smoke up a chimney depends on the comparative lightness of the column of air within to that of an equal column without, the longer the chimney the stronger will be the draught, if the fire be sufficiently great to heat the air; but if the chimney be so long that the air is cooled as it approaches the top, the draught is diminished.