north side of the court, thus being open to the full midday sun. The long gallery, which was one of the principal features of an Elizabethan house, and frequently affected the planning, inasmuch as endeavours were made to obtain a gallery of the greatest possible length, was over the western or left-hand side of the court: it was 150 feet long by 16 feet wide. The upper floor was to be reached, according to Thorpe's plan, by four large internal staircases, and two external ones on the west front. As a matter of fact, indications actually remain of five principal staircases, besides a subordinate one, and they are more conveniently placed than those shown on the old plan. The great extent of the rooms, and their being placed round a court, necessitated several means of access, and it must not be forgotten that the upper part of the hall interposed an impassable barrier between the two sides of the house on the upper floor. The time was soon to come when the height of the hall was to be restricted to that of other rooms on the same floor, but at Kirby the traditional lofty hall was still retained. The detail at Kirby is thoroughly Elizabethan, but there are a few windows, dated 1638, 1640, which were inserted by Inigo Jones, and he remodelled the north wing. His work, however, is easily distinguished from that of earlier date. The house was built by a Sir Humphrey Stafford, the head of a family seated at Blatherwyck in the immediate vicinity. It was begun in 1570, and it bears on the parapet of the courtyard the dates 1572, 1575; in the latter year Sir Humphrey died, having practically completed his house, which was then sold by his heir to Sir Christopher Hatton. Not only are the parapets dated, but amid the ornament of the various bands which make the circuit of the courtyard, and in the gable over the porch, occur the Stafford cognizances. Their presence indicates the extent of the work of Stafford, and proves that practically the whole place was built between the years 1570-75, though the Hattons probably made some trifling alterations during the last ten years of the century, and subsequently employed Inigo Jones to partly modernise the house fifty years later. The detail is unusually free and fresh, and has more variety than Elizabethan masons generally bestowed upon their work. The gable over the porch in the courtyard has no counterpart in England; the coping of the parapet round the whole court has an unusual but effective wave ornament (Plate XIX.). [Illustration: Plate XIX. KIRBY HALL, NORTHANTS. DETAIL OF PORCH.]