Roof of Great Hall (late 15th cent.).] The Drayton example is interesting inasmuch as there are two types of principal: the main principals carry the purlins, which in their turn carry the intermediates; they are strengthened and supported where this additional load comes, by curved braces or struts, which rest on the wall at the foot of the main principals. Curved braces were very commonly employed; they occur both at Little Sodbury and Eltham, and in the latter case the curves are so designed as to form a feature in the decorative effect. In this example it will be seen that a more determined effort at design has been made, the whole work has been more carefully thought out than in the others. It is, moreover, of the hammer-beam type; that is, the main arch of the principal does not spring from the wall itself, but from a projecting piece of timber (the hammer-beam), which is supported by a curved strut springing from the wall. [Illustration: 87. Crowhurst Place, Surrey. Ceiling with Moulded Beams.] [Illustration: 88. Lavenham, Suffolk. Ceiling with Carved Beams.] [Illustration: 89. Lyddington, Rutland. Hall of Bede House, showing Panelled Wood Ceiling and Traceried Cornice (early 16th cent.).] [Illustration: 90. Lavenham, Suffolk. Part of Panelled Ceiling, showing Boss at the Junction of the Wood Ribs (early 16th cent.).] The open timber roof survived in places down to the early years of the seventeenth century. But the fashion of having lofty halls then gradually fell into disuse; halls were surmounted by a room above them, and the need for a handsome roof disappeared, its place being taken by a flat, decorated ceiling. Ceilings, such as we conceive the word, were not known in mediæval work, at any rate not until late in the fifteenth century. The ceiling was, in fact, the underside of the floor above, and its ornamental character was obtained by a regular disposition of the constructional timbers, and by working mouldings on the latter. The effect was massive and handsome, the ceiling (for want of a better word) being divided into large deeply recessed squares or oblongs by heavily moulded beams. Crowhurst Place in Surrey has a good example of this treatment (Fig. 87). In some instances the underside of the floor joists (_i.e._, the smaller timbers which rested on the beams and carried the floor boards) was carved, as in the curious example from a house at Lavenham in Suffolk (Fig. 88).