Another house with much work of the same period is Drayton, in the same county. This is an interesting edifice dating back to the beginning of the fourteenth century. The early roof of the great hall has already been illustrated (Fig. 84). Considerable alterations were made in the reign of Henry VI.; a long wing was added in Elizabeth’s time; and the close of the seventeenth century left perhaps the most lasting mark of all. The hall was refronted and furnished with a fine doorway (Fig. 163), and enormous sash windows. At the ends of the front courtyard columned arcades were introduced. A chapel was contrived against the ancient windowless wall of fortified times. Most of the old mullioned windows were replaced by sashes. Two venerable towers were crowned with cupolas on columns, which lift themselves up against the sky and proclaim the identity of the house at a glance. New staircases were contrived, one covered with a coved ceiling on which Lanseroon tried his skill. Many rooms were panelled with the large panels of the time. The long gallery in the attic of the Elizabethan wing was made into a library with rows of carefully designed shelves. A little room leading out of the library was fitted up as a boudoir for the Duchess of Norfolk; its ceiling was coved and gilt, and a mirror placed in the central panel; the walls were partly panelled and partly fitted with cases of curious Chinese objects; the floor was covered with a charming design in parquetry, where formal patterns were interspersed with dainty little birds, admirably drawn. The great hall was ceiled below the ancient open-timber roof. The whole place was renovated within and without, and newly furnished with fine chairs, settees, tables, and beds, which remain to this day in the house where they went when they were new. Nor was this all. The gardens were rearranged; stables were built; long walls of enclosure were raised, pierced with gateways into which splendid iron gates were hung. The front court was enclosed on one side with a long stretch of excellent iron railings. Quaint flights of steps led from one level to another. Innumerable lead urns, large and small, but all bearing delicately modelled designs, were placed at intervals along the balustrades, or mounted on great stone pedestals as worthy to form central objects in the various quarters of the garden. The whole place is another admirable example of how noblemen housed themselves in those days, and it has this advantage over Boughton, that it preserves its gardens, and that it has a longer and more varied history to look back upon.