Fig. 283.—HONINGTON HALL, Warwickshire.
In smaller houses were such doorways as that at Bourdon House, London (Fig. [284]), where there is carving enough to impart interest to the design without over-weighting it; and at Seckford Hall, in Suffolk, is a simple but effective treatment (Fig. [285]) which is well within the compass of an ordinary joiner. A great variety of effect can be obtained at small cost by dint of a little thought and a determination not to be too much bound by correct precedents. It is one of the failings of the ordinary eighteenth-century designer that he feared to depart from the patterns published in books.
Fig. 284.—Doorway at Bourdon House, Mayfair, London.
Very great changes in the manner of treating the walls of a room occurred during the course of the century. At first they were panelled with wood—not with the small panels of Jacobean times, but with large panels surrounded by bold mouldings, such as those at Denham Place (Fig. [287]). Here the mouldings are enriched with carving, which adds considerable richness, but as a rule the mouldings were plain; various examples have already been given in Figs. [122], [126], [135], [139]. There was usually a low dado with long horizontal panels, and above the dado rail were lofty vertical panels reaching up to a massive cornice. The effect is always simple and dignified, whether the material is oak or painted deal. Of course the panels very much restrict the freedom of arrangement of pictures, but in those days pictures were not so plentiful as they became later, prints were few, and so were the amateur artists who bestow the fruit of their elegant leisure upon their friends. The panels therefore hampered nobody, and they were in themselves a sufficient decoration. Family portraits or notable pictures were sometimes framed into them as part of the scheme.
Fig. 285.—Head of a Doorway, Seckford Hall, Suffolk.
Fig. 286.—Panelling in the Audit Room, Boughton House, Northamptonshire.