To which Erpingham replies characteristically,
“Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,
Since I may say—Now lie I like a king.”
Norwich cathedral groups in beautiful contrast to the various surroundings of the city. The view here given of it is from the Ferry and the precinct gate; but the Grammar School, the Castle, the Market School, and Guildhall, must be left; the view however of the Cathedral from the Bishop’s Bridge is very striking; it has been engraved in Britton’s Picturesque Antiquities of English Cities. Attleborough is an ancient place; Downham Market,
and East Dereham, which also contains a market that dates back to Edward the Confessor, must be passed by till a future series of the present work. The picturesque bridge called the Abbot’s Bridge forms the subject of the next illustration; it is one of the many objects of beauty in Bury, and belonged to the Abbey at one time. Parliaments were held here by Henry III., Edward I., and Henry VI., and the shrine of St. Edmund was visited by Henry VII. and his queen, Elizabeth. Dickens speaks of this place as “the bright little town of Bury St. Edmund’s.” This structure, of which only a part is shown, well illustrates the way in which mediæval architects understood how to design a bridge, and the same may be said of the one at Huntingdon. Barry, in an excellent lecture read before the Royal Academy, remarks that there is no reason why architecture should suffer from the abundance of means to compass an end that engineering has placed in its way: he might have gone further, and instanced the beautiful works of Telford or Payne or Rennie. Barry says that old London Bridge with its narrow pointed arches, and roadway encumbered with shops, had doubtless a very picturesque appearance, but even in these days of revived mediævalism he says they would hardly be copied. The old bridges, however, were remarkable for their bridge-like appearance; the piers were free from columns, and in a running stream they were exactly suited to resist the flow of water against them. The old bridge of Huntingdon might stand for many ages if not molested. The Abbot’s Bridge, here shown, is a very beautifully proportioned object, and the piercing of the buttresses gives it an appearance of lightness. Of course this would not have been done if any great resisting power were required against a sudden freshet.
No house is better known perhaps than Sparrowe’s House, Ipswich, in the old Butter-market. Formerly this street contained many fine specimens of old domestic architecture, which have disappeared, but Sparrowe’s House is not only in perfect order, it is appreciated and cared for worthily. This ancient residence consists of four oriel windows, projecting considerably over the street, an enormous cornice extends over these again, and set back in the roof are four gabled windows. The Sparrowe family have occupied it for many generations, and although the ornamentations looked at singly are rather rude and barbaric, the whole effect is extremely fine. A house still older than this stood on the site till 1567, when the present mansion was built, and this is alluded to in Mr. Cobbold’s Freston Tower. The last member of the Sparrowe family who lived here was the town-clerk of Ipswich, and now the building is occupied by Mr. Haddock, one of the leading provincial booksellers in that part of England. Here there is good reason for believing that Charles II. was concealed after the battle of Worcester. In 1801 a curiously hidden loft was discovered, the entrance to which was concealed ingeniously in a panel. Brook Street, which runs at right angles to the street where Sparrowe’s House is situated, contains yet the remains of some old mansions, and in the work Freston Tower there is an excellent description of the appearance of a street in Henry VIII.’s time. In a passage leading out of St. Nicholas Street, near St. Nicholas’ Church, there are some traces of the house where Cardinal Wolsey was born in 1471. In an admirable Guide to Ipswich, published by Mr. Vick of that town, it is said, “At the back there still exists a part of the premises in which the Cardinal’s father lived. That he was a butcher is open to doubt; the origin of the assertion being that he was a man of some property, amongst which was included the butchers’ shambles.” Farther down, the streets all bear historic names, such as Wolsey Street, Cardinal Street, etc. St. Peter’s Church stands near, and passing by it we enter College Street, which takes its name from the College the Cardinal built here. The gateway only remains, but it is a fine piece of architecture, built of brick, without stone enrichments, and it can be described with perfect accuracy. There are two turrets of octagonal shape on each side, and a bold Tudor gateway between them. This gateway is surmounted by a brick label-moulding, and over this is a coat-of-arms between two brick niches, and over the niches are eight quatrefoils. Fuller says that King Henry was offended because the Cardinal set his armorial bearings above the King’s at the gatehouse, but this cannot refer to the gatehouse that is left, as the royal arms are the only ones there. This gateway resembles Hampton Court in character very closely, and probably was the work of the same designer. The College was founded in the twentieth year of Henry VIII., and dedicated to the Virgin. Three years after, the Cardinal fell into disgrace, and the College was razed to the ground. This is alluded to in the exquisite scene between Griffith and Queen Katherine—“Henry VIII.”
“And though he were unsatisfied in getting
(Which was a sin), yet in bestowing, Madam,
He was most princely: Ever witness for him
Those twins of learning, that he raised in you,
Ipswich and Oxford; one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.”
Before reverting to the subject of brick architecture, which Cardinal Wolsey managed so well, we may refer to a window from a farm-house near Salisbury, the dressings of which are stone, simply to show what can be made by a single form ingeniously managed. The whole design is constructed out of a single form of light, a rectangle with an end cut off diagonally, yet even a practised draughtsman would be unlikely to succeed in reproducing the pattern after studying it, and closing the book for a short time. This is introduced merely to show what great variety can be made by combination of a single form; and if two, or at the most three, moulds of bricks are used, there is literally no limit to the designer’s materials.
“Bricks, and especially red bricks,” says Mr. Trollope, “are almost always mentioned with great disrespect in connection with architecture, so that when admirers of that noble science hear upon their travels of a town or church, or indeed of any building constructed of brick, they say to their drivers, ‘On, on, there is no pleasure or repose for our eyes there. Do not deposit us in a locality where one side of the way is glowering with a coarsely ruddy aspect at an equally ruddy opposite row of houses; or where a church of the same hue was built some eighty years ago, whose thin smooth walls and Venetian east window already droop across our imagination to the depression of the spirits.’” Bricks, however, as he justly proceeds to argue, are not only useful, but a building material for which a deep debt of gratitude is due. True it is they baffle the skill of an ordinary architect of modern times, but in the reign of Henry VIII. they were a favourite medium for building. Witness Hampton Court for example, or Hurstmonceaux, or Charlton Hall in Kent. Sometimes brick houses are erected entirely of brick, and at other times they have stone dressings.