56. Northborough Manor House, Northamptonshire.

Doorways in the Screens (mid. 14th cent.).

57.

58. Doorway from Harrietsham, Kent (late 15th cent.).

Early in the thirteenth century arches became pointed, and doorways followed suit; accordingly the example from Aydon Castle in Northumberland (c. 1280), shows the later form (Fig. 54). It is a good instance of the very general practice of entering the upper floor through an external door approached by a flight of steps. The marks where the protecting roof abutted against the wall are plainly visible. As this doorway opened from an interior courtyard, special measures of defence were not considered necessary. Of still later date is the doorway of the Bishop’s palace at Mayfield, in Sussex (Fig. 55). This charming little drawing not only shows the unusually wide doorway, but also affords a glimpse into the great hall, with its Decorated window and the springing of one of the stone arches which carried the roof timbers. The Decorated period delighted in ogee arches, ball-flowers, and crockets, and it bestowed them upon the three doorways at Northborough (Fig. 56), which led from the screens of the hall to the buttery, kitchen, and pantry. The illustration is sketched from a point within the screens, and shows the inside of the front door on the extreme right. The manor house at Northborough is of very considerable interest in spite of the alterations which have been found necessary to adapt it to modern uses. It retains its old hall, now divided into two storeys; and the rather elaborate tracery of its windows can still be detected, although built up in order to accommodate the inserted floor. The house is approached across a court into which access is obtained through a vaulted gatehouse, which has suffered much mutilation. Most of the other buildings which form the court are of the seventeenth century, and the whole group is full of the suggestions prompted by time-worn buildings, especially where they reveal themselves to the traveller in some remote village. It became customary in the Perpendicular period to surround the pointed arch with a rectangular frame, as shown in the various examples in Fig. 57. The first step is taken in the doorway at Norrington in Wiltshire; the idea is more resolutely carried out in the others. The Norrington archway is boldly moulded, and it leads into a vaulted porch, a feature less frequently found in houses than in churches. The doorway from Eltham Palace has the spandrels, formed by the curved arch and the rectangular frame, filled with tracery, and it is surmounted by a bold square-headed label. The Lacock example shows a later type, in which the pointed head is flattened in the manner customary in Tudor times, a manner which lingered on, with variations, until well into the reign of James I. The fourth example, from Lenham, is of wood, unlike the others, which are of stone. It shows that the same treatment was applied to both materials alike. There is another good example of a late doorway in wood at Harrietsham, in Kent (Fig. 58). This sketch is valuable as affording a glimpse into the screens of the hall, with doorways on the right, leading to the servants’ quarters. The doorway from the excellent half-timber house at Eastington, in Worcestershire, is another good example in wood (Fig. 59). The beautiful doorways from South Wingfield (Fig. 60, a, b) are specimens of the best work of the Perpendicular period: that from Stanton Harcourt (Fig. 60, c) is a good example of a small stone doorway with its original oak door and iron hinges; it has a worthy companion in the little door at Lacock. The last example in Fig. 60, d, shows a more elaborately designed oak door from the school at Ewelme in Oxfordshire. The fittings of the doors are worthy of attention; the wood handle and iron knocker at Lenham, the knocker at Lacock, and the wood bolt at Stanton Harcourt. When the doorways were of stone, the doors were not hung in wood frames, but on stout hooks let into the stonework. It was impossible, therefore, to shut them tight; there was always space enough between the door and the stone to admit draughts and copious piles of snow. In later years, as we shall see, door frames become universal, but if found in mediæval houses they may be regarded as insertions, unless the whole construction is of wood as in the examples from Lenham and Harrietsham.

59. Eastington Hall, Worcestershire.