Fig. 69.—Saffron Walden. Detail of Plasterwork.
Fig. 70.—School at Witney, Oxfordshire, 1660.
Another good example of the transitional stage between Jacobean work and classic is the school at Witney, in Oxfordshire (Fig. [70]). The wings are still part of the main structure; the windows are mullioned, but the larger ones have an oval light in the uppermost compartment; the chimneys have square detached shafts set angle ways on their base. All these are features of the earlier type. On the other hand, the absence of gables, the widely projecting coved eaves, and small detached dormers are characteristic of the new methods of design. The date of the building, as stated on the panel over the principal door, is 1660.
Of such houses as the farmhouse at Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire (Fig. [71]), there are plenty of examples to be found. Here the mullioned windows are still retained; but the absence of gables, the straight front, the marked cornice at the eaves, the hood over the door, and the plain, severe outline are all in keeping with the more pronounced classic treatment which was being gradually adopted, even in remote places, by the end of the seventeenth century.
Such are some of the smaller houses built during the years in which Inigo Jones and Webb were working; links between the Jacobean style and that purer version of Italian to which those eminent men devoted themselves.
It has been shown how the general character of houses had changed during the period between the accession of Charles I. and the Restoration in regard to their arrangement and appearance; it will be well now to show briefly how their decoration had also altered. But before doing so, it will be useful shortly to recapitulate the principal changes that had taken place.
Fig. 71.—House at Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire.
