Chapter XVI: Queenborough Castle and Its Builder, William of Wykeham 269 (2)

A most remarkable plan of the whole of the apartments within the circumference of the moat has just come under my notice, preserved among the many treasures in the Hatfield papers, and with Lord Salisbury’s kind permission I have used it in preparing the plan on pages 54–55. The original drawing is in outline, and is endorsed “Eltham House,” the second word being in Lord Burghley’s handwriting. In the Public Record Office (State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, Vol. 234, No. 78) is a plan of the outer courtyard of offices, _beyond_ the moat, of which Hasted publishes a reproduction and Mr. Gregory[14] includes a copy, apparently from an engraving, in his book. This plan, which has puzzled many earlier writers, including Pugin (who in spite of the explicit wording seems to have supposed it to be of the main court and was surprised at the absence of the hall), is signed by John Thorpe, and has the date 1590, in pencil, on the back. The plan at Hatfield is unsigned, but is to the same scale (20 ft. to the inch), and may well have been also the work of Thorpe, although it is executed with much greater care than the plan of the offices in the State Papers. Together the two plans give us the whole extent of the palace and the buildings within its precincts. (See pp. 54 and 55.)

[14] _The Story of Royal Eltham_, by R. R. C. Gregory.

The site at Eltham has never been properly investigated, and the field is open for a very considerable amount of work in verifying or correcting these plans and identifying the positions of the buildings shown thereon. In presenting, therefore, the general arrangement as outlined on the existing manuscripts I intend to do no more than introduce the subject and place one or two considerations at the disposal of those who may complete the work. By the courtesy of Mr. R. R. C. Gregory and Mr. F. W. Nunn I am permitted to reproduce some interesting photographs which were specially taken for the former’s book on Eltham, showing a few of the remains as they stand at the present day.

Although the two plans are full of detail, and evidently drawn with great care, they share with practically all ancient plans a certain inaccuracy which is often very puzzling. There can be no doubt at all about the competence of the surveyors of the Elizabethan period to make perfectly accurate drawings, and their draughtsmanship is surprisingly similar to that of the present day, showing moreover a care which is often above the modern average. Yet they fail us repeatedly, wherever enough of the old work remains to test their accuracy, and their errors are apparently so needless that we are quite at a loss to account for them. Not a little controversy has been waged over the collection of Thorpe’s drawings in the Soane Museum on this very point, and while the draughtsman has incurred serious blame, and much scepticism has been aroused as to the genuineness of the plans, the problem has been left unsolved, and one continues to find at least as much evidence to corroborate as to confute their author. Perhaps if the architect of the present day would reflect upon his own experience he would find less to surprise him in the work of his sixteenth-century predecessor. It is not a rare but a frequent occurrence, even in these days of accurate instruments and multiplied facilities for drawing, to meet with plans that are hastily drawn and inaccurately set down. The surveyor has often to make a rapid survey; he occasionally misreads his own notes and figures; a few important dimensions are sometimes omitted, and when the drawing is made at some distance from the site a little guesswork intrudes; and so much is this so that even official surveys—though absolutely trustworthy for their own purposes—are found to have their percentage of mistakes. But if these lapses occur in finished plans, how numerous are the errors in unfinished drafts or sketch-plans which are made for general purposes only! And who is to say, when we come upon an old drawing, often accidentally preserved in a parcel of MSS., that this is merely a first sketch—a rough draft of which the corrected version has long ago perished? These considerations, I submit, should make us less ready to blame the draughtsman, but at the same time will prepare us for a greater vigilance in checking his work and taking his evidence with the greatest caution.

The plan of the palace proper at Eltham, comprising the buildings within the moat, is, as far as one can judge, very fairly accurate. The foundations of the outside line of fortifications still exist, and correspond in the main to those shown. This outer wall is apparently of sixteenth-century date, and is not unlikely to have been partly the work of Queen Elizabeth. It formed on three sides a broad terrace between the moat and Bishop Bec’s original walls. That the palace was first fortified by Bec[15] is made extremely likely by the general resemblance of the plan to his castle at Somerton, where the area enclosed by the moat has a square plan similar to that of Eltham, with one side lengthened in the same manner, making one of the angles less and one more than a right angle.

[15] Pugin gives the following note: “Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire built also by Anthony Beke, was of a quadrangle plan with four polygonal towers at the corners, and was encompassed by very strong banks and deep moats beyond the walls.” Robert de Graystanes, an ancient historian of the Church of Durham, in his account of Bishop Bec’s works, says: “Castrum de Somerton juxta Lincoln, et manerium de Eltham juxta London, curiosissime ædificavit; sed primum regi et secundum reginae postea contulit” (Anglia Sacra i. 755).

The three principal towers at the angles and the one in the centre of the south front are probably his work. The last-named tower evidently guarded the south entrance, and it may have been the remains of this that have been spoken of as “castle-like” in earlier descriptions of the ruins. Some later hand probably inserted the fireplaces in these towers.

A reference to the large-scale Ordnance map will show how accurately the fortifications follow the line of the Elizabethan plan. The view of the palace and moat published by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck in 1735, of which there is a copy in the King’s Library (British Museum), shows the north-east part of this wall fairly intact, and the eastern bastion raised like a tower and covered with a shaped lead roof resembling a cupola. It is probable that most of the building shown by Buck upon the outer walls was erected after the palace was despoiled, and the roofed bastion is not unlikely to have been but an eighteenth-century summer-house, the work perhaps of one of the line of Sir John Shaw.

_Photograph by F. W. Nunn._]

_Drawn by Walter H. Godfrey._]

_Photograph by H.M. Office of Works._]

The western line of the outer wall is overhung by buildings evidently of the Tudor period, and the fine range of bay windows shown on the Elizabethan plan is borne out in all but a few minor particulars by existing foundations. Further than this, a large portion of the main block of buildings that crosses the fortified area from west to east is here to corroborate the survey, and the great hall with its apartments to the east is found upon the precise line indicated on the drawing. The hall itself is correctly shown, except for the position of one buttress and an adjoining piece of brickwork, and the beautiful fifteenth-century bridge adds valuable evidence supporting the plan.

Of the things revealed by this plan, none will prove of greater interest than the beautiful chapel which, to gain its right orientation, was placed so picturesquely across the great courtyard.

In the Parliamentary Survey of Eltham in 1649 the “fair chapel” is mentioned first in the list of royal apartments, before the hall itself, and in this document we come upon a little bit of unexpected news regarding London. Sir Theodore Mayerne, formerly physician to James I.—he was seventy-six years of age at the time of the survey—is found to be ranger of the park at a salary of £6 1s. 8d., paid from the customs of the Port of London. The survey tells us, however, that he no longer resided at Eltham, but at his house at “Chelsey,” thus confirming the tradition that it was he who originally built the only one of Chelsea’s old palaces that remains—the house which, rebuilt by the Earls of Lindsey, still stands, although divided into several dwellings, overlooking the Thames, just west of Battersea Bridge.

This survey goes on to relate that, beside the fair chapel and great hall, there were forty-six rooms and offices on the ground floor, with two large cellars; and on the upper floor, seventeen lodging rooms on the king’s side, twelve on the queen’s side, and nine on the prince’s side,—in all thirty-eight. Further research would no doubt identify the position of these three suites of apartments, which are not, of course, evident on a plan of the ground floor. The survey mentions the outer “green court” with its thirty-five “bayes of building” on three sides, which contained the offices to which we refer below.

It appears from the building accounts of the reign of Henry VI. that the chapel was being completed in his reign, as mention is made of the construction of a screen and of the two staircases to the gallery above. But the “fair chapel” of the Parliamentary Survey, shown on the Hatfield plan, was the work of Henry VIII. The accounts still exist of the taking down of the old chapel, and of its rebuilding by Henry some twelve feet nearer to the hall. The very massive wall standing west of the chapel on the plan probably marks the position of the western end of the former building. Henry VIII. has left detailed directions as to the erection and furnishing of this chapel, which must have been one of the most beautiful buildings of its time.

The accounts also fix the date of the great hall, which has so far been only conjectural. One of the fortnightly returns of expenditure when the roof was being framed together is headed “Coste and expence don upon the bildying of the newe Halle wytn the manor of Elthm in the charge of James Hatefeld from Sonday the xixth day of Septembr the xixth yer of the reigne of our Sovreign lord King Edward the iiijth unto Sonday the iiid of Octobr the yer aforeseid.” The wages of the freemasons, hardhewers, carpenters (including chief warden and underwarden) plumbers, smythes, labourers, and clerke are all given. We also learn that thirty great iron “spykynggs” for the roof were bought, such, no doubt, as were found in the framework of the roof of Crosby Hall, and ten great “clampes of yron for the bynddyng of the princyples.” Moreover there is a note of six loads of “Raygatestone” at four shillings a load, the same stone employed at Crosby Hall, commonly known as Reigate firestone. In all £140 13s. 6d. was spent in the fortnight.

From this it appears that Crosby Hall, built in 1466, was started some ten years or more before the hall of Eltham Palace; and yet the former is of much later character in almost all its details, and particularly in its panelled roof. The royal palace evidently clung to the traditional methods of design, and they were certainly capable of a more magnificent effect. It will be seen that the octagonal hearth, about which there has been much conjecture, is shown clearly in the plan in front of the throne.

The fame of Eltham will ultimately rest upon the exquisite beauty of this great hall with its timbered roof, heavily moulded and adorned with finely shaped pendants, its two rectangular bay or oriel windows with their elaborate vaulting and the splendid range of windows along both sides, which set the scale and still enrich the design in spite of mutilation and decay. All these have been happily recorded with infinite care and loving detail by Pugin, in the seven plates which form almost the best work in his _Examples of Gothic Architecture_ (Vol. I.).

We are reminded by Mr. Arthur Stratton, in his notice of the hall roof at Eltham, in _The Domestic Architecture of England during the Tudor Period_, of an interesting point regarding the oak pendants. Pugin, in the description which accompanied his drawings, quotes Mr. J. C. Buckler’s book on Eltham to the effect that the long shafts of the pendants, above the moulded drops, were originally surrounded by delicate carved tracery, one example of which he measured and recorded before it fell from the roof. The present bareness of the pendants has often been noticed, and we are glad to see that Mr. Stratton has included a copy of Buckler’s sketch in his work, Pugin having merely shown it in dotted lines around his own detail of the roof. There is little doubt that the mediæval carpenter regarded the timber roof as the highest subject on which to exercise his skill, and both in vigour of design and delicacy in carving and modelling his efforts at Eltham met with wonderful success.

There has been much discussion as to the existence of one or more courts on the south side of the hall, and the plan seems to show that the space was gradually utilised for extensions of the kitchens and offices, since considerable capacity was required from the royal custom of keeping Christmas at Eltham. The outbuildings which are nearest the hall were in all probability but single-story erections, and may have been late in date.

The survey of the green or outer court gives greater difficulty. All evidence of the courtyard has disappeared; its gatehouse has gone, and what must have been a superbly picturesque approach to the palace, with its timbered buildings on either side as it widened towards the moat, is now a curtailed strip of greensward, occupied by lofty trees, and traversed by a road which yet retains some reminiscence of its ancient purpose in its name—“The Courtyard.” The only definite clue to the site is a range of private houses along its western side, which chiefly date from the eighteenth century, but of which the southern end is without doubt much older, and is happily identical in plan with the building described by John Thorpe as “My Lord Chancellor his Lodgings.” The house is a most charming weatherboarded building with the upper floor overhung, and has a fine stack of chimneys. Its southern end projects into the courtyard and has a large timber gable which overshadows a square bay-window below. The building is at present divided into two houses, but Thorpe’s plan shows how complete an example it was of the moderate-sized dwelling of the period. Its hall was approached by the usual porch and screen, and had the accustomed oriel window and fireplace. At the upper end was a private room or parlour, and behind the screen was a larger room—the great chamber, whose square bay-window overlooked the courtyard. From the screen again access was obtained to the kitchen (which has disappeared, but is clearly shown on the plan) and to the wooden newel staircase that still exists, furnishing an excellent example of its type.

_Photograph by F. W. Nunn._]

The houses to the north of the Chancellor’s Lodging continue the frontage line, and appear to occupy the site of the rooms marked “Buttery” and “Spicery” on Thorpe’s plan. If this is so, we have the west side of our courtyard definitely marked out for us. The initial difficulty, however, is that Thorpe has marked his western range at a different angle to the moat, and the direction of his bridge does not correspond with its relative position to the timber buildings. But too much importance must not be attached to this, as the moat has been apparently sketched in without the intention of placing it in its proper position. A more serious matter is, that if the old plan be placed so that the west side coincides with the existing buildings, then the southern end of the eastern range trespasses on the area of the moat as shown in the Hatfield plan of the main part of the palace. Here, again, the draughtsman may simply have drawn the two sides of the moat parallel to one another without measurement, and it is possible that the present boundary of the ditch, at the western end of its northern bank, represents the correct line, since if produced it coincides with the southern wall of the “Privy Bakehouse,” and the otherwise curious position of the “Scalding House” beyond becomes explained by the return of the eastern side of the moat. Whether this interpretation is correct or not, I have adopted it as the method involving the least modification of Thorpe’s drawings, as I think it is important that they should be put on record in this way before any attempt is made to adjust any further inconsistencies.

Joined together thus, the two plans cannot fail to give us a very fair idea of the palace, and it would be easy to construct a vivid word-picture of the beauty and charm that must have belonged to the whole scene which these old manuscripts can conjure up for us. Even a cursory glance shows its infinite suggestiveness. The way up to the gatehouse is flanked with converging walls and outbuildings of picturesque form and disposition. The gateway itself, massively built in contrast with the timber houses on either side, admits us to the long green court, the irregular boundaries of which lead onwards to the palace in a fair perspective. On each side are the low outbuildings of half-timber work and plaster, and beyond rise the high walls of the fortifications, Bishop Bec’s towers still amongst them, and the gatehouse to the great court standing out in the centre. As the visitor proceeds, he will see the waters of the wide moat, the banks of which still show the unusual width of a hundred feet. Between him and the gatehouse is the stone bridge, with its four beautiful pointed arches, the last of which reaches the wall of the terrace, built probably over the ancient place of the drawbridge (which Henry VIII. mentions) before the porter’s gate.[16]

[16] Mr. C. R. Peers has confirmed this by discovering the actual opening formed for the drawbridge.

Within the great court the scene is one of royal splendour. The battlemented gable of the chapel is close at the visitor’s right hand, and immediately opposite is Edward IV.’s great hall, which even now is glorious in its ruinous condition.[17] Its coupled windows (like the southern lights only of Crosby Hall) divided by buttresses, its square oriel and doorway, its oak lantern, and Henry VIII.’s finial and vane on the summit of the west gable, combine in this great central feature of the mediæval palace a dignity and distinction worthy of its purpose. And all around the court fine work in timber gives a pleasing contrast and relief to the solidity of the masonry. For in a line with the hall to the east were oak gables and bargeboards well moulded and carved—three of which are yet to be seen—and King Henry VIII. himself gave orders for the gallery from the hall to the chapel to have a “clerestory” and to be embattled in timber, and the cloister (pentise) on the opposite side to be likewise wrought and embattled in oak.

[17] H.M. Office of Works is now repairing the Hall, and has kindly lent the photograph reproduced on page 56.

Henry VIII. spent much money at Eltham, and in his imperious way effected great changes in the ancient palace, though nearly all his work has since perished. If the visitor of the time of Thorpe’s survey had passed through the door of the great hall and beneath the wonderful roof of Edward IV., he would have found himself in the kitchen court, where on the right was to be seen the “New Lodging” which Henry had built for himself. In the south-west angle of the court a little door gave access to the privy bridge across the moat and turning to the right beyond this he could see the elaborate front of this building, which was prepared with infinite care, as the king’s instructions show. The succession of bay or oriel windows, the centre one of which was of the elaborate form affected in his reign, must have pleased the eye of a king who stopped at nothing in his ambition for truly royal surroundings.

To return to Thorpe’s plan of the green court, there is one point which requires explanation, and which presents the most serious obstacle in the way of our accepting the precise disposition which he gives to the buildings. Just outside the first gatehouse and to the north of the bakehouse is a wall which bounds the outer courtyard to the east. A portion of Tudor walling in this direction still exists, and in it is a fine gateway in about the same relative position as the opening shown on the plan. This wall and gateway, however, are much farther west than those indicated on Thorpe’s plan, and should thus appear where he shows an open space. Either he has omitted to show them, which seems improbable, or his wall and gate are too far to the east. This point affects the important matter of the position of the gatehouse itself, and indeed if decided against the drawing would probably modify the lines of the green court. The identity, indeed, of this so-called “Tilt-yard” gate with that shown by Thorpe may prove to be the key to the proper placing of his plan, but the evidence at present is fragmentary, and, as I have already said, the subject invites much careful investigation. The combined plans have been purposely reproduced here to the scale of the Ordnance (88 ft. to the inch) to facilitate comparison, and I have no doubt that it will not be long before we have enough further information to give a corrected plan of the whole building.

—W. H. G.

THE ORIGIN OF
THE DOMESTIC HALL

V.

THE ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC HALL.

The invariable and, indeed, the only essential feature of the English mediæval house is the Great Hall. It is the centre alike of the castle and the manor-house round which the lesser buildings are grouped. In Saxon times the great or mead hall was, so far as the evidence goes, almost always built of wood and closely resembled in form and structure the great aisled barns, which have carried on the old tradition without a break almost to the present day. Some indication of their remote and semi-barbaric origin is to be found in the rude method of roof construction, for while something in the form of a truss is always visible, yet it is scarcely ever framed together to form a rigid whole. On the other hand certain peculiarities, born of a long and intimate acquaintance with the material used, are also observable, the most striking being the constant practice of planting the posts or uprights in the contrary position to that occupied when they were living trees, and thus preventing the rise of the moisture from the damp earth. It is a hall of this type that is described in the early Mercian poem of Beowulf as the scene of the great struggle with the demon Grendel.

For some time after the coming of the Normans, the conquering race was little more than an army of occupation, a state of affairs which was unduly prolonged by the internecine warfare of the Great Anarchy. The direct outcome of this unsettled and unnatural state was the erection of the numerous Norman castles, built purely for defence, of which so many were subsequently destroyed by King Henry II. The Norman castle at this date consisted of a stone keep with a large enclosure or bailey, surrounded by a wooden palisade or stone curtain and occupied by the timber dwellings of the lord and his retainers. It cannot be too much insisted on that the keep-tower hardly ever represents the ordinary dwelling-house of the lord of the castle. It was, in fact, only made use of for habitation when the stronghold was in a state of siege, and it is probable that their enforced residence there was little relished by its inmates, as the confined space and limited accommodation would lead one to expect. It is consequently futile to attempt to trace in the internal arrangements of the keep-tower the origin of the domestic hall. Even at the Tower of London, where the Conqueror or his successor built an immense keep, using the south-east angle of the Roman fortifications to enclose their bailey, a great hall was erected at an early date against the southern curtain.

In three of the early Norman castles the great hall still remains standing, at any rate in part. At Richmond, Yorkshire, it adjoins the curtain on the south side, and is apparently of earlier date than the keep at Christ Church, Twynham which stands on the east or river front of the castle; while at Wolvesley, by Winchester, the ruined Norman hall is ascribed to Bishop Henry of Blois.

The comparatively small number of halls of this date remaining is some evidence that the majority of these structures were of wood, and there is documentary evidence that in several important cases, as at Hertford and Pleshy, the halls were still of this material at the time of their destruction in the seventeenth century.

The Norman conquerors of England brought with them their own architecture, and must necessarily, at any rate at first, have introduced their own masons and craftsmen to carry it out. The wealth of the great Saxon abbeys was largely put to this use by their new owners, for the Norman prelates, accustomed to the glories of Jumièges and Caen, would not tolerate the insignificant proportions of Saxon building, and the result was perhaps one of the greatest eras of local building activity the world has seen. The great Benedictine houses, whose numbers so largely increased in the first few decades succeeding the Conquest, built not only large churches but also conventual buildings on a corresponding scale. The conventual establishment consisted of the claustral block, occupied by the monks themselves and grouped round a central cloister, and a number of subsidiary and outlying blocks of which the infirmary and guest-house were the chief, quite detached from the main building. All except the very richest monasteries found it impossible to reconstruct at once the whole of these buildings in stone, and consequently we find in many instances the claustral block only was erected in this material, while the infirmary and guest-house, as a temporary expedient, were constructed of timber. The truth of this is evidenced by the discovery in several instances (_e.g._ Kirkstall and Waverley) of the original posts of the early infirmary hall encased in later masonry.

Now, the domestic portions of a monastery fulfilled most if not all of the functions of a mediæval house, or rather cluster of houses, as in each case the claustral block, the infirmary, and guest-house possessed its great hall, its separate kitchen, and the usual adjuncts. At a somewhat later date in the abbot’s or prior’s lodging yet another complete dwelling was added to the list. With regard to the guest-house particularly, it was in intention and fact an ordinary dwelling-house on a large scale. The inviolability of monastic property even in the dark period of the Great Anarchy has preserved more trace of the early arrangement of these buildings than is to be found in most of the purely secular houses of the same early date. The superior wealth and greater culture of the Church tended to make it the leader in domestic architecture no less than in ecclesiastical. All through the Middle Ages the purely secular-house plan showed a tendency to a closer approximation to the monastic type, until the quadrangular dwelling of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries becomes almost its exact counterpart even to the cloister alleys on each side, the place of the great church being taken by the gatehouse. It is consequently amongst the monastic remains of the country, and not amongst the Norman keeps, that we are most likely to recover the early type of the domestic hall.

The conventual plan affords examples of two very different types of hall. The first is that almost always adopted for the great frater or dining hall in the claustral block, and is a plain rectangular apartment solidly built of stone; the second type is found only in the infirmary or guest-houses, and is in the form of a nave with one or two aisles.

We have shown that the frater was part of the block first rebuilt by the Norman abbots and priors. It was consequently built in stone after the Norman fashion by Norman masons. The infirmary and guest-halls on the contrary were commonly first constructed of wood, and consequently present all the features of native planning in that material. In most cases this latter class of building was subsequently reconstructed in the more durable material, but even then in many instances the original form was preserved, and stone columns and arcades like the aisles of a church took the place of the original barn-like structure of the Saxon type.

_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]

Turning now to the contemporary castle-building, we find precisely the same varying plans in common use. The three halls mentioned above, at Richmond, Christchurch, and Wolvesley, follow the model of the monastic frater, while the halls at Oakham, Warnford (Hants), and probably Westminster are examples of the aisle type, which survived in isolated instances right through the Middle Ages, one of the latest examples, the Guildhall of York, being an interesting return to the timber originals of this class of structure.

_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]

The aisled hall is so uncommon a feature in purely domestic architecture that a brief reference to the most important examples will be of value in this connection. Four examples at least remain intact, the well-known structure at Oakham (65 ft. by 43½ ft.) being the earliest. The great hall of Winchester Castle is a thirteenth-century building, five bays long (111 ft. by 56 ft.), and another example of similar date is to be found at Bishop Auckland, where, with the addition of a clerestory, it now does duty as a chapel. The Guildhall at York dates from the fifteenth century, and its long ranges of oak columns and handsome roof are exceedingly effective. (See p. 68.) The ruined examples include the halls of Ashby-de-la-Zouche (56½ ft. by 38 ft.) and Warkworth (58 ft. long, with one aisle only), the latter a thirteenth-century structure with a later porch and traces of a central hearth. Lastly the timber hall of Hertford Castle, which has entirely disappeared, bore a close resemblance on plan to the stone structure at Ashby Castle. The hall of Nurstead Court, Kent, has been destroyed, and that at Leicester Castle and at the “Savoy,” Denham, Bucks, have been cut up into rooms and much altered.

These halls are, however, chiefly of interest as examples of an ancient and discarded method of construction, and it is to the other type that we must turn for the true origins of the domestic hall.

The finest remaining example of an early monastic frater is to be found at St. Martin’s Priory, Dover. It forms a hall 101 ft. long by 27 ft. wide, and is lit by a range of eight windows on each side. Though St. Martin’s was never more than a cell of Christchurch, Canterbury, these dimensions compare favourably with those of the secular buildings of the same class. The hall of Christchurch Castle, Twynham, was 70 ft. by 25 ft., and Scolland Hall, Richmond, 79 ft. by 26 ft. Wolvesley Castle Hall was, however, larger, being 135 ft. by 29 ft. In the internal economy of the monastic frater no less than in its plan we may recognise the prototype of the domestic hall. At the east end was the dais for the abbot’s table, at the west the screens masking the entrance from the kitchen and cloister. It has been asserted that the Norman builders placed the windows of their halls high in the walls for fear of draughts, but in the monastic frater we find them in the same position, for the adjoining pent-house roof of the cloister prevented any other arrangement, and here again it seems likely that the secular but copied the monastic fashion.

A characteristic feature of the later monastic frater-house is the reader’s pulpit from which one of the brethren during meal time read edifying extracts from the lives of the saints and similar works. In the Norman fraters, however, this feature seldom appears in structural form. There is no trace of it at Dover, and none likewise in the plans of Lewes and Castle Acre. In the late twelfth century, however, it became universal, and is generally enclosed in a square projection near the dais end of the frater, approached by a flight of stairs in the thickness of the wall.

In position and outward form it approximates closely to the domestic oriel, and one is tempted to suggest it as the true original of this much-discussed feature of the secular plan which, it may be noted (like the pulpit itself), never appears in early work. In any case the beautiful oriel formerly existing in the infirmary at Easby Abbey is one of the earliest known examples of the feature, and implies its monastic origin.

One other point may be noted in conclusion. According to monastic rules, the frater was never supposed to be artificially heated, and consequently it was left to the unaided secular mind to invent something new, or to adhere to the ancient form of the central hearth. The secular mind chose the easier course, and only in occasional instances like that at Christchurch do we find a proper fireplace and chimney in the great hall.

Even the final destruction of the monasteries, under Henry VIII., did not entirely terminate their influence on English domestic work. Numerous abbeys and priories, of which Ford and Laycock are familiar examples, were transformed into dwelling-houses by their first lay proprietors. After the destruction of the conventual church, the claustral block, with one or more of the cloister alleys retained, and the chapter-house used as a private chapel, became the prototype of a numerous class of houses which remained in general favour throughout Elizabethan and Jacobean times; and even in the throes of dissolution monasticism left a deep and lasting mark on the architecture of the country.

—A. W. C.

SIR THOMAS MORE’S HOUSE
AT CHELSEA

_Drawn by Holbein._]

VI.

SIR THOMAS MORE’S HOUSE AT CHELSEA.

Sir Thomas More’s house at Chelsea, where he received the intimate but fatal companionship of King Henry VIII., and held more congenial intercourse with Erasmus, Holbein, and other of his friends, enshrines perhaps one of the most familiar domestic scenes in English history. Yet we have hitherto known little about the house itself beyond the mere fact of its position, and the names of its more or less famous owners until its destruction by Sir Hans Sloane in 1739. Led, however, by a hint of Mr. Randal Davies, I have lately been carefully through the MS. drawings in the possession of the Marquis of Salisbury, and have been rewarded by finding a set of six plans (_circa_ 1595) which undoubtedly relate to this house. Two of them are evidently surveys of its earlier condition, and probably represent its arrangement during the life of Sir Thomas More. The remainder embody some of Sir Robert Cecil’s intentions regarding the refashioning of the house when it came into his possession, intentions which were only partially carried out, and were relinquished by him in favour of his more ambitious project at Hatfield. The plans are beautifully drawn in ink, and throw a most interesting light on the methods of drafting a building scheme, the skill of which seems no whit behind the work of the modern architect.

The information available regarding the riverside estate of Sir Thomas More is by no means slight, although it is lacking in many of the details necessary for the completion of its history, and we have, moreover, no remains of the house with which to compare the early plans, beyond the long garden walls of Tudor brickwork which still divide the rows of modern houses erected upon the site. The whole property has a singularly interesting architectural history, for three other houses were subsequently built upon parts of the estate, and all have a different claim upon our attention. To the west of The Great House, nearer the river, was the original “Farm House” which More had bought and which was rebuilt by Sir Theodore Mayerne, physician to James I., and afterwards altered by the Earl of Lindsey (_circa_ 1674). This house remains, much mutilated and changed, divided into several dwellings, but still retaining the name of Lindsey House and preserving much of the appearance it had in the days of its occupation by Count Zinzendorf and his Moravian followers (1751–1770). To the north of Lindsey House was Gorges House, built probably in the last years of the sixteenth century by the Earl of Lincoln for his son-in-law Sir Arthur Gorges. Surrounding three sides of a courtyard open to the west, and surmounted by a succession of Dutch gables, it eventually came into the possession of the Milman family, and was pulled down about 1726 to make way for Milman’s Row. The third house was to the east of The Great House and its gardens, and was built in 1622–3 by Sir John Danvers, who bought the land from the third Earl of Lincoln. Danvers House was remarkable as being one of the earliest houses to take on the Later Renaissance manner, and its planning and that of its gardens delighted the heart of Aubrey and of Pepys, a detailed description by the former being preserved at the Bodleian. John Thorpe has left us plans of the house, and Aubrey a sketch of the garden. It was pulled down about 1720, and Danvers Street now passes over its site, the present position of the rebuilt Crosby Hall marking roughly its distance from the river.

Before examining in detail the various features of these houses, it may be useful to set out a table of the drawings which are so far available:—

IN THE HATFIELD PAPERS (1595–6).

(1) and (2) Survey of The Great House: ground plan and first
floor, by J. Symonds.

(3) and (4) Proposed rebuilding: ground plan and first floor by
Spicer.

(5) First-floor plan of alternative scheme, also by Spicer.

(6) Estate plan showing house and gardens.

IN THE THORPE COLLECTION, Soane Museum.

(Early 17th century).

(7) Plan of The Great House and lodges.

(8) (9) and (10) Sir John Danvers’ house: ground plan, first
floor, and sketch elevation.

IN THE SMITHSON COLLECTION (Colonel Coke).

(11) Summer-house, Chelsea (shown also in Kip’s view).

There are also—

(12) Kip’s bird’s-eye view of The Great House, showing also
Lindsey House, Gorges House, and the garden of Danvers House,
dated 1699, drawn by Knyff.

(13) Danvers House: plan of garden, drawn by Aubrey (Bodleian).

(14) and (15) Lindsey House: drawings in the Moravian Archives at
Hernhutt; and engraving in Malcolm’s “Londinium Redivivum.”

From this list it will be seen that if there is not enough material to satisfy the topographer and to enable him to plot the exact position of these houses on the banks of the broad highway of the Thames, yet there is more than enough to interest the student of architecture. Let us first consider the earlier plans of The Great House, which I have the kind permission of Lord Salisbury to reproduce.

_Drawn by I. Symonds (c. 1595)._]

_Drawn by I. Symonds (c. 1595)._]

It was on the death, in 1595, of Anne, Lady Dacre—well known as the foundress of the beautiful Emmanuel Hospital which used to stand in Westminster—that The Great House at Chelsea came to the Cecil family, Lord Burleigh, who is thought to have stayed here, giving it up to his son Sir Robert in 1597. The house, as we have seen, had already had historic associations, from its first builder, Sir Thomas More, who lived here for about fourteen years until his attainder in 1535. It had then passed successively to Sir William Paulet (first Marquis of Winchester), his son the second Marquis, and in 1575 to Lady Dacre, who was a daughter of the Marchioness of Winchester by her former husband, Sir Robert Sackville. The possession of what must have been a fine old house of the early sixteenth century, amidst the charming Thames scenery just west of the picturesque village of Chelsea, fired the future builder of Hatfield with a desire to remodel the building and bring it up to date as his country seat. With this in view, immediately upon possession Cecil had the house measured up, and commissioned one or more of his “surveyors” to plan the additions and alterations. In a letter dated September 3rd, 1595, from H. Maynard to Sir Robert Cecil, mention is made of “the plattes of Chelsey house made by Torrington, with the Controller of the Works’ additions.” This seems to imply that Torrington had plotted the place as it stood, and that the additions had been made by the Controller of the Works whose identity is not disclosed. The drawings here reproduced do not seem, however, to be the ones referred to in the letter, and it is difficult to say how far any of them represent the form of the original house as acquired by Cecil. To the historian this is unfortunate, but to the student of architecture it will be a matter of congratulation that the “sketch-plans” survived instead.

The two plans which seem most likely to represent the already existing buildings have not the name of Chelsea attached to them, but they are clearly of this house. They are each inscribed: “This Plat is after 10 foot in An ynch. p. J. Symands.” More roughly drawn than the others, they represent less coherent planning, and show an earlier type of house. Most significant of all, the figured dimensions are given in fractions of feet or with inches, and the heights of the stories are shown on the ground and first floors. This John Symonds was the author of the remarkable plans of Aldgate Priory (also in the Hatfield Collection), which Professor Lethaby published in the _Home Counties Magazine_ (vol. ii, pp. 45–53). Professor Lethaby has established that Symonds was employed by Lord Burghley on the harbour works at Dover, and that he died probably in 1597. It is interesting to find another set of plans which associates him again with the neighbourhood of London. The early features of his plan will be seen to consist in the numerous staircase and other projections upon both the north and south fronts, the square porch with shafted angles (as in the western room), and the oriel over the front door. The house had doubtless been altered since Sir Thomas More’s time. Its front elevation is symmetrical between the two slightly projecting wings, the porch being in the centre; but towards the west a further wing had been built with a width and projection similar to the others. This western wing is shown on all the plans of the house, and it was evidently the intention of Sir Robert Cecil to remove the projections between it and the eastern wing, making a symmetrical elevation between them, broken only by the porch. We see, therefore, in all the other plans that the porch has been shifted westwards, and with it the Great Hall, and the planning of the north side has been altered to correspond. This part of the scheme was actually carried out by Cecil, as we can see by referring to John Thorpe’s plan, and to Kip’s view of the house a century later. The Great Hall in Symonds’s plan is of one story, and, beside the usual screen, has posts to support the passage above, a feature which suggests that this was once an open gallery. The hall is shown with a dais, which communicated with a long wing leading northwards, in which were the grand staircase, the chapel, and a cloister. This wing, with its Long Gallery on the first floor, looks at first sight to be of quite Elizabethan character, and may well have been an addition by Lady Dacre. But the chapel, cramped though it is, with its window to the east, is not unlikely to have been the private chapel of Sir Thomas More, and the “Parte of ye Tarras” shows the commencement of his favourite terrace, which appears in Cecil’s estate plan and in Kip’s view, and is described with its “banqueting house” in the conveyance to Sir Hans Sloane (1737). On the first floor may be seen the little balustrade which surrounds the opening into the chapel below, and on the two floors there are no fewer than four rooms having those internal porches which are so characteristic of Elizabethan houses, and which came in those days under the comprehensive term of “oriel.”

The closer one examines these two plans of Symonds the more evident it becomes that they represent an early Tudor house which had been enlarged in the latter part of the sixteenth century—if the north-east wing were really in existence when the house was measured up, and was not the draughtsman’s suggestions for an extension. If our deduction is correct, we have here the substantial arrangement of Sir Thomas More’s house, and one of the rooms, possibly the chapel, formed the background for Holbein’s famous sketch of the family group.

Let us now consider the four other Hatfield plans, two of which are marked “Chelsey,” while the remaining two—undoubtedly of the same place—bear the name of the draughtsman, “Mr. Spicer,”[18] in Cecil’s own handwriting. I do not think that any of these plans represent accurately the actual changes which were made, although to the title of one, “Mr. Spicer’s platt without a gallery,” Cecil has added the word “allowed.”

[18] Of Spicer I have not been able to find any other mention than the following reference in the Hatfield MSS. In a letter dated 9 December, 1598, written in Italian by Federigo Genibelli to Sir Robert Cecil, the writer, in speaking of the wages due to himself and other workmen in building fortifications in the Isle of Wight, refers to “Mr. Speicer” as also employed. It is quite possible that he was the Surveyor of Works at Chelsea.

_Drawn by Spicer (c. 1595)._]

The plans are drawn with scrupulous care, and, like a fair proof that they were not carried out. The dimensions are marked in whole figures without fractions, and no heights of rooms are given. They exhibit most complete and ideal plans of the period. The scheme for which the ground and first-floor plans are drawn shows the south front reduced to perfect symmetry, the western room already referred to being brought out in a bold wing, and a corresponding projection being placed to the east. This latter contains an imposing chapel with screen, and two shaped balconies to the gallery over. Each wing is flanked by an octagonal stair-turret. The hall (50 ft. by 21 ft.) which replaces the larger Gothic hall (59 ft. by 31 ft. 6 in.) has been moved westward, to allow of a central porch and the addition of an extra retiring-room of important dimensions to the private apartments eastward. The hall retains a screen, but loses its dais and oriel window. The porch is treated with columns in the approved Renaissance manner, which are repeated in the upper storey and take the place of the little oriel that is shown over the earlier doorway. The old north-western wing is modified a little, but to the east a repeat is shown, and in the former, false windows are indicated against the oven walls to balance the bay on the other side! Over the east wing is a long gallery (99 ft. by 19 ft.) overlooking the garden, with three bay windows. The old octagonal projections on the north side are retained, and the plan is noteworthy in having seven newel stairs, beside the principal staircase and one other straight flight.

_Drawn by Spicer (c. 1595)._]

_Drawn by Spicer (c. 1595)._]

An even more elaborate scheme is shown on the third plan, of which we have the first floor, or “seconde storie,” only. Here the hall, which is the same length as the old hall, _i.e._, 59 ft., goes up two storeys, and a gallery is shown over the screen. The apartment to the east of the hall is occupied by the grand staircase, and a fine well-stair flanks each of the front wings, being brought out as square towers behind the octagonal turrets. The chapel shows further elaboration with three balconies, evidently forming private pews, not unlike Queen Elizabeth’s pew in the chapel of the Croydon Archiepiscopal Palace. The kitchen shares with the hall the dignity of embracing two storeys, but the main feature of the plan is the range of building which unites the two northern wings, and forms a magnificent gallery 123 ft. long by 19 ft. wide.

The fourth plan is by far the most interesting from the topographical point of view, for it gives the divisions of all the gardens and forecourts and the outline of the riverbank. The northern boundary is now the south side of King’s Road, and the stable-yard is the Moravian Burial Ground. The open square to the north-east is Dovecote Close, now largely occupied by Paulton’s Square. And down by the river may be seen the quay, and the little street of houses (called Duke Street and Lombard Street) whose picturesque buildings gave way to the making of the Embankment. The lines of garden-wall running north and south are still largely intact, and bear out the general accuracy of the plan, although the measurements are wrong in many places. The terrace, with its archway and steps, is to be seen; but the house is drawn more as a feat of draughtsmanship than as a serious attempt to make it to scale. It represents perhaps another of Sir Robert Cecil’s schemes, but neither a comparison with Symonds’ earlier or Thorpe’s later plans will be found to support its exact arrangement.

Dr. King, the antiquary, and rector of Chelsea, writing in the early part of the eighteenth century, relates from his own observation how “in divers places [in this house] are these letters, R.C., and also R.C.E., with the date of the year, viz., 1597, which letters were the initials of his [Cecil’s] name and his lady’s, and the year 1597 when he new-built, or at least new-fronted it.” A letter in the Hatfield MSS. from Roger Houghton to Sir Robert Cecil, endorsed “Mr. Steward to my master,” and written “From your Honour’s House in the Strand” (June 22nd, 1597), says: “The bed chamber and withdrawing chamber at ‘Cheallseay’ are matted, and this day they are about to hang them. There wanteth your direction what stone you will that the ‘ffootpasses’ be made of to the chimneys in these two rooms, as also to the gallery, also whether you will have the hangings in the great chamber to be hung at their full length or tucked up.”