Early Renaissance Architecture in England: A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625 — John Shaqi
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
Nor could the fireplace be conveniently
set in the end wall on the daïs, since it would have interfered with
the table; it was necessarily placed therefore in one of the side walls.
These features, then, may be looked for in every hall of the time--the
screen, the daïs, the bay window, and the fireplace--and in some cases
a good deal of ingenuity was displayed in contriving to obtain them in
their due relation to each other.
From the daïs end of the hall access was obtained to the family
apartments, which were few in number at first, but gradually increased
with the ever-growing desire for comfort and refinement.
At Great Chalfield the hall conforms to the dispositions detailed
above, but the bay windows serve rather as means of communication with
other rooms than merely as windows.
[Illustration: 34.--OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK. GROUND PLAN (1482).]
[Illustration: 35.--OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK. ENTRANCE TOWER (1482).]
At Oxburgh Hall, in Norfolk (1482), we have another type of defensive
house (Fig. 34). It was built round a court, as well as being
surrounded by a moat. The entrance was through a lofty tower into the
court, on the opposite side of which was the hall of the usual type.
The kitchen was to the right on entering, in the extreme south-west
corner of the building--not exactly the aspect we should choose in the
present day. So many changes have been made in the use to which the
rooms in these old houses have been put, and in the way of approaching
them, that too much stress must not be laid upon the details of the
plan, but the relation of the hall and kitchen at Oxburgh must have
been always the same. The rest of the building is made up of small
rooms surrounding the court, not arranged on any elaborate plan, but
put to whatever use was required. It will be seen that although there
is a considerable amount of uniformity in the arrangement of Oxburgh
Hall, there is no strict symmetry. The entrance tower is in the centre
of the front, but the windows on either side of it do not tally with
each other. The entrance to the hall is not on the axial line of the
tower, nor is the setting of the windows and doors in the court by any
means regular. As we advance in time, we shall find that all these
points were very carefully attended to, especially towards the end of
the sixteenth century. The plan here illustrated was made in 1774, and
a few years subsequently the south side of the court, containing the
hall and kitchen, was pulled down. Other alterations have been made
since then, but there is still much of the original work left. The
great entrance tower (Fig. 35) shows still a certain hankering after
defensive features; there is a curtain arch thrown across between
the turrets, from behind which missiles could be hurled upon unwelcome
visitors, and the openings in the turrets are of the smallest. The
windows generally are of few lights, the heads are pointed and cusped,
the parapets are corbelled out and battlemented, and the whole work
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