41. Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire (cir. 1440).
Another interesting and remarkable house of this period is Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire, which was built by the same Lord Treasurer who built Wingfield. In Elizabeth’s time several of her great officials built more than one large house, and the fact that Ralph Cromwell did so in the fifteenth century, seems to indicate that house-building had already begun to be a pleasure for the great and wealthy, and was not merely undertaken of necessity. It is difficult to say for certain how large the house at Tattershall was originally, or of what its accommodation consisted. There are considerable remains of walls extending over a large area, but the only habitable portion left, if we except the small house now occupied by the caretaker, is the splendid brick tower built after the fashion of a luxurious keep. The reversion to the earlier type is curious, and it seems tolerably certain that, whatever the buildings may have been which have disappeared, the tower was the chief part of the house (Fig. 41). It rises sheer from the ground to a vast height—some 120 ft. to the top of the turrets, and more than 100 ft. to the battlements. It can only be called “vast” speaking in terms of English architecture of the time; dwellers in American cities of to-day where buildings soar to 400 ft., would regard it as puny. It contained, in addition to the cellar, four lofty storeys (of which the second and third are shown on Fig. 42), and above them a flat roof with a rampart walk. Each floor consisted of one large room about 38 ft. by 22 ft., supplemented by small chambers in three of the turrets, and by one or two others in the walls, which are some 12 ft. thick. There are garde-robes on each floor (except the first) and on the battlements; each of the large rooms has a fireplace, and access from floor to floor is obtained by a circular staircase, 10 ft. in diameter. The rooms are approached from the stairs through vaulted lobbies, and on the third floor through a long vaulted passage in the thickness of the wall.
42. Tattershall Castle.
Plans of Second and Third Storeys.
43. Tattershall Castle.
The Staircase.
The accommodation is of much the same character and extent as in the early keeps, and although the windows are larger, there are but three two-light windows to the large rooms, except to that on the ground floor, which has four. The workmanship is excellent. The passages and window-recesses are vaulted in brick and are adorned with many shields of arms, as also are the chimney-pieces. Everything tends to show that the amenities of life were respected, and it is not a little odd that so much care should have been spent upon the embellishment of a dwelling which, although lordly in character, must have been gloomy and uncomfortable, much more so than the spacious manor house at Wingfield. It is, of course, possible that among the buildings which have disappeared, there may have been more commodious and cheerful rooms, but there is no record of them; and it is clear from the amount of care spent upon the tower, that it was intended for ordinary occupation.
The jambs of the doors and windows and the tracery of the latter, as well as the machicolations and the coping of the parapet, are all of stone; so too are the chimney-pieces. But the walls are of brick, and, as already mentioned, so is the vaulting of the passages; the whole work being a curious mixture of wrought stone and brick. The brick staircase has stone steps and a stone handrail built into the wall (Figs. 43, 44).