190.—Corbel, Orton Waterville, Huntingdonshire.
There is one other plan for a town house; it is called "A London house, Lady Derby, Channell Row" (page 110). It is the plan of a much finer house than any of the foregoing, and as it is built round a courtyard, there were no special difficulties in providing light and air. It follows the usual type of large houses, having a central entrance, from which a flagged path leads across the court into the screens of the hall. The staircases, chapel, winter parlour, kitchen and other rooms are grouped round the court in the ordinary way, the only difference being that those which occupy the sides of the court have no windows on their outside walls, but only such as look inwards into the court itself. The restrictions imposed by the fact of the house being a "London house" are therefore very slight. The "Channell Row" where this house was built was probably the street of that name in Westminster. These plans of Thorpe's are of considerable interest, as they show the first steps taken towards developing a plan suitable for the confined spaces available in large towns.
191.—The "Swan" Inn, Lechlade, Gloucestershire.
Reverting to the smaller examples under consideration, we find that a great variety was introduced into the corbels which carried the projecting floors; many of them were grotesques after the fashion of that on the "King's Arms" at Sandwich, in Kent (Fig. [187]), others were simpler, like the examples from Canterbury (Figs. [188], [189]), while others, like that from Orton Waterville, Huntingdonshire (Fig. [190]), combined both ideas. But the characteristic common to them all is boldness, both of size and treatment. They generally had a spiral about them in one form or another, varied by foliage or projecting bosses, or some variation of the strap-work motif. The great corner-posts of such houses as formed the corner of a street were often wrought with a remarkable amount of care. They were not only of sufficient size to make suitable angle-posts, but they were brought out at the top in a diagonal manner in order to support the storey above, which overhung the lower one on both faces; an instance of this treatment may be seen in the example from Sandwich (Fig. [187]). In some places it was customary not only to bring out the face of each storey beyond that of the one below, but to bring the whole house out over the footwalk. The Rows at Chester are a well-known example of this practice. The Long Row on the great market-place of Nottingham is another instance, but here the arcade has been almost entirely rebuilt, one of the last specimens of a Jacobean front having recently been removed in the course of making a new street.
In stone districts the local material was chiefly employed, and all through the small towns and villages of Somerset, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire charming little examples, such as the "Swan" Inn at Lechlade (Fig. [191]), may be found here and there. The idea is of the simplest—a door in the middle, with a bay window on each side, crowned with a gable. But the disposition of the small windows, the treatment of the door, and the change from the canted side of the bay to the square base of the gable afforded opportunities for variety and for careful treatment sufficient to render these minor examples well worth attention.
Market-Houses, Schools, Almshouses, &c.
Most of the work of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries which has come down to us is to be found in houses; but there are a certain number of other buildings left, such as town-halls, market-houses, schools, and almshouses. Of almshouses, or hospitals, as they are often called, there are some excellent examples in many parts of the country. Ford's Hospital, in Coventry, built in 1529, is an extremely good specimen of Late Gothic woodwork; St. John's Hospital, Rye, is another. The almshouses at Corsham, in Wiltshire, are not only very picturesque outside, but contain some capital woodwork inside, of which a reading-desk is illustrated in Fig. [192]. Another set, equally substantial and of greater extent, is to be found at Chipping Campden, in Gloucestershire (Fig. [193]). The work in these places is simple and substantial; there is no display of ornament, unless perhaps over the entrance, where the donor would place his arms with a certain amount of flourish, partly in carving, partly in inscription; there are no elaborate ceilings nor chimney-pieces, but tables, desks, and chairs of careful design and workmanship have survived in places, and these simple buildings are often valuable in affording examples of plain, unpretentious work.
