Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

haddon: chapel

We may now take a few typical examples which illustrate the change from the fortified residence to the large dwelling-house, which was accomplished by the beginning of the sixteenth century. At a comparatively early date, a divorce between military and domestic architecture is manifest in such a house as Stokesay ([306]). Here the hall and its adjacent buildings are those of a private house pure and simple; and the defensive portion of the plan is confined to the polygonal tower at the south end of the range of buildings, which, in time of war, could be used as a separate stronghold, and was ingeniously planned and well lighted.[363] But at Stokesay ([207]) the tower appears to be a somewhat later addition to a thirteenth-century dwelling-house. Defensive precautions are added. Of the opposite case, in which they disappear, Haddon hall ([340]), the most attractive and most thoroughly preserved of English medieval houses, is the best example. In its earliest state, it appears to have been a mere pele, occupying a portion of its present site, with a tower at its north-east and highest corner. The chapel ([343]), in which large portions of twelfth-century work still remain, was probably built outside the palisade, as the parochial chapel of the hamlet of Nether Haddon. As time went on, the fortified enclosure enlarged its boundaries. A wall was built round it, and the chapel was taken into the line of circumference.[364] In the fourteenth century the present hall was built between the upper and lower courts.[365] At its north end were the screens, forming the communication between the two courts, with the pantry, buttery, and passage to the kitchen leading directly out of them. At the south end, behind the dais, was the cellar with the great chamber above. Later on, a porch with an upper chamber was built at the entry to the screens. During the fifteenth century, the upper courtyard was gradually surrounded by buildings; a new chancel and octagonal bell-turret were built to the chapel; and, at the end of this period, the old curtain wall, between the chapel and the great chamber, was covered by an outer wall on either side, and reduced to the state of a mere partition wall on which wooden upper buildings were carried. Wide windows were opened in the west walls of the cellar and the great chamber, and the cellar was turned into a private dining-room at the back of the hall. Early in the sixteenth century, the buildings round the entrance court were completed, and the timber stage east of the chapel was rebuilt in stone. Finally, in the reign of Elizabeth, came the addition which marks the last stage in this transition from pele to dwelling-house, when, on the south side of the upper courtyard, was built the long gallery, with its row of wide mullioned windows, and deep bays projecting towards the garden. While the manor-house at Wingfield, not many miles distant, is practically all of one period, and illustrates a definite compromise between war and peace, Haddon is a growth of from four to five centuries, and from an early date showed a tendency to rid itself of its military character.

Wingfield Manor; Plan

Wingfield manor is probably the most striking example of a later English manor-house with certain defensive features. It was begun by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, between 1441 and 1455. Its position is naturally strong. From an almost isolated hill, with steep slopes to the east, north, and west, it commands the valley in which it stands, but is itself commanded by the much higher hills which separate it from the Derwent valley on the west.[366] The buildings are arranged round two courtyards ([346]). The outer and larger court, which is entered by a wide gateway, with a postern on one side, at the south end of the east wall, contained store-houses and farm-buildings, with a large barn on the south side. This base-court, like the “barmkin” of a fortified house in the north of England, would be useful in time of war for the protection of tenants and their flocks and herds, who had no other means of defence. A gatehouse in the north wall gives admission to the second court, which was surrounded by buildings on all sides but the east. The whole length of the north side was covered by a magnificent block of buildings, which included the hall, kitchen, and chief private apartments ([349]). These buildings have not received the full attention which they deserve, but they obviously belong to two periods of work, the great kitchen block at the west end being added as an afterthought.[367] The plan is curious and unusual. The hall occupies the eastern extremity of the block. Although the roof and a large part of the south wall are entirely gone, and the north wall was mutilated by the later partition of the hall into two floors and a number of rooms, the porch, with its upper chamber, and the bay-window, at opposite ends of the south wall, are still fairly perfect. The hall was the full height of the block, and had a high-pitched roof, with large window openings in the gables: it is not certain whether the fireplace was in the centre of the room, with a louvre in the roof for the smoke, or in the south wall. The porch led into screens at the west end, over which was probably a minstrels’ gallery. At the north end of the screens was a lobby, from which a vice led to the upper floor of the building dividing the hall from the kitchen; while a wide and well-moulded doorway opened upon a stair which descended into the garden behind the hall. On this side the slope of the ground is very abrupt, and the hall is built upon a very large and handsome cellar ([348]), divided into two longitudinal halves by a row of five columns. The aisles thus formed are vaulted in oblong compartments upon broad four-centred ribs. The bold wave-mouldings of the ribs and the carving of the bosses at their junction are carved with a masculine vigour of design which gives this cellar a place among the chief architectural masterpieces of its age. There is a short vice with broad steps at each corner of the cellar: those at the north-east and south-east corners communicated directly with the dais and sideboard of the hall, the entrance to the south-east stair being a lobby opening on the bay-window. The south-west vice was entered from the courtyard, while the north-west stair opened into a room on one side of the passage from the hall to the kitchen.

Wingfield Manor; Cellar of hall