The last plan of the series is that of a house for "Sir Jo. Danvers, Chelsey" (Figs. [227], [228]), and there are two points to be specially noticed in it—one is that the kitchen and its offices are all underground, the other is that the hall is of the type usual in many Italian houses; it extends right through the house from front to back, and has smaller rooms opening from it on each side. In Italy, the hall and the room over it occupy the whole of this space, and the staircase is among the rooms at the side, but at Sir John Danvers' house the staircase is in the hall itself, thus dividing it into two portions, the outer one of which is named "waste hall," and curtailing the effective space of the chamber over it. The device of placing the kitchen and offices in a basement was not often adopted in English houses; space was generally plentiful, and the native taste was rather in favour of the long and low treatment. But occasionally, where space was limited, or where some special notion controlled the design, as at Lyveden New Building, or where the Italian manner was closely followed, the basement was utilized for the purpose of the kitchens. The sketch-elevation of Sir John Danvers' house points towards a more complete acceptance of classic treatment; it is widely different from the extensive façades and returned wings which are associated with the idea of an Elizabethan or Jacobean house. Sir John built a house (but whether to this particular plan, or not, is not certain) at Chelsea, on the site of one which had been the residence of Sir Thomas More; and he seems to have done so in the early years of the seventeenth century. It is more than likely that he was attracted by the Italian model, since we learn from Aubrey[32] that "'twas Sir John Danvers of Chelsey who first taught us the way of Italian gardens. He had well travelled France and Italy, and made good observations.... He had a very fine fancy, which lay chiefly for gardens and architecture." There is another rough sketch of an elevation on page 178, accompanied by a plan, where the Italian treatment is still more marked. The centre of the façade consists of two rows of columns, superimposed, and forming an open loggia on each floor; they carry a pediment of flat pitch. This sketch is of considerable interest, since it connects Thorpe, who is the representative of Elizabethan and Jacobean design, with the far more Italianized style of his successors.
[32]John Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire.
228.—Sir Jo. Danvers, Chelsey. Upper Plan and Elevation (PAGES 21, 22).
229.—An Unnamed Elevation, "ment for one of the sydes of a house about a cort and may be made a front for a house" (PAGE 115).
Two other elevations are illustrated, in addition to those which have accompanied some of the foregoing plans, in order to show the kind of feeling which pervades most of the sketches in Thorpe's book. They are both isolated examples, not attached to any plan, and not named. Indeed, the first of them (Fig. [229]) was probably merely a sketch, as it bears the note, "ment for one of the sydes of a house about a cort and may be made a front for a house." It is quite English in character, and is singularly free from the curly gables and fantastic pinnacles which appear on most of Thorpe's elevations, and were derived from Dutch sources. The sections through the wings should be noticed, as this is the only instance in the whole collection in which anything like a complete section is given. The section on the right hand is evidently taken through the hall, and shows its open-timbered roof of hammer-beam type.
230.—An Unnamed Elevation, "the garden syde, lodgings below and gallery above. J. T." (PAGE 108).
The second example (Fig. [230]) is nearly as simple in its treatment, but the gables break out into rather extravagant curls. The general treatment, with the large gables, the dormers, and the projecting chimney-stacks, is not unlike that of the west front of Kirby (Figs. [77], [107]), but this elevation does not tally with the plan of Kirby, which is not subject to the same accurate symmetry. This drawing bears the note, "The garden syde, lodgings below and gallery above. J. T.," and as it is initialed by Thorpe, it helps to identify as his many of the other elevations.