93. Horham Hall, Essex (early 16th cent.).
94. Kirtling Hall, Cambridgeshire.
The Gatehouse (early 16th cent.).
There is a strange craving among dwellers in old houses to exaggerate the antiquity of their dwellings. Imagination is fond of peopling with monks halls which were built subsequently to the suppression of the monastic orders, and probably with the wealth acquired in consequence of that event. King John has been made to sleep upon a bed which was constructed when King James was on the throne. A cusped window light will carry its enthusiastic proprietor back two centuries earlier than the facts warrant. But domestic work of a date earlier than Henry VII. is not abundant, and it is probably within the mark to say that nine-tenths of the Gothic stonework of ancient houses and ninety-nine hundredths of the Gothic woodwork are attributable to the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.
These new houses were evidently built for pleasure more than for security, although defensive precautions were not entirely omitted. They often occupied the site of an earlier house; but whether this were the case or not, they were generally surrounded by a moat, crossed no longer by a drawbridge, but by one of permanent character. Permanent by comparison, that is to say, for even where moats still remain, bridges of this date are rare; but as a rule the moats have been filled in and the bridges removed, or in any case the moats have been so much filled in as to give easy access to the front entrance.
Some sort of courtyard was contrived in the majority of instances, and as a rule it was surrounded by buildings rather than by a simple wall of defence. The entrance was through a gateway, generally emphasised with a tower over it; indeed one of the characteristic features of large Tudor houses is the lofty tower in which the entrance is set. The bold projecting turrets which usually flank the gateway on each side are a peaceful reminiscence of the defensive towers of earlier times. These gatehouses sometimes rose to a great height. At Oxburgh in Norfolk, Kirtling in Cambridgeshire (Fig. 94), and Cowdray in Sussex, they are from four to six storeys; and the splendid tower at Layer Marney in Essex has as many as eight. The gates were massive, and there was a porter to keep guard, who passed his time in a room adjoining the entrance. In smaller houses where there was no porter there was sometimes a little window or opening commanding a view of the entrance from an adjoining room. It is evident that the household was jealous of strangers, but it was less the bold marauding neighbour whom they feared, than the sturdy beggars who caused no little anxiety to those responsible for the public peace, especially in the years succeeding the suppression of the monasteries, where hitherto mendicants had found shelter and help.
The old reluctance to have large windows in outside walls still lingered; indeed most of the windows of this period (i.e., the first thirty years of the sixteenth century) are composed of only one row of lights; the majority of Tudor windows have no transome or cross-bar. In many cases, it is true, the height of the rooms did not call for an upper row of lights. Where, however, there was no reason to restrict window space, particularly in the bay windows of the hall or the principal living rooms, fine lofty windows of many lights were introduced. The bay window and the oriel—by which is here meant a bay window to an upper floor, springing from the wall and not carried down to the ground, of which Kirtling has a fine example (Fig. 94)—were very considerably developed, and may be reckoned among the most striking characteristics of English domestic architecture of this and the Elizabethan periods.
The window heads were still cusped, and, although tracery was very seldom introduced, the upper part was sometimes emphasised by a row of quatrefoils or some similar elaboration (Fig. 91). This obstructing of the top of the window with solid stonework, where the greatest amount of light is to be obtained, was gradually relinquished; then the simple cusps, which also diminished the light, were dropped, and finally the curved heads gave way to straight ones, and thus the maximum amount of light was secured.
