Chapter XVI: Queenborough Castle and Its Builder, William of Wykeham 269 (3)

Sir Robert Cecil seems soon to have become tired of his new possession. We find him desirous of selling the property in 1599, and on the last day of February of that year it was bought by Henry, second Earl of Lincoln. The new owner was father-in-law to Sir Arthur Gorges, upon whom and his wife the estate was settled. Apparently at this time, too, a site was found for a new house, behind Lindsey House, which was occupied by Sir Arthur Gorges during the Earl of Lincoln’s lifetime. There seem to have been very serious quarrels between the two families, and much interesting and vigorous correspondence is extant concerning their differences. Mr. Randal Davies, in his _Chelsea Old Church_, has told the subsequent history of the house and of its notable tenants. The Earl of Lincoln died in 1615, and the house and land which he had purchased from Sir Robert Cecil passed to Sir Arthur Gorges. This, however, was not the complete estate of Sir Thomas More, for it appears that the property lying south of Dovecote Close and east of the terrace and garden of The Great House, was in the hands of the descendant of William Roper, who married More’s daughter and received it in dowry, for which reason it is not shown on Cecil’s estate plan. The Tudor home of the Ropers, Well Hall, is still to be seen, in part, at Eltham, where its fine brick walls and chimney-stacks overhang the ancient moat. Before his death the Earl of Lincoln reunited More’s former property by purchase, but in 1615 the two portions were again in separate hands, since he bequeathed his house and grounds to Gorges, but left Roper’s land to his son, the third earl. This latter parcel of the estate, which for a few years was thus a second time in the same ownership as The Great House, has quite an interesting history. It is specified in the grant of Chelsea to William Pawlet after More’s attainder as “the house and one pightell or close of land.” Evidently, therefore, there was already a building upon it, and Mr. Randal Davies confirms a suggestion of Mr. Horne that this was the “place called the new buylding wherein was a chappell, a library, and a gallerie, which Roper tells us More built a good distance from his mansion house.” To this I would add that it seems extremely probable, since the high terrace from The Great House to this site was not a natural one, but apparently built of brick and stone, that it formed a covered way communicating with the “new building.” However this may be, the association of the place with the name of More was so strong that it is mentioned by Aubrey as “the very place where was the house of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England,” and Aubrey adds that “he had but one marble chimneypiece, and that plain, but indeed very good if it be not touch, which remains there still in the chamber that was his lordship’s.” These remarks are not inconsistent with the conclusions arrived at above, but so fixed was the tradition as to this being the site of More’s home, that even the clear evidence in favour of The Great House was assailed. The misapprehension was probably strengthened by the name of “Moorhouse,” perhaps bestowed upon it by Roper and his wife, and mentioned by the third Earl of Lincoln in a letter of 1618. The property was sold by the last-named to Sir John Danvers in 1622–3—three years after The Great House had again changed hands through its purchase by Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex.

_Drawn by I. Thorpe (c. 1620)._]

The general date of the drawings of John Thorpe in the Soane Museum would seem to assign his plan of The Great House, Chelsea, to the time of the Earl of Lincoln, or that of the Earl of Middlesex. The plan, which bears no inscription, was identified by Mr. J. A. Gotch, by a close comparison with Kip’s view. In its south elevation it corresponds exactly with the engraving, and, most significant of all, both drawings show the two square lodges set anglewise about the gate that divides the two front courts. Assuming, as seems probable, that Cecil did not alter the northern side of the original house very much, that portion might well have become too antiquated for the Earl of Middlesex, who, when pulling down the northern wing, may have modified the south front and the other features of the house. It must be conceded that the presence of the plans of the adjoining Danvers House (built 1622–3) in the Soane collection renders it possible that Thorpe was the architect, and in such case he may easily have been consulted regarding The Great House itself. This theory would account for the inclusion of both houses in the same collection of plans. Thorpe’s plan of Chelsea House is disappointing in that the new arrangement appears distinctly uninteresting when compared with the earlier plans in the Hatfield MSS. But it has the corroborative evidence of Kip’s view, and is therefore probably more accurate than some other of his plans have been found to be. Mr. Gotch has pointed out the interesting fact that in the plan we have one of the first examples of the corridor or passage of modern times, attention to which is called by the draughtsman in his quaint phrase “A long entry through all.”

The Earl of Middlesex added to the estate by the purchase of “Brickbarn Close” and “The Sandhills,” two properties lying to the north of the present King’s Road, and these he converted into the Park, shown in Kip’s view. Till recently this district, though partly built upon, retained much of its old character and a goodly number of its trees. Its northern part, the Elm Park estate, was built over some years ago, and more recently the remaining portion has been cut up into roads, and, amid unavailing protests, is completely given over to the builders.

_Drawn by Walter H. Godfrey._]

As a result of the royal displeasure which Cranfield incurred, Chelsea House was surrendered in 1625 to the Crown, and in 1627 Charles I. bestowed it upon the Duke of Buckingham. After the assassination of the latter his duchess continued to reside here, and Mr. Davies gives us the interesting information that his daughter, the Duchess of Lennox, decided to come in 1646 “to her house at Chelsea to be under Dr. Mayerne’s hands for her health.” This brings under notice the other house on More’s estate, now called Lindsey House, which was then in the occupation of Sir Theodore Mayerne. Tradition says that it was he who bought the original farmhouse which Sir Thomas More had purchased and left standing, and that he rebuilt it for himself. On page 57 will be found a quotation from the Parliamentary Survey of Eltham, to the effect that Sir Theodore Mayerne, formerly physician to James I., and ranger of Eltham Park, no longer resided there, but at his house in “Chelsey,” which confirms the other evidence to be found in the parish records. The house still stands as rebuilt by the Earl of Lindsey in 1674, and not much altered in appearance since its delineation in Kip’s view.

After The Great House had been occupied during the Commonwealth by the Parliamentary Commissioners (Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke and John Lisle), the second Duke of Buckingham regained possession. Lost to him, through his debts, the house ultimately passed (1674) into the hands of the trustees for George Digby, Earl of Bristol, and his Countess sold it in 1682 to Henry, Marquis of Worcester, afterwards Duke of Beaufort, the house remaining in his family until 1720. It was during this period, about the year 1699, that Kip’s beautiful view of the mansion—then called Beaufort House—was published, a priceless record of the property, so ruthlessly defaced and destroyed by Sir Hans Sloane after he had purchased it in 1737.

_Drawn by Kip (1699)._]

_Drawn by J. Aubrey._]

Mr. Randal Davies, whom I have followed in the account of the occupants of the house, has printed[19] the interesting conveyance of the property to Sloane, and if its description is carefully collated with the information in Kip’s view one is struck by the wonderful accuracy of the latter. Here is The Great House, as shown by Thorpe, its lodges and its forecourts, the wharf with its brick towers east and west, the orchard, and “one garden environed with brick walls ... and a terrace on the north end, with a banqueting house on the east end of the terrace,” as well as the “one great garden ... extending from the terrace and banqueting house unto the highway on the north.”[20] The “banqueting house,” as already stated, is alike in detail with the sketch of “A Summer House, Chelsea,” in the Smithson collection of seventeenth-century drawings now in the possession of Colonel Coke. But, valuable as is the representation of The Great House, the print has much more information to give us. The great park is there shown in all its original beauty; the Duke of Beaufort’s stables and yard, since converted into the historic chapel and burying-ground of the Moravians, is to the west; and nearer the river are the beautiful Jacobean House of Sir Arthur Gorges (our sole evidence of its character and design) and the house and garden of the Earls of Lindsey. And to the east, below the wide area of Dovecote Close, laid out as a large kitchen-garden, are the beautiful pleasure grounds of Danvers House, which had been destroyed but three years before the drawing was made.

[19] _Chelsea Old Church_, by Randal Davies, F.S.A.

[20] The gate into the King’s Road, shown in the engraving, is probably that stone gateway now at Chiswick which was designed by Inigo Jones and taken to Chiswick on the destruction of Beaufort House.

_Drawn by J. Thorpe (c. 1620)._]

As already described, Sir John Danvers bought the land shown to the right of Kip’s view in 1622–3. That he built the house shown in the Thorpe drawings is corroborated by John Aubrey’s minute description of house and garden in his MS. “Natural History of Wiltshire,” preserved at the Bodleian. His rough sketch of the garden is here reproduced for the first time, to show how it confirms the general lines of the drawing published by Kip. It would be interesting to quote Aubrey in full, but a few sentences must suffice. He says: “’Twas Sir John Danvers, of Chelsey, who first taught us the way of Italian gardens. He had well travelled France and Italy and made good observations.... He had a very fine fancy, which lay chiefly for gardens and architecture.” There is no doubt that the plan of the house was greatly in advance of its time. Pepys “found it to be the prettiest contrived house that I ever saw in my life,” and Aubrey describes it as “very elegant and ingeniose.” He adds that “as you sit at dinner in the Hall you are entertained with two delightful Vistos: one southward over the Thames and to Surrey, the other northward into that curious garden. Above the Hall is a stately Roome of the same dimension, wherein is an excellent organ of stoppes of cedar. Sir John was a great lover of musick, and especially of J. Coparario’s Fansies.” Again of the garden he tells of its “boscage of lilacs,” its “syringas,” its “long gravelled walks margented with hyssop” and “several sorts of thyme.” “Sir John was wont on fine mornings in the summer to brush his beaver hat on the hyssop and thyme, which did perfume it with its natural essence and would last a morning or longer.” He also tells of the “figure of the gardener’s wife in freestone coloured,” and “the like of the gardener, both accoutred according to their callings,” of which the King’s mason, Nicholas Stone, notes thus in his diary: (1622) “Unto Sir John Daves at Chelsey, I made two statues of an old man and a woman and a diall, for which I had £7 a piece.” And finally Aubrey thus continues: “At the four comers of the garden, about the ovall, are four low pavilions of brick leaded flatt and some firre and pine trees, shumacks, and the quarters all filled with some rare plant or other. On the east side of the Hall is a neat little Chappele or oratorie finely painted; next to it a Drawing room whose floor is chequered like a chesse board of Box and Ewgh panels of about six inches square. At the east and west end of the House (without) are two high fastigiated turrets the Fans whereof are the Crest of Danvers _sc._ a golden Wyvern volant.” Aubrey says the garden was 8 chains 9 yards by 4 chains 9 yards wide.

_Drawn by J. Thorpe (c. 1620)._]

From these descriptions we obtain a charming idea of the beautiful little house which has gone the way of nearly all the buildings that peopled this “Village of Palaces.” The Earl of Radnor was a tenant here from 1660 till 1685, and after him Thomas Lord Wharton, who inherited the property, lived there. The house was not demolished until 1720, but in 1696 on the site of the garden were built the first houses of Danvers Street by Benjamin Stallwood, as may still be seen recorded on a little tablet at the corner of the street. The foundations discovered when Crosby Hall was built on the site were sufficient to determine the general position of the building, but were not sufficient to plot it exactly.

I am indebted to Mr. Walter L. Spiers for his kind permission to make the copies of the Thorpe plans that are here published.

—W. H. G.

COCKERSAND ABBEY AND ITS
CHAPTER-HOUSE

VII.

COCKERSAND ABBEY AND ITS CHAPTER-HOUSE.

With but little variation the great majority of monastic establishments follow the well-defined lines which custom and the exigencies of the conventual life had laid down in the early years of the Church. It is consequently only occasionally that an abbey or priory ruin in this country presents any important deviation from the general plan of them all, and it is in the endless variety of their detail that most of their interest is centred. The Abbey of Cockersand is thus fortunate in having possessed and retained a chapter-house of that polygonal form which flourished in this island alone, and even here never became a common feature. In addition to this, the abbey choir stalls, a unique example of early wood-carving, have also been preserved, though removed from their original position. The chapter-house at Cockersand, while it does not challenge comparison with the great structures at Lincoln and York, being indeed of comparatively small size, is yet a refined and beautiful expression of “Early English” art which has hitherto almost escaped notice. The stalls also, though a cast of part of them rests in the Architectural Museum in Tufton Street, have hardly received the recognition they deserve.

_Drawn by Alfred W. Clapham._]

Situated on a flat tract of land lying between the estuaries of the rivers Lune and Wyre, half-way up the coast-line of Lancashire, the Abbey of Cockersand is remarkable for the dreariness of its surroundings. The level meadows, intersected in every direction by dykes that stretch for two miles inland from the ruins, were at one time little better than a great salt-marsh, inundated by the spring tides and fit for little else but pasture. The outer walls of the abbey itself, built upon a slight eminence looking over the desolate sands of Morecambe Bay, were again and again undermined by the attacks of the sea. “St. Mary in the Marsh upon the Cockersand” was indeed, in position and surroundings, no desirable retreat, and it is singular that a convent of considerable wealth and importance should have risen in so remote a spot. Founded first as a hospital towards the close of the twelfth century, it soon rose to the dignity of an abbey, being colonised by Premonstratensian canons from Croxton in Leicestershire. Its history is chiefly a record of disputes with the neighbouring priories of Lancaster and Cockerham, and presents few features of interest to the general reader. At the close of the fifteenth century the records of the successive visitations of Bishop Redman provide a more intimate picture of the life of the inmates. Excessive drinking, it appears, was indulged in, and two of the canons had to be exiled to other houses for a more serious offence. When the abbey fell amongst the greater monasteries in 1539, it was tenanted by twenty-three canons. Their home soon after came into the hands of the lords of Thurnham Hall, whose successors hold it at the present time. With the exception of the chapter-house there is little of interest to be found amongst the ruins. The accompanying ground plan (which is sufficiently indicated by the remaining fragments of walls and the mounds of fallen masonry) will show the general arrangement of the building. The aisleless nave of the church, a feature of common occurrence in convents of the Premonstratensian order, was no doubt similar to those still partially standing at Bayham, Titchfield, and Egglestone. The chapter-house was approached from the cloister by a vestibule, probably divided into three aisles and vaulted in stone. Externally the building has been refaced with a red sandstone, and consequently all the features of interest it may once have possessed have now disappeared. It is finished on the three eastern sides with an embattled parapet, and has a low-pitched pyramidal slate roof. The original entrance on the west face still remains, though the mouldings are much weathered. It is a plain semi-circular arch, formerly springing from side shafts, which are now missing, and probably dates from the foundation of the abbey. Internally the chapter-house is an octagonal apartment, 27 ft. 9 in. in diameter, having a fine vaulted roof springing from a central column and forming, on plan, four quadripartite bays. This arrangement is very unusual, as it throws the window openings out of the true centre of the vaulting cells above them. There is, however, no apparent awkwardness in the result. The central pier is formed of eight clustered and engaged shafts, keeled on the outward face and having each a moulded capital, the bell of which is ornamented with the stiff leaf foliage of the Early English period. The vaulting ribs, consisting of three main members divided by deep hollows, are all of similar section, except the wall ribs, which are formed with a simple hollow only. At the intersections are foliage bosses, four in number, of excellent workmanship. It is unfortunate that the building was for long used as a burial-place for the owners of the neighbouring Thurnham Hall, as this has necessitated the raising of the floor level, which is now some distance up the central column and above the sills of the windows, and has quite destroyed the original proportions of the building. The window tracery, if any existed, has now entirely gone, some portions of geometric work on the north side being of very doubtful date. Each opening had two shafts on either side, one free and one engaged, and the internal hood mouldings terminate in sculptured heads, all much defaced.

The polygonal or circular chapter-house became a favourite feature of English work in the thirteenth century. There is evidence of the existence of some twenty-four of these buildings, and of these ten still remain complete. The form was most popular amongst the secular canons, amongst whom it received its highest development. The Benedictines came second with five examples,[21] followed by the Augustinians with five and the Cistercians and Premonstratensians with two each. The example at Alnwick Abbey, which with Cockersand is representative of the last-mentioned order, was a circular structure some 25 ft. in diameter, of which only the foundations remain. In regard to geographical distribution, these buildings were spread over the whole of England from Tavistock in Devon to Carlisle, while three instances occur in Scotland, at Elgin, Inchcolm, and Restalrig. Elsewhere they are almost unknown. The earliest example and the prototype of all the rest is the chapter-house of the Benedictine cathedral of Worcester, which dates from _circa_ 1130. It was originally circular, and still retains this form internally, and is surrounded by a Norman wall arcade. It is possible that the form was suggested by the earlier round churches, some of which, as at Ludlow Castle, were aisleless and roofed with a timber pyramid “spire form.” The close proximity of other monastic buildings, and the consequent fear of fire, led to the insertion of the central column and the stone vault. The column was, however, always looked upon as an incumbrance, and was finally dispensed with and the building vaulted in one span. Of the later examples of this class of building the best instance is the beautiful little fifteenth-century chapter-house at Howden (Yorks), which apart from the fall of its vault, is still practically complete.

[21] There were also doubtful examples at Belvoir Priory and St. Margaret’s, Lynn.

The traditional removal of fittings and furniture from the dissolved monastic houses to neighbouring parish churches is generally found on examination to be devoid of any foundation, the unusual richness or lavish decoration of a screen, a roof, or a piece of tabernacle work having alone given rise to the popular belief. There are, however, a few instances of the genuine transfer of monastic “loot” to parish churches, which are all the more surprising when one considers the low repute into which the Gothic craftsmanship was rapidly falling at that period. The choir stalls at Richmond, Yorks (brought from Easby Abbey), and the still finer series at Whalley, Lancashire, are well authenticated instances of this practice, while at Lancaster there is every probability that the magnificent fourteenth-century stalls in the parish church originally adorned the choir of Cockersand Abbey. It is true that an alien priory was long attached to the church at Lancaster, but the fact that the existing fabric is almost entirely of later date than the confiscation of the alien houses makes it more than improbable that the stalls were transferred from the earlier church. On the other hand there is the persistent tradition of their Cockersand origin and the neighbouring instance of a similar transfer at Whalley.

As at present arranged they stand on either side of the sacrarium, the returned stalls (two on each side) being placed against the east wall. The seats, fourteen in all and 2 ft. 5 in. from centre to centre, are provided with misericordes more or less mutilated and carved with grotesque figures. The canopies are supported on buttressed shafts at the back and front, carried up in the form of crocketed pinnacles and finished with carved finials of unusual form. Above each seat is an ogee arch richly crocketed and filled in beneath with a pierced panel of flamboyant tracery, each bay being of different design. Rising slightly behind these arches are lofty gables filled with similar panels, the crockets forming a nearly continuous edging of carving and presenting an almost infinite richness and variety. The comparative scarcity of “Decorated” woodwork adds largely to the value of the present example, which is undoubtedly the richest specimen of fourteenth-century wood-carving now remaining in this country.

The church of Cockerham is said to possess the Cockersand bells, and at Mytton near Clitheroe is a rood-screen said to have been derived from the same source. In the latter instance, however, the screen was undoubtedly intended for its present position, and was erected at the cost of the abbey, which then held the advowson of the church. Be this as it may, the forgotten and inconspicuous Lancashire convent has transmitted to the present day, in its octagonal chapter-house and its splendid stalls, some indication of the beauty and originality of monastic work even in the remoter parts of England, and has preserved for itself two monuments of its days of prosperity, while the very existence of so many of its greater fellows is rescued from oblivion only by lingering tradition and their written records.

The foregoing notes, with the accompanying photographs, should therefore be of value to all who take an interest in mediæval architecture, more especially in those examples which are not rendered familiar by constant illustration.

—A. W. C.

THE REBUILDING OF CROSBY HALL
AT CHELSEA

_Photograph by London News Agency._]

VIII.

THE REBUILDING OF CROSBY HALL AT CHELSEA.

The removal of Crosby Hall from Bishopsgate to Chelsea, regretful as was the necessity, provides us with an excuse for investigating its claim to our admiration. The vicissitudes of this noble fragment of fifteenth-century domestic architecture have been told many times since it was threatened with demolition, and since the day on which, after escaping the Great Fire of 1666, and also a second outbreak a few years later (when most of the mansion of Crosby Place was destroyed), it fell finally, in 1908, to the business demands of our modern city.

_Drawn by W. H. Godfrey._]

Although known for many years, and still known, as Crosby Hall, it must be remembered that the building was merely a fragment of the City-merchant’s palace which was called Crosby Place from the name of Sir John Crosby who built it. Shakespeare calls it Crosbies’ Place in _King Richard III._, and we know that it was a house of great size and magnificence—so much so, that it shared with other important palaces of London the distinction of providing lodging for the noblest ambassadors. This was the great Hall or principal apartment of Crosby Place—the sole survivor of all the spacious rooms and galleries that surrounded its many courtyards and overlooked its gardens.

Sir John Crosby rebuilt a large portion of an existing house in Bishopsgate, which was formerly in the occupation of a wealthy Genoese merchant named Cataneo Pinelli. This rebuilding was begun in the year 1466, the sixth year of the reign of Edward IV., some twelve or thirteen years before the king constructed his great Hall at Eltham Palace, which offers many interesting points of comparison with Crosby Hall. (_Vide ante_ pp. 58, 59.)

Now, the fifteenth century saw the third and last period of that unique style of architecture which we call Gothic—a period which lasted from the latter end of the fourteenth century to the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and which is generally known by the useful and significant title of Perpendicular.

Although it is the third period only of Gothic architecture which is known by the name of Perpendicular—and this merely from a detail of its window tracery—yet the term might be applied with great truth to the whole style in contrast to the strong preference which the classical builders showed for the horizontal line. The Greek architects confined all their buildings within the uncompromisingly horizontal limits of their cornice or entablature, and even the Romans who had learned to construct the most elaborate edifices with their semi-circular arches were not content until they had imprisoned each row of arches beneath the long cornice of the Greeks. It was not until the Byzantine builders began to design great churches for the Christian faith, and when the Western Church took up the work, that an attempt was made to free the design from its horizontal limits and to encourage its growth upwards, as a symbol of its religious aspiration. The consummation of these efforts, continued for many hundreds of years, was the sudden birth of Gothic art at the end of the twelfth century, and the wonderful forests of vertical lines leading up to a thousand pointed or—as the French say—broken arches, which we see in our great cathedrals. For a time the classical idea was banished—architecture had broken away from the human scale imposed upon it by the Greek artists, and it was striving to express something superhuman, mysterious, and divine. This spirit could not, however, last for long—it was of too ideal a nature—and just as the finest period of Greek architecture is confined to at most a couple of centuries, so in the case of Gothic the same number of years saw the shadow of approaching change. The Renaissance, the great reversion to classical conceptions, did not obtain a firm footing in England until the sixteenth century, but in the fifteenth we can already see signs of its coming if we look for them, and in no detail is it plainer than in the enclosing of the fifteenth-century pointed arch within a square frame. It can be seen most clearly in Crosby Hall in the case of the fireplace, the north-west door, and the main arch to the great oriel window. It appears also in the arches to the ordinary windows which are confined by a square frame of woodwork, in those of the oriel window in its lower lights and its panels, and in every little pierced arch of the oak roof and cornice. The top lights of the oriel window alone cling to the original idea of the Gothic arch, and point upwards amid the curving ribs of the stone vaults, without any check. At the same time that the arch was imprisoned within a square moulded frame, the arch itself became flatter or more depressed, and assumed the familiar shape which architects call four-centred from its being a composite arch of four distinct curves. The arch over the oriel window and that to the fireplace are two good instances of this in Crosby Hall.

This altered character of the arch is the chief architectural point to notice, and the second is the introduction of panelling. Practically all the design in the earlier and purer Gothic work was confined to definite structural forms and to their adornment and enrichment. In the fifteenth century, however, there began the custom of dividing wall and other surfaces up into panels, again by the introduction of horizontal lines among the vertical ones—and thus was started the type of decoration which remained the most popular method from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. First the long lights of the windows were divided by transomes or horizontal bars as in the oriel window, which is separated into three tiers. Then the vaults themselves were no longer divided only by the structural ribs which carried the weight of the stone roof, but were subdivided again by cross-ribs into the delightful network of panels which is shown in the vault of the oriel, where each intersection has a beautiful carved boss. From this it was an easy matter to repeat the outlines of the windows in stone upon the walls as is here done on those sides of the oriel that did not admit of being pierced for light. The square frames round the arches provided little triangular panels or spandrils, such as those above the oriel and fireplace, and in other similar places. Above all, the timber framing of the roof was specially suited to the panel treatment, and whether we look at the long rectangular divisions into which the great arched ceiling is divided, or at the succession of little squares with pierced quatrefoils in the cornice and round the stone corbels, we cannot fail to appreciate how completely this method of design had gained favour with the fifteenth-century builders.

Let us now consider briefly what light Crosby Hall has to throw upon the arrangements and planning of a mediæval house.

_Photograph by Architectural Review._]

_Photograph by Architectural Review._]

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the English country house—apart from the castles and other fortified places—was a very simple but most dignified building. Its main apartment was the Great Hall, where the whole household lived, dined, and sometimes slept—a room designed on such a scale as to give the necessary shelter to all the servants as well as to the members of the family. To this hall was generally attached, at the upper end, a small withdrawing room or sleeping chamber for the master and mistress of the house, and to the lower end a kitchen for the preparation of food. The system of the family and its dependents, as assembled in their hall, constituted a little hierarchy like that of the feudal State or that of the Church. Privacy was discouraged; every man lived his life in the presence of his fellows, and beneath the fine timber roofs of the great Gothic halls the plan worked out well and produced good men and noble women. Community of living was understood by the people of the Middle Ages in a way that is hard for us to understand now; it was a familiar thing to them, and it is illustrated over and over again in their social customs. So much was this so, that when at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries we find people adding private apartments to their houses, we also meet with protests from men like William Langland, who saw in this new practice a loss of interest in the household and a consequent shirking of duty towards its members. In his _Vision of Piers Plowman_ we read concerning the Great Hall:—

“Each day in the week
There the lord nor the lady liketh not to sit,
Now hath each rich man a rule, to eat by himself
In a privy parlour—for poor men’s sake.
Or in a chamber with a chimney, and leave the chief hall,
That was made for meals, for men to eat in,
And all to spare to spill that spend shall another.”

Now, by the time that Sir John Crosby came to build his mansion, the privy parlour had become a settled institution, and with it a multitude of other private rooms had found their way into the necessary domestic equipment. But these new rooms had not yet completely ousted the Great Hall, nor was this time-honoured and central feature of the house superseded until well on into the seventeenth century. The Hall was still used on many important family occasions it was still the place for general meeting and the exchange of courtesies, and it happily retained its mediæval plan and arrangement with scarcely any modification of importance.

We have, therefore, in Crosby Hall the Great Hall of a fifteenth-century mansion, which resembles those of two centuries before and two centuries after its time, all of which followed the same pattern, if with certain slight modifications in design.

_Photograph by Architectural Review._]

_Photograph by Architectural Review._]

Let us imagine that we have entered the front courtyard of Crosby Place through the gatehouse in Bishopsgate Street. We approach the Hall which lies directly in front of us, passing the Chapel on our right and the private apartments on our left. We enter at the chief door, and find ourselves at the lower end of the Hall behind a beautiful oak screen and beneath a projecting gallery. Every Hall was provided with a screen to divide the entrance passage from the room. Here unfortunately we have lost all trace of this end of Crosby Hall. Quite probably it suffered in the fire that destroyed the southern part of the mansion in the seventeenth century. We have not even the old doorway left to us, for a large archway had been driven through the walls and under the gallery to Crosby Square, and horses and carts passed to and fro. Only when we came to pull down the building did we find some traces of the original beams of the gallery still left in the ceiling over this roadway. It can be seen that the gallery formed part of the hall, and its windows were designed to harmonise with the long range on the west side. The high roof of the hall, however, was not carried over the gallery, and so its two windows were drawn together, there being no need for a stone corbel between them. Some doubts have been cast on the genuineness of this double window since it had been much restored, probably when the archway was made. I have little doubt, however, that it shows the original arrangement, and it may be noted in its support that all the windows in Eltham Palace are grouped together in this way in twos, the stone corbels and roof beams being divided by each coupled window. The corresponding wall on the east side of the gallery had long been destroyed, but from the presumptive evidence of the rest of the hall and of its careful balance of features, we have ventured to place a new counterpart of the double window here also. The oak roof over the gallery is again a conjectural restoration, and it is hoped before the rest of the buildings are completed that we shall be able to replace the missing screen as well with one which will properly fulfil its function and reflect in part at least the beauty of the hall roof.

Having passed through the screen into the hall, the visitor would be at leisure to examine its various features. The windows on either side are placed high in the wall, but towards the upper end a beautiful bay-window or oriel is thrown out in order that the principal members of the family might have the use of its space for comparative privacy and from its lowered windows might look out upon the courtyard. Beyond the oriel on the same side is the door to the great parlour or private dining-room, above which was the great chamber—a reception room in much favour in this and the succeeding century. Mr. Gotch reminds us that Slender in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ boasts of his Great Chamber. The blank windows between the oriel and the end wall show the position of this room which was misnamed the Throne Room while Crosby Hall was still a restaurant, and it was felt advisable to keep up the legend of Richard III. and his crown. These and the two windows on the east wall, corresponding to the blank ones, are a smaller size than the others, perhaps to allow loftier hangings to be placed round the dais. Opposite to the oriel was the beautiful fireplace of a size and proportion befitting this fine apartment. By it the upper end was well warmed, but it was not sufficient to heat the lower hall where the servants were gathered, and it is more than probable that the _louvre_, or opening in the fifth bay of the roof, represents the position below of the central hearth which would be used in addition to the fireplace.

Fireplaces had been known and used since Norman times, but they were never so popular in the great halls as the open brazier, and we find that even in the King’s Palace at Eltham there was an open hearth provided to the exclusion of the fireplace, though, as we have seen, it was built several years afterwards. This I think disposes to a large extent of the popular assumption that the open hearth was primitive and inconvenient.

_Photograph by Architectural Review._]

_Photograph by Architectural Review._]

All these features above described constitute together the normal arrangement in practically every mediæval domestic building of any size. Whether one visits the halls of Hampton Court, Eltham, or Croydon Palace, or the later halls at the Charterhouse, the Middle Temple, Gray’s Inn, or Lambeth, one recognises the same scheme with such slight variations as the two oriels at Eltham and the Temple, and the occasional absence of the fireplace already noticed. But the greatest glory of these mediæval halls was the timber roof which crowned the whole building and which, here in Crosby Hall, constitutes the most valuable part of the original work. This roof is of particular interest, as it represents a transition from the open timber roof to the later ceiling. The roof of Westminster Hall and those of Hampton Court and Eltham belong to the former class and are among the finest examples of the famous hammer-beam construction. The tradition of the open timber roof remained, indeed, so strong that even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the hammer-beam was still employed, and the Halls of the Temple and Lambeth Palace show it in its later treatment. But in the case of most of the buildings of the latter half of the fifteenth century the curved and panelled ceiling had come into vogue, and it became the most fashionable method of roofing our parish churches. At Crosby Hall we have, as far as I know, a unique example of this type, for its little forest of pendants—from each of which spring four arches in different directions—make a most original design of great charm. It has been likened to an attempt to gain the effect of fan-vaulting in wood, and no doubt its elaborate detail prevented its repetition in other places. It would have been a great loss to students of architecture if this roof had perished. Happily it was in beautiful preservation, and no single feature of any importance was lacking when put together.

It should be noticed most especially how the roof governs the design of the whole room, bringing each part into harmony with the rest. It is divided into eight bays or compartments by seven arched principals. In each of these compartments on the wall below is a window of two lights brought beneath one deeply moulded arch. The oriel itself occupies two bays. Each roof-principal is carried down to a fine stone corbel which exactly fills the space between the windows and is an integral part of the massive wall stones. Unfortunately one or two of these corbels were replaced at the restoration of the building in the last century. Between the windows and the roof runs the simple cornice of battlements and quatrefoils, the spandrels, or triangular panels on either side of the windows being filled with pierced tracery.

It remains now to state how much of this building is old and how much new, for the visitor will notice a great difference between its appearance here in Chelsea and its old aspect in its restaurant days. It must be remembered that although the fine roof, windows, and other features had remained intact, yet the old hall had suffered grievously from various alterations and additions. Several architects of the Gothic revival period had given it such features as a modern gallery to the south, an organ loft, arch and screen at the north end, and doorways which were not of its original plan. Besides these additions in questionable taste, the west wall which fronted Bishopsgate had been robbed of its original Reigate stone facing and covered with perishable Bath stone, and the eastern wall had been disfigured to a terrible extent by the modern buildings which adjoined it. The chief aim in rebuilding the Hall was to set each original piece which had form or beauty left to it in its proper relative position to the main building. It was necessary, therefore, to use all that was left and to discard the faulty modern reparation, supplying their place with durable work to ensure the safety of what was genuinely old. The walls were built of brick in place of the old rubble which was of little use. The Bath facing stones were replaced with Portland, and each window and door stone was carefully set in its place. Only on the east wall had the external masonry to be entirely replaced, and the stones of the windows severed to preserve the old work on the inside. The two end walls were formerly internal walls of Crosby Place, but they had completely perished. Their position is taken by what will be similarly the internal walls of the College. The original walls were plastered within, and the same treatment was followed here; in fact, the old example was followed minutely in every particular, with the one exception of the floor. There is evidence that the old floor was of Purbeck marble unpolished—but it was decided that it would be unwise to attempt to replace this, and an oak door has been made instead. The Hall, therefore, is older on the inside than the outside, and this is perhaps as it should be, for it may be claimed that wherever a building be planted its interior can never lose its old associations, but its removal destroys much of the historical significance of the external appearance which rightly belongs to its old site in Bishopsgate.

The most interesting part of the work of rebuilding was not the roof but the little vault over the oriel. No one who had not seen it would believe the wonderful precision and delicacy with which each of its numerous parts fitted into their places. The joints of each rib of Reigate stone were so beautifully cut and had required so little cement to join them together that the original lines drawn upon them by the fifteenth century builders, in setting out, were still plainly visible. Only one temporary support was required beneath the central boss, which is richly carved with Sir John Crosby’s helm and crest. This and one of the similar bosses, which bears an almost obliterated coat of arms, are the only evidences left of the builder of the Hall, since all the stained glass with its heraldic shields has perished. The present glass, the best pieces of which were designed by Willement, is all subsequent to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Finally Sir John Crosby’s armorial bearings have been used as a basis for the design on the back of the fireplace.

—W. H. G.

THE PALACES OF
HERTFORD AND HAVERING

IX.

THE PALACES OF HERTFORD AND HAVERING.

The two palaces which are the subject of the present article differ from most of those in the neighbourhood of London in being of very early origin, their history in each case stretching back to Saxon times. They differ also from each other, one, Hertford Castle, being a fortress of no mean strength, and the other, Havering Bower, a country retreat entirely without means of defence; while together they present examples of early domestic planning on a large scale such as are, perhaps, available in no other quarter.

The Castle of Hertford was one of a ring of strongholds, of early Norman date, forming an advanced and outer line of defence to the capital. This series began at Windsor and passed via Berkhampstead, Hertford, Stortford, and Ongar to Rayleigh, and in most instances, save for massive earthworks, has left comparatively little trace of its existence.

The remains at Hertford consist at present of the red brick Tudor gatehouse, the ruins of a small tower, and a long line of curtain wall, enclosing broad lawns and gardens, by the side of the River Lea. Hitherto there has been no available information with regard to the internal arrangements of the castle, but amongst the State Papers of Edward VI. is preserved a large scale plan of an important and extensive building arranged for the accommodation of the courts of law. During Tudor and later times the courts were housed at Westminster Palace, and consequently the plan was assumed to represent some portion of that building. I have been able to identify it, however, as a part of the palace of Hertford Castle, to which the courts were temporarily removed in 1582, and again in 1592, owing to the prevalence of the Plague in London.

_From the Public Record Office._]

The plan, unfortunately mutilated, is the work of H. Hawthorne, who was also employed upon the alterations to Windsor in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign.

Hertford Castle in its early days was evidently a place of considerable strength and importance, for when besieged in 1216 by the forces of Louis of France it held out for twenty-four days, while the neighbouring castle of Berkhampstead (the elaborate earthworks of which remain) was reduced by the same army in a fortnight.

Hertford was the occasional residence of the later Plantagenet and Tudor kings, and was successively held in dower by the consorts of the three Lancastrian sovereigns. Later it was found to be a convenient residence for the children of Henry VIII.—Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth having all resided there at various times during their father’s life.

_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]

Five documents in the nature of surveys of the castle exist at the Record Office, dated respectively 1327, 1523, 1559, 1589 and 1610. The first of these is the most interesting. The castle then consisted of a great inner ward surrounded by a double moat with a circular shell keep at the north-east angle, and a massive curtain wall. The narrow space between the inner and outer moats was defended by a wooden palisade, and at the western end broadened out into a large outer ward.

Henry VIII.’s survey describes “a fair river running along by the north side of the said castle and arear a very little garden ground, but there is a fair courtyard and large, which is almost finished round about with fair houses.”

By 1610 most of the buildings had been destroyed, and mention is only made of “one fair gatehouse of brick, one tower of brick, and the old walls of the said castle.”

This represents fairly accurately the present condition of the castle. The brick gatehouse, though somewhat altered, is still entire, the outer archway being obscured by a modern porch, while the inner one is converted into a window. Above the former is a sunk panel with the royal arms of the Tudors surmounted by a crown. The “tower of brick” is the great angle bastion shown on the plan. It formed the segment of a circle externally about 60 ft. in diameter, the chord of which is a brick wall which is the only portion of the structure now standing. On the outer face at the southern end are the remains of the circular stair, including a ramped portion of the brick handrail sunk in the wall.

The most noticeable feature of the plan is the extreme thinness of the walls. This can hardly be ascribed to faulty draughtsmanship, as the curtain and bastion walls, together with the fireplace backs, are all shown of reasonable thickness. One is bound to conclude that the whole structure was timber-framed on dwarf walls, the remains of which have from time to time come to light under the present lawn. This would largely account for the continual state of disrepair in which the buildings are found on every occasion on which there is evidence of their condition.

On the east side of the great courtyard, opposite the gatehouse, stood the hall, a comparatively small building of very early type. The aisled hall is now to be found only in comparatively few instances (as at Oakham and Winchester Castle) and is almost certainly a survival of the Saxon type of wooden structure whose form has been preserved in use almost to our own times in the great timber barns, of which there are numerous examples. The contemporary Norman type is preserved at Richmond, Wolvesley, and Christchurch, and in a number of monastic frater-houses, and was a plain rectangular structure of quite a different character. (_Vide ante_ p. 70.)

The hall at Hertford was only three bays long, with screens and two porches at the northern and a square oriel at the southern end. One large fireplace appears at the back of the dais, and a small lantern in the centre of the roof is shown on Speed’s bird’s-eye view of the town (probably taken just before its destruction, 1610).

The lesser court on the south side was probably of early Tudor date, and evidently had galleries on the first floor with projecting bays, an arrangement similar to that of the second quadrangle of Queen’s College, Cambridge. At the south-eastern angle was a small building projecting into the court and clearly a chapel or oratory.

The arrangement of the kitchen and offices at the north end of the great hall is by no means clear. The only apartment with a fireplace of sufficient dimensions for the kitchen is that marked “Court of Requests,” but the lack of direct communication with the hall itself renders this identification doubtful. In spite of its lack of completeness and the difficulty surrounding it, the plan is of considerable interest both on account of its early form and the importance of the building which it delineates.

The Manor, Palace, or Bower of Havering was, like Hertford, of Saxon origin, but its early history is of far greater interest. It was undoubtedly a retreat of King Edward the Confessor, and some of the best-known legends of the Saxon saint are connected with the Bower House. You may read in Caxton’s _Golden Legend_ of how St. John the Divine appeared in the form of a beggar at the consecration of his chapel here, and of how he received the celebrated ring as alms from the king. It was here, again, at the prayer of the Confessor the nightingales were banished without the pales of the park, lest they should interrupt the royal devotions.

In later times it was a favourite hunting seat for the forest of Hainault, and a long line of Chief Foresters of Essex—Mountfitchets, de Clares, and de Veres—held the office of keeper of the park of Havering.

The place is also closely connected with the history of Richard II.’s treacherous seizure of his uncle Gloucester at Pleshy. It was from Havering he set out to decoy the doomed man from the midst of his family to hurry him to Calais and his death.