ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN PERIODS
Under Elizabeth England reached a hitherto unexampled prosperity and the period is one of country-house building, in which especial attention began to be paid to the allied art of landscape gardening. Among the most famous are: Burghley House and Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire; Knoll and Penshurst, in Kent; Charlecote, Warwickshire; Longleat House and Longford Castle, Wiltshire; Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, and Haddon Hall, Derbyshire.
Some of the mansions built during the reign of James I, the so-called “Jacobean Period,” are Holland House, Kensington; Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire; Old Charlecote House, Kent; Audley End, Essex; Hatfield, Hertfordshire; Ham House, Surrey; Bramshill, Hampshire; Bickling Hall, Norfolk; and Aston Hall, Birmingham, which was completed in the following reign.
The houses mentioned in both these lists are constructed of stone or brick; but timber construction was still employed, especially in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Shropshire. To these periods also belong the following Colleges. In Cambridge: The Gate of Honour, Caius; Emmanuel; the courts of Sidney Sussex and St. John’s; the quadrangle, Clare, and Nevill Court, Trinity. In Oxford, Jesus, Wadham, Pembroke, Merton Library, and the Gateway of the Schools, now the Bodleian Library.
It is of little advantage to try to distinguish between the Elizabethan and the Jacobean period. Both represent a progression from the Gothic in the direction chiefly of superior conditions of comfortable living; but they retain many of the Gothic characteristics, while the modifications, more or less Renaissance, are in the manner of embellishments, and applied not according to any structural principles but as opportunities of imitation were available.
Books of Design.—There were books on the use of Classic Orders. The first to reach England was the work of the Italian Serlio, who had become domiciled in France. In 1567, John Shute, a painter and architect, who had been sent to Italy by the Duke of Northumberland, brought out his “Chief Groundes of Architecture,” the first work of its kind published in England. In 1577 appeared the pattern book of Vredeman de Vries of Antwerp, representing Italian details, debased by Flemish and German ingenuity, which was responsible especially for the prevalence of strap-ornament, that is to say, geometric designs of flat bands, studded with knobs, as if they were metal or leather work, attached to the wall by rivets.
The decorative inspiration, therefore, was purer at the beginning than in its subsequent development. For example, the decorative use of the orders is better in some of the earlier buildings than the later ones. In fact, what chiefly distinguishes the Jacobean from the Elizabethan is an increasing grossness of detail, apparent in the furniture and fittings, as well as in the embellishment of the exteriors.
Architect’s Function.—These conditions were fostered by the circumstances under which the building was conducted. There were architects whose names survive, the earliest being John Thorpe, the designer of Kirby, Burghley, Longford Castle, and Holland House. But the custom of the time seems to have limited the architect’s function to the supplying of a plan and design; probably more in the nature of a sketch than of actual detailed drawings, after which the building was handed over to the sole control of a master-mason, who worked out his details from the pattern book. Naturally, such a divorce of construction and design was little likely to result in the consistent development of an architectural style.
Plans.—The square plan was retained from Gothic times in the case of colleges and in some mansions. But usually, to secure more air and light the fourth side was dispensed with, the gate-house, which had been its central feature, becoming a separate building. And the tendency was to prolong one side and shorten the wings, so as to produce the E plan, or to lengthen the wings by projecting them on each side of the main façade, thus forming a letter H. Or the wings are replaced by outlying pavilions joined to the main building by corridors. Sometimes the plans are irregular, representing the additions made to an original Gothic house.
Roofs.—Many Gothic features were preserved. Oriel and bay windows were frequent, and the windows retain their mullions and transoms, and increase in size, being often carried up through several stories. Square or octagonal towers abound, occasionally battlemented but generally finishing in a parapet or cresting, the roof being concealed or rising in a low cone or pyramid. Similarly, the main roofs vary; high, flat, and low ones even occurring in the same design. They are covered with lead or tiles, and surrounded by balustrades, formed of battlements, successive arches, or pierced ornament. Gables are edged with scroll-work, while dormer-gables, as in the Netherlands and Germany, are stepped or carried up with variously curved outlines. The chimneys, single or grouped in stacks, continue to be a prominent feature, their decoration, occasionally, as at Kirby and Hatfield, involving a use of orders.