The great kitchen at Burghley House is constructed after the old manner, and is vaulted in stone. This has led to the statement that it is part of a pre-existing abbey, but there is no reason to suppose that it antedates the early parts of the house, which were in building about the year 1550.
33. Sketch of the Kitchen at Stanton Harcourt.
There is not much to be said about the other type of kitchen, such as remains at Haddon and South Wingfield. It was a large apartment, and usually furnished with several vast fireplaces. At South Wingfield there were three, two of which are shown in Fig. 34. At the back of one of these are the two ovens. None of the examples quoted have windows of any great size, a fact which points to the fire itself having been depended on to supplement the scanty daylight. As in many other respects so in the kitchens, the great colleges at Oxford and Cambridge afford the best existing illustrations of the internal economy of a mediæval house. They still have to cater for some hundreds of people daily, and so it was in the abbeys and great houses of the Middle Ages. In an abbey kitchen the number for whom cooking was required was sometimes as much as seven or eight hundred. In a nobleman’s house, such as Lord Burghley’s, the number was less, it is true, but it must have amounted to one or two hundred. In smaller houses the requirements were not nearly so great, and kitchens of more modest dimensions were sufficient.
34. Fireplaces in the Kitchen, South Wingfield Manor House (cir. 1435–40).
CHAPTER V.
The Later Manor House of the Middle Ages.
During the fifteenth century a further advance was made in the amenities of house planning, and although considerable attention was still paid to defensive precautions, there was nevertheless a great expansion in accommodation, and a more determined effort towards obtaining a distinct architectural effect. A certain symmetry of treatment is almost inherent in architecture. It is to be found in the early keeps, where the shallow buttresses or piers and the windows are to a large extent symmetrically placed. But no attempt was made at that time, nor indeed for some centuries, to give a symmetrical disposition to the buildings as a whole. Ranges of rooms were either built entirely new or added to existing buildings as convenience seemed to dictate, and it has already been observed that this haphazard method of planning was extravagant and wasteful. In the fifteenth century there was a noticeable tendency towards symmetry, which easily led in the sixteenth to that very exact balance of part with part so characteristic of the Italian manner, which was to exert an overpowering influence on English designers. Examples of this tendency are to be seen in the beautiful keep at Warkworth in Northumberland (1435–40, Fig. 45, p. 82); in the ruins of Kirby Muxloe in Leicestershire, built by Sir William Hastings about the year 1460 (Figs. 47, 48, pp. 84, 85); and at Cowdray in Sussex, also built in the later years of the same century.
The endeavour to achieve effect by an ordered grouping of the masses of a building is a higher proof of architectural skill than merely to ornament with attractive detail its various parts. Such an attempt, although not very determined, had been made at Kenilworth in the closing years of the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth not only was this idea still further pursued, but a softer and more refined appearance was given to the detail of ornament. The somewhat gaunt character which accorded so well with sterner times often gave way to a pleasant play of fancy, and to that careful and painstaking design which is observable in the Perpendicular style. Men began to desire to have fine houses, the fear of damage and destruction was growing less, and the whole tendency was towards increased refinement. The change is visible in the great manor house of South Wingfield in Derbyshire, where there is not only much charming detail, but an obvious attempt to obtain effect by the handling of masses of building, notably in boldly projecting the garde-robes and chimney-stacks from the faces of the walls. Irregularity is still the prevailing characteristic, but among it may be observed a certain striving after rhythmical treatment.
South Wingfield rivals its more famous neighbour, Haddon, in extent; but in some respects it is less interesting, inasmuch as it is more ruinous, and has not the same variety of work to link it up with all periods from the thirteenth century onwards. Wingfield is practically all of one date, having been built by Ralph Cromwell, Lord Treasurer to Henry VI., about 1435–40. A glance at the plan (Fig. 35) shows how ample the accommodation must have been before the house was destroyed. There are two large courts, the outer (or southern), formed of barns, stables, guard-houses and other inferior buildings, the inner (or northern), of the hall, kitchen, and the chambers occupied by the family. This arrangement is an advance in classification, and it is one which controlled the planning of some of the finest of the mansions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Here, however, the courts are irregular in shape and disposition; there is no attempt at symmetry, nor much at alignment. The outer court is entered at the south-east corner, and although the gateway to the inner is fairly central, and is placed almost opposite to the porch of the hall, there is little of that accuracy of planning which marks the great houses of a hundred and fifty years later. Some attempt at alignment there is, for standing in the south court, the eye obtains a vista through the large arch of the gatehouse, across the north court, through the porch and the doors beyond, and so on to the distant woods. There is a curious variation from the customary relation of the great hall and kitchens, caused by the insertion on the upper floor of a large state apartment between the hall and the servants’ quarters. This is an arrangement not usually found either before or after this period. It does not mark the first step in a new departure. The hall stands on a vaulted undercroft, and must have been a fine room; it measures 71 ft. 7 in. long by 36 ft. 5 in. wide, and is considerably larger than the hall at Haddon, which is 43 ft. by 28 ft. It is now roofless and ruinous, but the bay window (Fig. 36), and porch, which still survive, are fine examples of late Perpendicular work, as also is the adjacent gable of the state apartment (Fig. 37). There is nothing to indicate where the hall fireplace was situated. The probability is that it was in one of the long side walls, but even as late as a hundred years after this time fires were sometimes placed upon central hearths, and it may have been so here.