The characteristic feature of Elizabethan and Jacobean houses is the square-headed mullioned windows (see Fig. 110). Previous to the time of Elizabeth, the plain square head hardly ever occurs; it is always pointed. Down to the end of the fifteenth century it was usually cusped (see Fig. 66). In the early part of the sixteenth century, that is, in Tudor houses, it became flat pointed and the cuspings disappeared. This form lingered on until it was superseded by the square head. It may, however, be found in a few instances as late as the second decade in the seventeenth century, but the cases are not many.
The use of the bay window was greatly developed in Elizabethan and Jacobean times. It was, as already stated, frequently utilised as one of the most important architectural features of a façade. This may be observed on some of Thorpe’s plans (Figs. 99, 100, 104), in Kip’s view of Longleat (Fig. 107), as well as in nearly all the illustrations given of the houses of this period (see Figs. 116, 119, 124, 125, 126). Besides the simple and dignified forms which were chiefly used, there were a few cases in which the plan was more complicated, and in which it took one shape on the ground floor and another on the floor above. Thorpe has several instances of this quaint treatment; an actual example exists at Thornbury Castle (Fig. 108) where the result is not very happy. A more successful attempt was made at Sir Paul Pindar’s house in Bishopsgate Street, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig. 109). Here the different planes of the straight lights combined with the circular projection in the middle, the busy pattern of the glazing, and the carved panels, produce an extremely rich effect.
107. Longleat House, Wiltshire (cir. 1550–80), Kip’s View.
108. Bay Window at Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire.
Another characteristic of the Elizabethan house is the employment of the classic cornice. In Gothic buildings the horizontal “string-course,” or projecting moulding of stone, was very frequently used. It served to bind the design together and to give it unity and coherence. It was usually of small depth and slight projection. But with the invasion of Italian fashions, came the Italian profiles of stonework, and the string-courses of the old days were replaced by cornices, more elaborate in section, of greater depth and greater projection. The old thin string-courses were not entirely abandoned, but they received a slightly different section, more in harmony than the old forms with the new classic profiles. Pilasters were also introduced with the cornices, and some of the grander buildings were adorned with several of the “orders” placed one over the other. In time it became “correct” to use the Doric order on the first storey, the Ionic on the second, and the Corinthian on the third. These pilasters were generally of no practical use: they were merely ornamental features, and were sometimes carried up not with a view to supporting a crowning cornice, but to finish with a finial—a heraldic animal or what-not—altogether out of scale with what it stood on. Such pilasters and cornices were never employed previous to the reign of Henry VIII., and did not come into general use until the time of Elizabeth. The courtyard at Kirby Hall is furnished with them (Fig. 110); nevertheless, however wrong they may be judged from the academic stand-point, it cannot be denied that they materially help the composition, and combine with the many lights of the mullioned windows to produce a picturesque and romantic effect.
109. Window from Sir Paul Pindar’s House, Bishopsgate.
Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.