Nothing will help to show how the central idea of an English house developed, while tenaciously adhering to its essence, so much as a comparison of the plans of a number of houses built during the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth. But in order to bring them into relation with what preceded them, the series commences with the plans of two houses that were built in the fifteenth century, before there was a trace of Italian influence to be found in English work. All the plans are those of fair-sized houses, chiefly of the manor-house class, and they are from examples scattered up and down the country; therefore whatever characteristics they possess may be taken to have been of fairly wide distribution. [Illustration: 33.--GREAT CHALFIELD, WILTSHIRE. PLAN (TEMP. HENRY VI.).] The first example is Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire (Fig. 33), where the work is all of good Perpendicular character. The house was built towards the end of the reign of Henry VI., at a time when precautions against attack were still necessary; it was therefore surrounded by a moat. Much of the work has disappeared, and alterations have been made in what is left, but the arrangement of the hall is still plain, although the kitchen is not recognisable. The almost invariable disposition of the hall was as follows: it was an oblong apartment with one end cut off by a screen, which formed the entrance passage called "the screens." From this passage the hall was entered on one side, while from the other side access was obtained to the kitchen, the buttery, the pantry, and the rest of the servants' department. This arrangement may still be seen in use at many of the colleges in Oxford and Cambridge. The hall itself was usually lighted from both sides, and was a lofty apartment with an open roof, that is, with all the timbers showing. The effect of this disposition was that the hall divided the house into two separate portions; there was no thoroughfare above it or around it, but only through it. At the end opposite to the screens was the daïs, a platform raised some few inches above the general floor level, where the family sat at meals, in the same way as the dons sit in many colleges at the present day. The daïs was usually lighted by a bay window, which formed a convenient recess for a serving table. There are still a few houses where the daïs survives, but in most cases it has been cleared away and the floor has been lowered to the general level. That it was of universal adoption is proved by its being shown on practically all contemporary plans. The fireplace was placed in one of the side walls, and was generally somewhat nearer to the daïs end than the other. It obviously could not be placed at the screen end, because the screen itself did not go up to the roof, but was covered by a gallery, usually known as the minstrels' gallery, though it may be doubted whether in many instances it was used by the votaries of the _gaie science_.