[Illustration: 92. Plan of Horham Hall, Essex.] Horham Hall, in Essex, is a good example, moderate in size, of this period. It was built in the early years of the sixteenth century by Sir John Cutt, who died in 1520. The plan (Fig. 92) follows the ancient lines, the great hall being in its traditional relationship to the rest of the house. The old indifference to regularity is well illustrated by the passage, treated as a kind of bay window, which leads from the hall to the north wing. The windows in general have but one range of lights, but in the bay of the hall and in the passage, the lingering reluctance to adopt large windows is thrown away (Fig. 93), and we get a foretaste of that vast array of lights which was presently to become a distinguishing feature of domestic architecture. There is a large fireplace in the hall and a contemporary louvre in its roof; a somewhat curious combination, inasmuch as the louvre would be needless, either for the escape of smoke or (in view of the large bay window) for the admission of light. [Illustration: 93. Horham Hall, Essex (early 16th cent.).] [Illustration: 94. Kirtling Hall, Cambridgeshire. The Gatehouse (early 16th cent.).] There is a strange craving among dwellers in old houses to exaggerate the antiquity of their dwellings. Imagination is fond of peopling with monks halls which were built subsequently to the suppression of the monastic orders, and probably with the wealth acquired in consequence of that event. King John has been made to sleep upon a bed which was constructed when King James was on the throne. A cusped window light will carry its enthusiastic proprietor back two centuries earlier than the facts warrant. But domestic work of a date earlier than Henry VII. is not abundant, and it is probably within the mark to say that nine-tenths of the Gothic stonework of ancient houses and ninety-nine hundredths of the Gothic woodwork are attributable to the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. These new houses were evidently built for pleasure more than for security, although defensive precautions were not entirely omitted. They often occupied the site of an earlier house; but whether this were the case or not, they were generally surrounded by a moat, crossed no longer by a drawbridge, but by one of permanent character. Permanent by comparison, that is to say, for even where moats still remain, bridges of this date are rare; but as a rule the moats have been filled in and the bridges removed, or in any case the moats have been so much filled in as to give easy access to the front entrance.