Fig. 200.—House in St Giles, Oxford.
X
SMALLER HOUSES, TOWN HOUSES, EXTERIOR FEATURES
In the large houses which have been described in the preceding chapters, it has been impossible to avoid passing a certain amount of adverse criticism upon the manner in which comfort and convenience were often sacrificed to the claims of fine architecture, as the term was understood during the eighteenth century. When we turn to the smaller houses this drawback is much less in evidence; not because better architects were employed, for doubtless the unknown designers of these smaller buildings would have sinned equally with their more famous brethren, had the opportunity to do so come their way, but because the occasion demanded no great display, and there was no money wherewith to make it. Nothing more was wanted than a handsome-looking house with rooms of suitable size and number. It was very seldom that any great ingenuity was required of the designers. Two, three, or in the larger houses, four sitting-rooms, a hall and staircase, a kitchen, back kitchen, and pantries usually completed the accommodation of the ground floor; the floor above was occupied by bedrooms, which, if insufficient, were supplemented by others in the attic. There were no bathrooms, cloak-rooms, or other sanitary conveniences; it was not necessary to provide a fireplace to each room. The problems of design were therefore much simpler than those of the present day. There was no group of small rooms requiring a convenient yet inconspicuous situation: there was no need to struggle with single flues from isolated bedrooms, which could not be led to the main stacks; this difficulty was met by leaving the rooms without a fireplace. Nothing is commoner in old houses than to find two or perhaps three chimney-stacks, the position of which is determined by that of the sitting-rooms and kitchen, and to find that the bedrooms adjoining these stacks have fireplaces, while those away from them have none. As to sanitary conveniences, with the crude means of sewage disposal then in use, it was impossible to have them in the house; it was only after the introduction of water carriage that this could be done. In the ancient days of fortified houses it was of course necessary for them to be within the walls, and considerable skill was often displayed in placing them so as to be as innocuous as possible. On Elizabethan plans they were sometimes retained indoors, but they were obviously a source of annoyance and danger; in later times, they were removed outside, and in old houses, here and there, may still be found evidence of the handsome treatment provided for the family as distinguished from the servants. The bedrooms, as many old houses still testify, were provided with some variation of the chaise percée.
Fig. 201.—The Court, Holt, near Bradford-on-Avon.
Fig. 202.—The Church House, Beckley, Sussex.
Fig. 203.—House in the High, Oxford.