J. A. G.
Weekley Rise, near Kettering,
September 1909.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | INTRODUCTION—THE NORMAN KEEP | [1] |
| II. | THE KEEP DESCRIBED | [7] |
| III. | THE FORTIFIED MANOR HOUSE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY—THE DOMINANCE OF THE HALL | [24] |
| IV. | THE COURSE OF MEDIÆVAL BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY | [44] |
| V. | THE LATER MANOR HOUSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES | [67] |
| VI. | MEDIÆVAL DOMESTIC FEATURES—DOORWAYS, WINDOWS, FIREPLACES, CHIMNEYS, ROOFS AND CEILINGS, STAIRCASES | [87] |
| VII. | EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY—COMING OF THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE | [126] |
| VIII. | LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—SYMMETRY IN PLANNING | [141] |
| IX. | ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES—EXTERIORS | [157] |
| X. | ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN HOUSES—INTERIORS | [186] |
| XI. | SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—PERSONAL DESIGN—TRANSITIONAL TREATMENT | [205] |
| XII. | CLASSIC DETAIL ESTABLISHED—INFLUENCE OF THE AMATEURS | [221] |
| XIII. | EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EXTERIORS—THE PALLADIAN STYLE | [233] |
| XIV. | LATE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES—INTERIORS—DETAILS AND FEATURES | [259] |
| CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BUILDINGS | [303] | |
| GLOSSARY | [309] | |
| BRIEF LIST OF BOOKS | [313] | |
| INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS | [315] | |
| INDEX | [325] |
Norham Castle, Northumberland.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory—The Norman Keep.
Those who, in the course of their wanderings through the remote districts of England, whether on business or on pleasure bent, have seen the lonely tower on the hillside, or the grey ruins of some ancient dwelling gleaming through the spaces of encircling trees, have no doubt often speculated as to the precise significance of these remnants of antiquity. They may have dismissed them from consideration as being relics of a past order of things having no connection with the concerns of the present day. Yet to the dweller in a modern house these maimed survivals have as much interest as have his own ancestors; and the home to which he returns after his travels can trace its descent step by step from those rugged masses of stone which roused his interest as he passed them by.
It is not difficult for any one to trace a likeness between the house of to-day and that of, let us say, the time of Elizabeth; but the resemblance between an Elizabethan manor house and a Norman castle or a Northumbrian peel-tower is not by any means so obvious, yet the descent of one from the other can be clearly established. It is the object of the following pages not only to show how this can be done, but to trace briefly the continuous changes which have transformed, in the course of some seven or eight centuries, the gaunt and desolate keep into the comfortable mansion or villa of our own experience.
Everybody knows that an Englishman’s house is his castle, but it should also be remembered that in early times an Englishman’s castle was his house. Castles were not necessarily military strongholds; many of them were so, but many of them, again, were nothing more than fortified houses, and it is in these fortified houses that we must seek the first germs of our own homes, the earliest evidences of domestic architecture.