“On each side of the hall,” writes Mr. Parker, “were two tables and benches, which, if not actually contemporaneous with it, were certainly among the earliest pieces of furniture remaining in England. There was no doubt a similar—or probably a more ornamental—one on the daïs at the upper end of the hall where the Elizabethan table now stood, which was used by the lord and his more honoured guests, the side tables in the lower part of the hall being for the domestics and retainers, and guests of that class. One end of the daïs had been altered, so that the original arrangement could not be seen; but there would necessarily be at one end the sideboard, or buffet, filled with plate, arranged on shelves to be well displayed, whilst it also formed a sort of cupboard, with doors which could be closed and locked. This piece of furniture was usually placed in the recess formed by a bay window in halls of the fifteenth century, but it was doubtful whether the bay window was in use as early as the fourteenth. At the opposite end of the daïs was the door to the staircase of the solar or upper chamber, used as the withdrawing-room for the ladies after dinner; and by its side there was another door leading to the cellar. This was originally the lower chamber under the solar, but afterwards there was often a short passage to the cellar, which was sometimes underground, and the original cellar, or lower chamber, became the parlour. But there were always two chambers, one over the other, behind the daïs, the two together often not reaching so high as the roof of the hall. The upper room was the lord’s chamber, from which there was usually a look-out into the hall, as a check to the more riotous proceedings after the lord and his family or his guests had retired; or for the lords to see that the guests were assembled before descending with his family into the hall. In the centre of the hall was the original hearth or reredos, almost the only one, he believed, remaining. By the side of it were the andirons, or fire-dogs, for arranging logs of wood upon the hearth, and over it was an opening in the roof, with a small ornamented turret to cover it, called a smoke-louvre, which unfortunately had been removed, after having been previously Italianised and spoilt. The custom of having a large fire of logs of wood in the hall continued long after fire-places and chimneys were used in the other chambers; and it was a mistake to suppose that they were unknown in this country until the fifteenth century. There were many fire-places and chimneys of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the chambers, but it was not customary to use them in the hall before the fifteenth. In spite of all the modern contrivances for warming rooms, it might be doubted whether for warming a large and lofty hall it was possible to obtain more heat from the same quantity of fuel than was obtained from the open fire, and where the space was so large and the roof so high that no practical