192. Manor House at Rothwell, Northamptonshire (cir. 1720).
Entrance Doorway.
193. Raynham Hall, Norfolk (cir. 1636).
A Doorway.
In the eighteenth century a pediment over external doors became the established fashion, as a reference to the illustrations of the smaller houses (Figs. 171–173) will show. It rested either on a bold architrave, or on pilasters. If not a pediment, then there would be a bold hood generally fashioned internally in the similitude of a huge shell, such as may be seen at Burwash (Fig. 170), or, more at large, in a doorway which once stood in Sherborne Lane, London (Fig. 190). At first the pilasters and pediment were of stone, but later on they were made of wood protected from the weather by a covering of lead. Very charming features of this kind may be seen in almost any old country town; two illustrations, from Petworth and Godalming, are given in Fig. 191. It will be seen that each of them has an arrangement characteristic of the age in the shape of a fanlight over the door, a simple but really ingenious device for obtaining light where the entrance hall was not wide enough to allow of a window. The fanlight was always divided into comparatively small spaces by bars gracefully curved; and it is surprising to what a variety of pleasing designs this fashion led. Much fancy was displayed in the embellishment of doorways long after windows had become mere oblong apertures relieved only by stout cross-bars. Even when the bulk of the windows were thus plain, a central feature was sometimes contrived by adopting a special treatment of the window over the door, as in the case of the manor house at Rothwell (Fig. 192).
194. Thorpe Hall, Northamptonshire (cir. 1656).
Doorway and Panelling.