The Gatehouse (cir. 1500–15).
During the reign of Henry VIII., who was a munificent patron of the arts, the new style did much to establish itself, but houses were still arranged on the traditional plan, and were rather haphazard in their disposition. The hall continued to be the principal room; it lay between the family rooms and the servants’ quarters. But it was supplemented by retiring rooms of greater size, greater comfort, and greater number. East Barsham (c. 1500–15), Thornbury Castle (c. 1511), Compton Winyates (c. 1520), the enlargement of Lytes Carey manor house (c. 1525), Hengrave Hall (c. 1538), Little Moreton (c. 1559), all these, and others that might be named, show the same free and irregular disposition, which had always been distinctive of the English house.
Hengrave Hall (Fig. 98) is a stepping-stone from the mediæval to the Elizabethan type. It is full of irregularity, but it is planned on much more regular lines than South Wingfield, for instance. The entrance front is symmetrical, although not absolutely so; it has a large central doorway flanked by turrets, and is broken at intervals by other turrets—features quite familiar in sixteenth-century houses. It has a courtyard, encircled on three sides by a corridor, and the hall looks out on to the limited area of the court. The windows are small in comparison with the blank wall spaces, and the detail is Gothic, except for some quasi-Italian amorini supporting the oriel over the front door. While many of the old haphazard arrangements are retained, there is a certain attempt at orderliness and symmetry which points the way to the more regular planning of later years.
98. Hengrave Hall, Suffolk (cir. 1538).
Ground Plan.
Wolsey’s great palace at Hampton Court, although planned with considerable attention to symmetry round several rectangular courts, and with an eye to an axial line—arranged, that is to say, with a view to noble and dignified effect, was still very irregular both in disposition and in grouping, with roofs of different heights, lofty towers, turrets, and chimneys. Spenser incidentally sketches such palaces in the “Faerie Queene.” The house of Pride was “a stately Pallace built of squarèd bricke,” where
“High lifted up were many loftie towres,
And goodly galleries far over laid,
Full of fair windowes and delightful bowres: