Compton Winyates, in Warwickshire (about 1520), is a very complete and charming example of its period. The plan conforms in its main features to the ordinary type (Fig. [37]). A certain amount of regularity is imparted to it by reason of its being built round a rectangular court, but of symmetry in it there is hardly a trace, and there is still less in the grouping of the structure. Everything is as irregular and picturesque as the most romantic could desire; the mixture of materials—stone, brick, wood, and plaster—lends a delightful variety of texture, tone, and colour, and makes the house, next to Haddon, one of the most alluring in the country (Plate [XI].). But our concern at present is more particularly with the plan. This shows a courtyard entered through a gateway which is opposite, though not exactly opposite, to the door of the screens. On the left of the screens are the buttery, the kitchen passage, and a staircase; on the right, of course, the hall, from the upper end of which access is obtained to the family rooms, the chapel, and—what previous plans have not shown—the grand staircase. Of course, with the lofty hall cutting the building in two halves, at least two staircases were necessary to get to the upper rooms; as a matter of fact there were usually more than two, as there are here: difficulties of planning being often removed, or at any rate lessened, by this rather costly expedient. It will be seen that the hall has a range of rooms at the back of it, and that its two side walls are not, as usual, both external. The sides of the court are formed, as they were at Oxburgh, of a number of small rooms, which originally (in all probability) led into one another, the passage being a later addition. The ornament, in which the house abounds, is all of Late Gothic character (Plate [XII].). There is no actual Renaissance detail in the external work, although much of it looks as though it were quite ready for the change.
37.—Compton Winyates, Warwickshire. Ground Plan (cir. 1520).
Plate XII.
COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
THE ENTRANCE PORCH
38.—Sutton Place, near Guildford. Ground Plan (1523-25).
