Diagram of a Large House
Some people have thought that this plan was chosen in honour of Queen Elizabeth, but the truth is that it was the most convenient form, and fitted in best with the ideas of the time. It had grown up quite naturally, in the course of many generations, from the simple hall with the hearth in the middle, the beginnings of which we saw in the huts of the pit-dwellers.
Hall and Staircase, Knole House, Kent, 1570. The broad heavily-carved staircase of oak was a special feature of Elizabethan houses
Quite early in the fourteenth century brick had begun to come into use for building, but the first bricks were probably imported from Flanders. Hull, which had been founded by King Edward I, had many buildings of brick, and by about the year 1320 it had brick-yards of its own. Flemish weavers were encouraged to settle in England by King Edward III, and they used brick in buildings which they set up. There are a good many houses in the eastern counties and in Kent still standing, which show Flemish and Dutch ideas.
A Room in an Elizabethan House. A reconstruction, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, of panelling and furniture removed from a house at Bromley by Bow, London
Cardinal Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court is a good specimen of the brickwork of his time; and all through the reign of King Henry VIII the chief material used was brick, terra-cotta[20] being employed for mouldings and ornament. This was chiefly the work of Italian artists, and they produced also some very beautiful ceilings in plaster-work[21] for many of their fine houses.