The tendency being, as already pointed out, towards a plain treatment of the exterior, largely owing to the substitution of sash-windows for mullioned, some amount of relief was imparted by a rich treatment of the principal door, but there came a time when even this modicum of decoration was abandoned, and the exterior of a house was dealt with on purely utilitarian principles, the necessary openings being provided, but devoid of any attempt at ornament. But before this last stage of imaginative poverty, or inertia maybe, was reached, doorways were provided which gave a touch of fancy to an otherwise bald front. The form of circular hood, supported by carved brackets and filled with a fluted cove, usually described as a shell, is a common feature of the work of the end of the seventeenth century and twenty years later. An example from Castle Combe, in Wiltshire, is shown in Fig. 252. The centre from which the flutings radiate is here occupied by a small shield of arms. There is a rather plainer rendering of the same idea at Oundle, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 253). Another rich form of hood, with straight outlines, may still be found in out-of-the-way streets and lanes in London, where the necessity for radical changes has not yet arisen. A simple form of this idea is shown in Fig. 257, where one hood covers two contiguous doorways. A treatment very commonly adopted was that shown in the example from York (Fig. 255), where the circular-headed doorway is covered with a pediment supported by pilasters; the semicircular space over the door is filled with a fanlight divided by thick bars. In this case the bars are simple in form, but they were often curved into curious patterns, surprising in their variety, and suggesting that the designers of the time had no lack of ingenuity had circumstances allowed them to display it. The extinguisher to the left of the doorway should be noted. It is a reminder of the times when there was no public lighting of the streets, when indeed the casual illumination from shops and from houses, private and public, was of the feeblest, and citizens had to find their way home through thoroughfares where no scavenger was employed, by the light of torches, which they extinguished as they entered their houses.[82] [Illustration: FIG. 252.--DOORWAY AT CASTLE COMBE, WILTSHIRE.] [Illustration: FIG. 253.--Doorway at Oundle, Northamptonshire.] [Illustration: FIG. 254.--Doorway in Mark Lane, London.] [Illustration: FIG. 255.--A Doorway in York.] [Illustration: FIG. 256.--Doorways at Norwich.] [Illustration: FIG. 257.--Nos. 16 and 18 Fournier Street, London.] [Illustration: FIG. 258.--Door, 22 Buckingham Street, Strand.]