37. South Wingfield Manor House.
Porch of Great Hall and Gable of State Apartments.
38. South Wingfield Manor House.
Undercroft beneath Great Hall.
The undercroft beneath the hall is one of the finest pieces of work left (Fig. 38). It is vaulted with heavy stone ribs springing from columns down the middle, and responds on the walls. The ribs meet at the summit on large traceried bosses, and the junction of the ceiling-ribs with the wall-ribs is emphasised in certain cases by carved grotesques. In spite of the care bestowed upon the work, there is no reason to suppose that the undercroft was put to noble uses; it was in all probability merely a cellar and store place. It is approached from four directions—externally from under the porch, and through the east wall, whence there is easy access to the north-east stair-turret: and internally from one of the rooms beneath the state chamber, and from the bay of the hall (Fig. 39); as the buffet often stood in the hall bay, this staircase gave easy access for replenishing the buffet from the cellar. The kitchen department is well supplied with rooms and with large fireplaces. A straight passage led from the middle of the lower end of the hall direct to the kitchen. It passed beneath the state apartment, and along the side of a small room which was probably the “survaying-place” or serving-room, since the wall is pierced with two large openings, through which the dishes would be passed, and thence carried to the hall. The kitchen itself has three huge fireplaces, in two of which there are ovens. In later years it became customary to place the ovens in a room by themselves, called the “pastry.” Some of the walls and fireplaces in this part of the house are clearly after-insertions, and point to the fact that the original means of cooking were inadequate for the needs of the large household, which found accommodation in the long ranges of rooms most of which are now destroyed.
39. South Wingfield Manor House.
Interior of Bay Window of Hall; showing Door to Undercroft.
The wing on the west of the inner court is traditionally assigned to the use of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was detained in confinement here from 1569 onwards, under the care of George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, whose ancestor, the second earl, had purchased the estate from the builder of the house. An interesting light is thrown upon the sanitary habits of the time by the fact that three weeks after her installation at Wingfield she fell ill; two physicians deputed by the Privy Council reported that the sanitary conditions of her quarters were bad, whereupon her custodian, the Earl of Shrewsbury, retorted that the evil state of her rooms arose from the uncleanly habits of her own retinue. There seems to be little doubt that in Elizabeth’s time the care bestowed upon sanitary arrangements was not nearly so great as in the preceding centuries. An examination of house plans of the end of the sixteenth century shows that the isolation of garde-robes or the grouping of them together in separate towers was no longer carried out; they were often placed with a view to convenience of access regardless of their unsavoury characteristics. In the case of the particular complaint at Wingfield, however, the inference is that they were not sufficiently convenient for the views of Mary’s household, and yet the west wing, which she is said to have occupied, is well furnished with garde-robes placed in the large square projections on this face, two in each on each floor.