The development of wood panelling is of considerable interest. Previous to the sixteenth century, that is in the days of the Gothic manner, the construction was on a substantial scale, the framing being formed of wood uprights and cross-pieces, measuring, perhaps, four inches by three in section, the uprights being from eighteen inches to two feet apart, and strengthened by horizontal cross-pieces at heights of three, four, or five feet, or thereabouts, according to the height of the room. The spaces thus formed into panels were filled with one piece of board let into the surrounding framing, which was sometimes splayed, but more generally moulded, the mouldings being stopped before they encountered the cross-pieces. The screen in the hall at Haddon (Fig. 135) illustrates this early method of construction, while against it, and clothing the wall and the side of the window-opening, is the seventeenth-century panelling, the development of which will be presently explained. The panels in Gothic work were ornamented either with cusping, such as may be seen in the upper part of the screen at Haddon, behind the antlers, or with paintings, such as still remain in a number of churches, especially in the eastern and south-western counties. Gradually, however, the large size of the framework was reduced: instead of being four or five inches thick by three or four inches wide, it became only about an inch or so thick by about the same width as formerly. The panels were made narrower, because it was found easier to get boards ten or twelve inches wide than of a width twice those sizes, and gradually the very long proportion of height to width was lessened, the panels became more nearly square, and eventually they were made of varying sizes and proportions, but rhythmically arranged.