Early Renaissance Architecture in England / A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625

by J. Alfred Gotch

6. Winter Parlour.

7. Back Stairs.

8. Kitchen.

9. Pastry.

10. Inner Court.

11. Open Arcade.

12. Outer Court.

The Cliftons had been seated at Clifton, near Nottingham, for some time prior to the reign of James I.; the family still resides there, but there is nothing in the existing house to connect it with this plan of Thorpe's. Sir Gervase Clifton lived from 1586 to 1666, and was created a baronet in the year 1612. This plan must therefore have been drawn subsequent to that year, as it is entitled "Sir Jarvis Clifton's." There is nothing to show whether it is an original design or a survey of an existing house: the clean way in which it is drawn points to the latter assumption; but if it is an original design it is interesting as showing at what a late date the old type of plan was still employed.

The next plan (Fig. [216]) has no title. It shows a house with a courtyard in front and two long wings at the back, forming a nearly square block. The arrangement follows the established lines: a porch leads into the screens and thence into the hall, which again has the daïs indicated. Owing to the exigencies of the external treatment, the bay window is not placed at the end of the daïs. A door between the latter and the fireplace leads into a vestibule with the chief staircase in it; beyond is the parlour, with a bay window looking into a small courtyard, and beyond the parlour is another room. On the servants' side is the buttery with its stairs, and then the winter parlour, of which the bay window balances that of the hall. A vestibule containing the back staircase separates these rooms from the kitchen, which has a bay window looking straight across at the bay of the parlour; beyond the kitchen are two rooms, the first of which is probably a larder, while the other is certainly, on account of the ovens, either the bakehouse or "the pastry." There is an arcade at the back of the front wing, occupying one side of the inner court. The fourth side of this court is enclosed by a wall, but the draughtsman has indicated it in two separate positions, thus making it appear as though there were a solid wing on this side. In this plan, also, the only indication of the upper floor is given in the note written on the hall, "Great chamber over this to y^e Skryne" (screen).

The plan shown in Plate [LXXXV]. has no title, but it has the advantage of having every room named; and its elevation is also drawn, which was not the case in either of the two preceding examples. The plan follows the familiar lines; it has a long narrow body, and at each end a long narrow wing at right angles to it, with a staircase turret at the internal angles. The porch and screens are in the usual relation to the hall, beyond which are the parlour and two "lodgings," each of which has a small inner room attached. The first of these lodgings is a thoroughfare room, but there is an external door in the passage connecting the two, which enables the hall to be gained by crossing the court, thus affording an alternative route of a kind. On the servants' side of the house are the buttery, the pantry, the winter parlour, the larder, kitchen, bolting-house, and pastry. The kitchen has the usual small oven; the pastry has the invariable two, one somewhat larger than the other. The two wings are treated symmetrically on the principal sides (towards the court), one incidental result being that the pastry gets vastly more light than the kitchen. It has already been suggested that the winter parlour was placed on the servants' side in order to be near the kitchen. The bolting-house was the room where the meal was bolted, that is, sifted. The "pastry" was, as its name implies, the room in which were made pies, "cates," confectionery, and the "pretty little tiny kickshaws" which Justice Shallow ordered when he was furnishing his table for the entertainment of Sir John Falstaff. The housewives of the time were accomplished in the making of such dainties. The narrator of the Progress of James I. in 1603 remarks upon the delicate fare provided by Sir Anthony Mildmay at Apethorpe, rendered "more delicate by the art that made it seem beauteous to the eye; the Lady of the house being one of the most excellent Confectioners in England, though I confess many honourable women very expert." When Queen Elizabeth was entertained at Elvetham by the Earl of Hertford in 1591, a banquet was served in the evening "into the lower gallery in the garden," when a thousand dishes were served by two hundred gentlemen, with the light of a hundred torches, and among the more notable dishes were some tours de force in sugar-work, representing the royal arms, the arms of all the nobility, figures of men and women, castles and forts, all kinds of animals, all kinds of birds, reptiles and "all kind of worms," mermaids, whales, and "all sorts of fishes": all these, we are told, were standing dishes of sugar-work. It is not suggested that the lady of the house herself produced these masterpieces; but ladies were certainly skilful in the making of cakes, and it was a recommendation in actual life, as well as in one of the plays of the time, that the heroine could "do well in the pastry."