Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire. The Bay Windows.
Plate XXXIV.
LILFORD HALL, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (1635).
CURVED GABLES.
97.—Cottage at Steventon, Berkshire.
There was no great variety in the mouldings of the stonework. Several sections of jambs and mullions are shown on Fig. [98], of which No. 1 was most frequently used in Elizabethan and Jacobean work. The jambs and principal mullions had an outer member, slightly splayed, which formed a frame within which the subsidiary mullions and the transoms were enclosed, as may be seen by referring to Figs. [71], [96], and [103]. Sometimes this outer member was moulded instead of splayed, as shown in No. 2 (Fig. [98]), and occasionally an extra member was introduced close to the glazing line, as shown in No. 3. These three examples are all varieties of the same type. No. 4 shows a type with a hollow moulding, which was prevalent in Tudor work, as it had been previously in Gothic; and it remained in use, along with the plain splayed mullion, up to the time of the sash-window. Although it preceded the type No. 1, and might therefore be considered to indicate an earlier date, it is not by any means a safe guide, inasmuch as both forms were in use at the same time. No. 1, however, was not used before the middle of the sixteenth century, and may be taken as a fairly safe indication of a date subsequent to that time. No. 5 shows a sunk splay, and was occasionally used, but it is not frequently met with. The label shown on No. 4 was used in late Gothic work, and survived in some instances as long as the mullioned windows themselves; but in the more ambitious designs its place was taken by the lower member of a cornice founded on classic models. No. 6 is an example of a quite different type. In all the others, the windows were of the ordinary mullioned type, with a label (or cornice) over them. In No. 6 not only does the shape of the mullion follow a new idea, but the whole of the mouldings outside of it are carried round the head and jambs of the window to form a regular architrave: the effect can be seen in the windows at Wollaton, in Fig. [106]. As this architrave projected beyond the face of the wall, the window-sill was brought forward to receive it, as shown on Fig. [99]. The projecting sill is supported at each end by a quaint corbel, and the space between the corbels is filled by a projecting panel fashioned like a piece of fancifully-shaped leather nailed on to the wall, and having some of its cut ends curled up. This treatment of windows involved a considerable amount of labour and expense, and accordingly was not often adopted; but the use of the architrave became general during the seventeenth century, after the mullioned window had given way to sashes.
