39.—Sutton Place, Surrey. Details (1523-25).
So far, although we have come to nearly the close of the first quarter of the century, we have seen but little effect from the new style. Just a suggestion in the ornament at East Barsham, and a slight tendency towards a symmetrical treatment of the plan; yet whatever symmetry there may have been at East Barsham was thrown to the winds at Compton Winyates. In the next example, Sutton Place, near Guildford, only a few years later in date (1523-25),[9] we find symmetry in plan and elevation, and ornament which is strongly marked with Italian character. The entrance was as usual through a tower, and faced the hall door exactly opposite, on the axial line (Fig. [38]). Such accuracy of alignment was so infrequent at this date, and it results in the hall door being placed so far from the end wall where the screens ought to be, that a feeling of doubt creeps in as to whether we see here the original arrangement unaltered. The hall, too, is of such a height as to embrace two tiers of windows, another most unusual treatment. In the ordinary way the windows would have been made lofty in proportion to the hall. If the existing dispositions have come down unaltered, they are a striking testimony to the manner in which routine of design was broken in order to obtain external symmetry. Apart from this point, the plan adheres to the usual lines. The hall connects the two wings, and the sides of the court are formed by a series of small chambers approached either through each other or from the outer air. The internal walls have either been removed or altered, but the external walls remain to show that the wings enclosing the court were only one room thick, and not of sufficient width to allow of a corridor.
[9]Annals of an Old Manor House, by Frederic Harrison.
There is, however, an important point to be noticed, and that is the symmetrical treatment of the court. Not only is there a little bay window halfway along each side, but the bay window of the hall, which comes in the angle of the court, is balanced by another bay in the other angle, although there is no important room to be lighted by it. Such an arrangement was often adopted in subsequent plans, but this is the first instance which we have seen of it.
40.—Sutton Place, Surrey. Part Elevation of Courtyard (1523-25).
While the plan adheres in the main to the customary lines, the ornamentation has taken quite a new departure. The windows are of Perpendicular type, and have the old-fashioned cusping in the heads, but the hollow of the moulding is occupied with ornament drawn from Italian, or perhaps Franco-Italian, sources (Fig. [39]). The house was built by Sir Richard Weston, and, in accordance with the custom of the preceding half century, his rebus, or an attempt at it in the shape of a tun, appears as a diaper in various places and in the horizontal string-course; but instead of being shrouded in vine leaves or other old and well-established devices, it occurs among ornament of the new type. This is a point worth noticing, inasmuch as it shows that this ornament was made for the place, and was not purchased out of ready-made stock. The amorini which are introduced over the doors have not the same individuality, nor have the half-balusters which divide them into their panels, but they were no doubt made by the same men who did the tuns and Sir Richard's initials, which also help to form a diaper in places. All this ornamental work is in terra-cotta, but there is nothing to show where the patterns were cast, whether in England or abroad. The battlemented parapet is not yet discarded (Fig. [40]), and the large octagonal shafts are crowned with a variation of the dome. Some of the panels are Gothic quatrefoils, and in the parapet of the central block over the front door the Italian amorini disport themselves (a little clumsily) in panels with Gothic cusping. The whole of the ornament is a curious and interesting mixture of the old and new forms.
Another house with many of the same characteristics is Layer Marney Tower, in Essex (1500-25). There is not enough left of the plan to enable us to draw any deductions from it, but the character of the work is very similar to that at Sutton, only a little more pronounced in its Renaissance feeling. The lofty entrance tower recalls that at Oxburgh; its general appearance, its pointed doorway and windows with their mouldings, and also the cusped panels of its string-courses are all distinctly Gothic (Fig. [41]). But closely associated with the Gothic panelling is the classic egg and dart enrichment. The large mullioned windows, though of Gothic descent, are Renaissance in detail, while the parapets, with their egg and dart strings, and their dolphins climbing over semicircular panels filled with radiating ornament, are thoroughly Renaissance of the French type (Plate [XIII].). In the moulded chimneys we go back to the ordinary patterns in vogue in nearly all houses of the time, whether touched with the foreign influence or not. The decorative detail here, as at Sutton Place, is in terra-cotta.
Plate XIII.
