There are numberless buildings in all parts of the country which show in their external treatment how gradual was the supersession of the old style by the new and more correct treatment, and how limited in range was the influence of even so eminent an architect as Inigo Jones. Indeed, throughout the seventeenth century it would appear that architectural design followed two paths; one was that trodden by trained architects who aimed at correctitude; the other was that taken by less learned designers, whether architects or (as of old) masons and artificers, who had not mastered the niceties of classic design, and therefore mixed ancient methods with such of the new as they could compass. The mullioned window was one of the old features to which they long held fast. The new idea of large window openings such as prevailed in the Banqueting House they seem to have disliked. Their reluctance had, no doubt, a constructional basis, for the narrow lights of a mullioned window are easily bridged, whereas a wide opening requires either a deeper head to carry the weight above it, or else an arch. The introduction of an arch or a deep head involved a more serious departure from ancient ways, and a more complete committal to new design than the ordinary man could face. He did not mind pilasters, and he did not mind a heavy cornice, and consequently there are plenty of instances in which the old mullioned windows are accompanied by the more stiff and straight arrangement which a heavy cornice involves. Such an instance is to be seen in the free school at Warminster, founded as late as 1707 (Fig. [57]).
Another feature to which designers clung was the gable. This, of course, had been from time immemorial a dominant feature of English houses; it was the simplest and most natural way of closing the end of a roof, and as roofs were nearly always of a steep pitch, so, too, were the gables. But there was no place in classic architecture for steep gables, nor indeed for gables of any kind; the nearest approach to them was the pediment. It was only by a determined effort that the English architect could get rid of gables, and this effort was too much for any but the most resolute to make. Gables survived even longer than mullioned windows, and as our climate, with its rain and snow, is better encountered by steep roofs than by flat, the roofs continued to be steep.
An interesting example of the mixture of mullioned windows, gables, and classic details is to be found in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge (Fig. [56]). The precise date of this building is not known. In many of the colleges accounts have survived from which may be gathered the date, the cost, and even the names of the designers of the various buildings which make both Cambridge and Oxford so extremely interesting to architects. But unluckily in this instance there are no accounts left, and it is only inferentially and vaguely that a date can be suggested. Subscriptions for a new building were being asked for in 1640,[41] and again in 1679, and the building was apparently finished, or nearly so, in 1703 when Pepys made his will, by which he left his library (after his nephew’s death) either to Trinity College or Magdalene, but preferably to the latter, in which case it was to be in the “New Building,” where, in fact, it was eventually placed.
It would appear from the plan, and also from the external treatment, that the design was made when the project first started in 1640; but if Professor Willis’s suggestion be accepted that the Civil War interrupted the scheme and that, in view of the change in taste, a fresh design was adopted on the resumption of effort in Charles II.’s time, the survival of the old method’s becomes still more striking. But a close examination of the work strengthens the supposition that the front was designed as a whole when the project was started in 1640; and that the pediments and cornices over the windows, together with the carving, were inserted at the close of the century. The later mouldings are larger and bolder in scale than the earlier.
When it is remembered that in 1640 John Webb was drawing none but classic buildings, and that by 1679 St Paul’s Cathedral was already rising above the ground, and that it was designed on fully developed classic lines, the significance of the mixed taste in this building at Magdalene College will be the more readily appreciated. But it must be borne in mind that Webb and Sir Christopher Wren were members of a learned confraternity, while the unknown designer at Magdalene had evidently not had the same opportunities as they enjoyed for acquiring familiarity with classic detail.
Fig. 58.—Doorway at Stanway, Gloucestershire.
Stanway House, in Gloucestershire, belongs in its general treatment to the Jacobean period, but there are numerous late touches about it; among them are the front door and the window above it (Fig. [58]). The latter appears to be a later insertion, but the doorway is probably original, as it agrees in its general character with the arch of the fine gate-house, which is contemporary with the mullioned windows by which it is encompassed. It was quite a usual custom to adhere to the old ways in the general design of a house, but to treat some special feature, such as a doorway, in the more modern and correct fashion. This is easily intelligible when it is remembered that the books on classic architecture confined themselves largely to details, and dealt but sparingly with the designs of entire buildings. At this time, that is about 1637, there was probably no one who gave himself up entirely to the pursuit of consistent purity of detail, except Jones and his pupil Webb.
Fig. 59.—Gateway at Astwell, Northamptonshire, 1638.