Early Renaissance Architecture in England: A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625Gotch, J. Alfred (John Alfred)
History
Early Renaissance Architecture in England: A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625
On entering the hall after leaving the courtyard, it was on such
panelling as this that the eye rested. The screen which divided the
hall from the passage was generally even more richly decorated than
the adjacent panelling. Its two doorways were flanked with columns,
which carried a complete entablature from side to side of the hall;
above this came the panelled front of the gallery, which was surmounted
in its turn perhaps by a series of small arches, perhaps by some of
the fantastic strap-work peculiar to the time. The spaces between the
columns were panelled; every panel here and above was decorated with
carving--usually of shields of arms, but where these were not suitable,
as in halls of colleges, then with foliage or allegorical figures.
Knole House, in Kent, has a good example of a screen with heraldic
decoration (Fig. 145). Wadham College, Oxford (Plate XLIV.), has one
of comparatively simple character; while for sumptuous effect those
at Middle Temple Hall, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge (Plate
XLV.), could hardly be surpassed. Woollas Hall, in Worcestershire,
has a good screen of simple character. The illustration on Plate XLVI.
gives a view of it looking from the hall. The archway leads into the
passage called the "screens," in which can be seen the open door of the
principal entrance. The gallery has a balustraded front; it is carried
out over the entrance porch, and is lighted by a small window, visible
in Fig. 69, just below the oriel. The hall, having a room over it, has
a flat ceiling, and not an open timber roof. The windows of the hall
were usually rather high up, and the walls were panelled up to the
sills, but as a rule the sill of the bay window at the daïs end was
brought down low enough to afford an outlook. Above the panelling the
walls were largely occupied by the windows, the spaces between which
were hung with "pikes, guns, and bows, with old swords and bucklers
that had borne many shrewd blows": or they were filled with pictures,
of which a considerable number, chiefly portraits, began to be found
in large houses. From the top of the windows sprang the roof,
the feet of its principals coming down and occupying part of wall
space between them. The principals were still constructed in the old
hammer-beam manner, even at so late a date as 1604 for Trinity College,
Cambridge, and 1612 for Wadham, but all the ornament is of a late
type, and gives a very rich effect, the light glancing upwards against
the many surfaces of the pendants and the strong lines of the moulded
braces. The roof at Middle Temple Hall, built in 1570, is almost as
elaborate and fine as that of the Great Hall at Hampton Court, built
some forty years before, but the detail is later in character. The roof
of the hall at Wollaton is peculiar in that it is of the hammer-beam
type, although supporting the flat floor of a room over it (Fig.
146). Usually, when there was a room over the hall the ceiling was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account