produce highly-ornamental designs; but its employment seems to have largely died out with the Gothic forms in which it was so successfully manipulated. The brickwork, which in the early part of the century was very rich and elaborate, became much plainer towards its close, and indeed the terra-cotta and the wonderful chimney-shafts of Henry VIII.'s time are hardly to be found in the work of succeeding reigns. It is not in brickwork that we must look for Elizabethan detail, but rather in the easily-worked stone which underlies the central district of England from Devon and Somerset in a north-easterly direction to Rutland and Lincoln. [Illustration: PLATE XXX. MOUNT GRACE PRIORY, YORKSHIRE.] [Illustration: PLATE XXXI. SPEKE HALL, LANCASHIRE.] [Illustration: 91.--COURTYARD, INGELBY MANOR, YORKSHIRE.] [Illustration: 92.--HOUSE AT MAYFIELD, SUSSEX.] WINDOWS. [Illustration: 93.--COWDRAY HOUSE, SUSSEX. PART OF COURT.] It has already been said that an Elizabethan house depends for its picturesqueness chiefly upon its windows, gables, and chimneys. The mullioned and transomed window is indeed one of the characteristic features of the Elizabethan style, the openings being all rectangular. Already during the prevalence of Gothic forms the vertical spaces formed by the mullions of the windows had been divided horizontally by transoms, but this treatment was rather the exception than the rule. In Tudor times the windows were usually small, sometimes consisting only of one light, but often of two or even three, and occasionally being two tiers in height. The lights almost always had flat-pointed heads. The small size resulted from the old wish to have a defensible house, but as the need for such precaution lessened, the lights increased in number; the desire for well-lighted rooms led to still further extension and to doing away with the pointed heads in favour of straight ones. The gradual changes in the form of windows is well seen in the courtyard at Cowdray (Fig. 93). The window on the extreme right of the illustration, with its pointed arch and traceried lights, is Gothic; next to it comes a Tudor bay window, made up of a number of flat-pointed lights, which there was no need to restrict in this case, because the window looked into the court. To the left are two bays of Elizabeth's time, with rectangular lights three rows in height and many in width. At Barrington Court (Plate XXXII.) may be seen a more usual example of Tudor windows, as well as the twisted finials of which the early sixteenth century was so fond. Another kind of treatment is occasionally to be found, in which brackets are introduced in the upper lights, springing from the mullions and supporting the horizontal head. One version of this method is to be seen at Layer Marney in the windows over the archway (Plate XIII.), and another at Lacock Abbey (Plate XXXVI.). In the latter window should also be noticed the circle