In the fourteenth century, ornamental carpentry had reached a high degree of excellence. There are many examples of ancient timber houses yet remaining in this country: they have massive beams and timbers, and are generally of unnecessary strength. The intermixture of wood, brick, and stone, or wood and plaster, in the exterior of houses, was, for a considerable period, the common style of building in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Weatherboard--that is, planks overlapping each other--was formerly much used for house-fronts, and possessed great durability. Overhanging roofs, walls of plaster with lofty gables, bay-windows, and porches of timber, with each story projecting beyond the other, are so many characteristics of a mixed style, when the rude dangers of the timber houses became progressively intermingled with the massive architecture of a subsequent period; and the external use of timber in the walls continued to prevail for a very long time. Beaconsfield Rectory, of the sixteenth century, has the basement story completely built of glazed bricks in chequered patterns; the superincumbent story has elevated roofs and gables, and is constructed with massive timbers placed near together, and plastered between. The staircase, which is semi-cylindrical and composed of timber, is added to the north side of the house. The entire structure forms three sides of a quadrangle, with a lofty wall and entrance on the fourth; its interior is rude and massive. In an account of a topographical excursion in 1634, the hall of Kenilworth is described with a roof "all of Irish wood, neatly and handsomely framed;" in it are five chimneys, "answerable to so great a room:" then we read of the Guard, Presence, and Privy chambers, fretted above richly with coats of arms, and all adorned with fair and rich chimney-pieces of alabaster, black marble, and joiners' work in curiously carved wood; all the fair and rich rooms and lodgings in the spacious tower not long since built, and repaired at great cost by Leicester. "The priuate, plaine, retiring-chamber wherein or renowned Queene of euer famous memory, alwayes made choice to repose her Selfe. Also the famous, strong old tower, called Julius Cæsar's, on top whereof was view'd the pleasant, large Poole continually sporting and playing on the Castle: the Parke, and the fforest contiguous thereto." Kenilworth has been already described at pp. 101-103.