The accommodation for the family and guests was therefore as complete as could be desired--as complete, in fact, as at the present day, if we except the very important item of bath-rooms and other sanitary conveniences. The drawback is that the rooms, although far more skilfully planned than of old, were subject to an almost rigidly symmetrical outline, preventing that compactness which is now aimed at; and as the various wings of the house were as a rule only one room wide, it followed that some of the rooms had to be thoroughfare rooms. This arrangement cannot have been held to be vastly inconvenient in those days, nor for many days to come, for it continued until well into the eighteenth century. The subdivision in the servants’ quarters was as ample as in those of the family. The “kitchen” was still, as it always had been, the principal room on this side. The “buttery” and the “pantry” were also of long standing. But the “pastry” had come in almost every instance to supplement the kitchen, being the place where the baking was done, and being furnished almost invariably with two ovens. The “dry larder” and “wet larder” were equally frequent, and so was the “survaying place,” or serving-room. There are also to be found in the larger houses a “scullery,” a “meal house,” “bolting-house,” “spicery,” “trencher,” “pewter,” and “brush.” The steward, his clerk, the butler, the pantler, and the waiters are all found to have their own separate rooms. How widely different is all this from the ancient custom of the whole household living by day and night in the great hall! The need for the great hall, indeed, was passing away. Already in a few of Thorpe’s plans it is found to be arranged in a manner no longer suitable for its old purposes. In some it is placed out of its central position. By the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century it had practically lost its ancient character of the chief living room, and had become little more than a fine vestibule leading to the actual living rooms and the rest of the house.