[Illustration: 116.--BRICK CHIMNEY FROM BARDWELL MANOR HOUSE, SUFFOLK.] [Illustration: 117.--CHIMNEY AT TOLLER FRATRUM, DORSET.] [Illustration: 118.--CHIMNEY AT KIRBY HALL, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.] The general use of chimneys was at this time rather a novelty. So late as the time of Henry VII., in the new palace called Richmond Court, built to replace an older structure destroyed by fire in 1498, the great hall was warmed by a fire in the middle of the floor with a lantern in the roof over it. There is a description of the Court in the return of the Commissioners of Parliament made in 1649, which is interesting not only as mentioning the fire, but as bearing out what has already been said of the hall of a large house. The higher storey, they say,[14] "contains one fayr and large room 100 feet in length and 40 in breadth, called the Great Hall. This room hath a screen at the lower end thereof, over which is a little gallery, and a fayr foot-pace in the higher end thereof [the daïs]; the pavement is square tile, and it is very well lighted and seeled [_i.e._, panelled with wood], and adorned with eleven statues in the sides thereof; in the midst a brick hearth for a charcoal fire, having a large lanthorn in the roof of the hall fitted for that purpose, turreted and covered with lead." But early in the sixteenth century chimneys came into general use, and they are one of the most characteristic features of a Tudor house. They were generally built of moulded brick, and were fashioned in elaborate and complicated ways. An illustration from Droitwich is given in Fig. 114, in which the moulded bases stand on panelled pedestals; the shafts also are moulded, each after a different manner, and the caps are crowned with a battlemented ornament. Some of the simpler forms are illustrated among the details from Layer Marney (Plate XIII.), also from Huddington Court House, in Worcestershire (Fig. 115), Bardwell, in Suffolk (Fig. 116), and a stone example from Toller Fratrum, in Dorset (Fig. 117). But far richer specimens are to be seen at Compton Winyates (Plate XI.) or at Hengrave (Fig. 43), besides many other places. With the death of Henry VIII. this elaboration disappeared, and a plainer treatment prevailed. In some of the more pretentious edifices the chimneys were cast into the form of columns, as they were at Wollaton (Plate XXVII.) and Burghley (Plate XXVIII.), and at Montacute also, where the column carries a kind of stone cowl. The columnar form had occasionally been used in earlier days; there is a well-proportioned and excellently wrought example at Lacock Abbey (Plate XXXVI.), where the shafts are fashioned into fluted columns, and the cap takes the shape of a short length of classic entablature with architrave, frieze, and cornice complete. The columns stand upon a pedestal, the face of which is occupied with a panel surrounded by strap-work; and as there seems every reason to suppose the work to be part of