The house was originally moated, and beyond the moat was an outer court, surrounded by low buildings, used as offices and stables. It was entered through a gateway or lodge, where the keepers and falconers had their quarters. The general treatment of the architecture still follows the old lines (Fig. 43). The windows, as a rule, have few lights, they have flat-pointed heads, and their total area is relatively small in proportion to the plain surface of brick wall. The chimneys are of cut and moulded brickwork of the prevailing type; the turrets are crowned with a dome-like finish, similar to that which had been used at Henry VII.'s chapel thirty years before. The parapets are battlemented, and the strings are narrow and not of classic profile. In the entrance gateway we find the new note struck (Plate XIV.). The archway is Perpendicular in character, but above it is a triple bay window, supported on corbelling, full of Renaissance detail, while amorini in Roman armour carry long scrolls in their hands, and serve as supporters to a shield of arms (Fig. 44). The whole of the corbelling terminates at the bottom in a foliated pendant. This inextricable mixture of the old-fashioned Perpendicular detail with the new-fashioned Renaissance ornament is quite characteristic of the period, and shows that the masons, while clinging to the style with which they had been familiar since their youth, were endeavouring to make closer acquaintance with the foreign forms so much in demand. The names of the masons who did this work are on record: they were John Eastawe and John Sparke, evidently Englishmen.[11] [11] _Hist. and Antiq. of Hengrave_, by John Gage. [Illustration: 44.--HENGRAVE HALL, SUFFOLK. CORBELLING OF BAY WINDOW OVER ENTRANCE ARCHWAY.] Of the houses so far mentioned, Oxburgh Hall, East Barsham, Sutton Place, Layer Marney, and Hengrave are all built of brick. On the other side of the country, and in a house constructed of entirely different materials, we get--at Moreton Old Hall in Cheshire (1559)--the same kind of plan with which we have now become familiar (Fig. 45). This house is of timber and plaster, as many of the old houses in that district are. It is surrounded by a moat, and has--at any rate on the ground floor--but few windows looking out over the country; they face into the court where possible. The relative positions of the hall, the kitchen, and the private apartments are here more clearly discernible than in some of the preceding plans, inasmuch as the family rooms have undergone but little serious alteration. The proximity of the two large bays of the hall and parlour is curious, and was the factor which caused the hall bay to be placed so far away from the daïs end. [Illustration: PLATE XIV. HENGRAVE HALL, SUFFOLK (1538). ENTRANCE GATEWAY.]