120. Bramhall Hall, near Stockport, Cheshire.
121. Shell Farm, near Droitwich, Worcestershire.
122. The Manor House, Sedlescombe, Sussex.
123. House at Brad Street, Kent.
In Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, too, occurs in its perfection the quaint and picturesque custom of hanging external walls with tiles, the relative softness of which is favourable to the growth of lichens, and results in those brilliant bits of colour so dear to the water-colour sketcher. Every district has its own character, and the wise man will enjoy each in turn; no more expecting to find the brilliance of Surrey among the greys of Northamptonshire, than lamenting the absence of the soft tones of the Midlands among the wild moorlands of the North.
One great charm of the houses of this period is their marvellous variety of treatment, although nearly always subject to a symmetrical arrangement and a general similarity of plan. A central porch between projecting wings of greater or less length is almost universal, although there are not a few instances of square houses, such as Felbrigge (Fig. 118) or Heath Hall (Fig. 124). The windows, too, are practically always composed of numerous rectangular lights. But some houses had turrets; some had gables either straight or curved; some had flat lead-covered roofs as at Longleat, Quenby in Leicestershire (Fig. 125), or Temple Newsam in Yorkshire; and some combine both treatments, as at Gayhurst in Buckinghamshire (Fig. 126). This house is said to have been built by a Mulsho in 1597, and to have been much improved a few years afterwards by William Mulsho. This double period of building may, perhaps, account for the combination of the flat roofs and the gables. It subsequently passed by marriage to Everard Digby, and is one of the innumerable places where, tradition says, the Gunpowder Plot was hatched. There was a marked desire for a picturesque sky-line, which led, in some flat-roofed houses like Heath Hall, Barlborough in Derbyshire, and Hatfield House (Fig. 116), to the carrying up of bay windows to form turrets above the parapet. Chimneys were most frequently taken up in separate flues, but occasionally in solid stacks. Parapets were sometimes solid as at Gayhurst and Quenby; more frequently balustraded as at Longleat, and occasionally formed of stone letters making a sentence. Felbrigge Hall has a short one, “Gloria Deo in excelsis”; Temple Newsam in Yorkshire and Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire bear long sentences which make almost the complete circuit of the roofs.
