117. Derwent Hall, Derbyshire.
Moyns Park has a special interest, inasmuch as it is one of the fairly numerous cases in which a house of the first half of the sixteenth century was superseded by a finer one in the second half. Here the low, gabled, half-timber building is of the earlier date, and the lofty one, with its row of fine brick chimneys, is of the later. There could hardly have been forty years between the two buildings; the earlier has some excellent detail, especially on the long front not shown in the illustration: it was a fine house of its kind; and yet such was the passion for new houses that it was soon superseded by its loftier and more monumental neighbour.
The general appearance of houses of this time may be gathered from the illustrations, which comprise examples from various districts of England, and serve to show, among other things, that the same treatment was adopted over the whole country, varied according to local circumstances. Where stone was abundant, the houses were of stone, with more or less elaborate detail according to the hardness of the material. On the great beds of easily worked Oolite which stretch from Somerset and Wiltshire through Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire into Lincolnshire, the work is often both rich and delicate, and has acquired through time and weather a soft grey tint enlivened by the partial incrustation of many-hued lichens. In Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire where the stone is much harder, the work is of a plainer and more severe type, such as may be seen at Derwent Hall (Fig. 117), and the colour is more sombre. In the eastern counties brick is frequently the chief material, with stone where wrought detail is required, such as quoins, cornices, parapets, and pilasters. Felbrigge Hall in Norfolk (Fig. 118), probably built by Thomas Windham, who died in 1653 at the age of eighty-two, is a good example. In some instances where stone was not easily to be had, the detail which would otherwise have been in that material, was worked in plaster to imitate it.
118. Felbrigge Hall, Norfolk.
(Early 17th cent.)
119. Marton Hall, Cheshire. (Now destroyed.)
In the western counties timber and plaster were freely used; Cheshire, Lancashire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire afford the finest and most ornamental examples of this method of construction, while Kent, Surrey, and Sussex in the south have a fair amount of plainer work of the same kind. In these houses the main walls are formed of stout timber framed together, with the interstices filled in with lath and plaster. The structural timbers are left visible; most of them are vertical, but they are braced together at intervals by horizontal timbers, and are occasionally further strengthened by sloping struts. This framework itself makes a pleasing pattern and satisfies the eye as to the strength and stability of the fabric. The timbers are always of large scantling, and are nearly equal in their total area to the spaces that are left between them. These characteristics are common to all the examples illustrated (Figs. 119–123). But whereas in the southern counties, and to a great extent in Worcestershire, the designers were satisfied to leave their work in this simple form, in Lancashire, and more particularly in Cheshire, they added interest and richness to the effect by placing curved braces within some of the panels, thus producing patterns of more or less intricacy. Variations in the shape of the curves resulted in variations of pattern, and the variety of effects thus obtained is quite remarkable. A simple example is Marton Hall, near Congleton, now destroyed (Fig. 119); a more elaborate one is the well-known Little Moreton Hall in the same district. But the finest specimen of a half-timber house is Bramhall Hall, near Stockport (Fig. 120), which is not only quaint and picturesque, but in places approaches as near to stateliness as such homely materials allow. Lancashire at one time fell little short of Cheshire in attractive examples, but before the constant spread of its manufacturing centres they are rapidly disappearing. Throughout large districts of Worcestershire such black-and-white houses as that at Shell Farm (Fig. 121) may be seen. They are quite simple, but they give a cheerful aspect to the countryside, especially when the spring time surrounds them with bright green foliage and the pink and white blossoms of the orchards. In Sussex and Kent the use of half-timber work was not so general, nor was there nearly as much play of fancy as in Cheshire, the design being seldom of more elaborate character than that at Sedlescombe (Fig. 122) and Brad Street (Fig. 123).
