A B C of Gothic Architecture

by John Henry Parker

Houses and castles of the time of Richard II. are rather numerous and fine, and have frequently such a mixture of the Decorated and Perpendicular styles that it is difficult to say to which they belong. This is the case with a part of Warwick Castle, of Donnington Castle, Berkshire, Wardour Castle, Wiltshire, and Wressel Castle, Yorkshire; and Bolton Castle, in the more northern part of Yorkshire, is another fine example, and remarkably perfect. It is a very lofty and fine building, rather a fortified house than a castle intended for military purposes; there are two courts, and all the towers are perfect, or nearly so. It belongs to the time of Richard II. Dartington Hall, Devonshire, near Totnes, is another remarkable example of this period and character; it is a manor-house not fortified, with extensive farm-buildings attached to it. All the original windows are of four lights, with arches of the form called the shouldered-arch, which has been adopted in the modern Gothic front of Balliol College, Oxford. The original parts of the Vicar’s Close at Wells are of the same character and period; the remains of the Vicar’s Close at Lincoln are in part also of this character, one house is earlier, more decidedly Edwardian, and remarkably perfect. Most of these buildings are well known and have often been described, but are sometimes said to belong to the one style and sometimes to the other, this important transitional period having been very commonly overlooked.

The chancel of the fine church at Warwick is an excellent example of this change; it has sometimes been described as of the earlier style, and by other writers as of the later. The chapel on the south side of it, with the celebrated tomb of the Earl of Warwick, is an addition, and belongs to the later style.

THE PERPENDICULAR STYLE.
Richard II. to Henry VIII. A.D. 1377-1547.

Having thus taken a rapid historical survey of the introduction of the Perpendicular style, it should be mentioned that this style is exclusively English, it is never found on the Continent, and it has the advantage of being more economical in execution than the earlier styles. It remains to describe its characteristic features. The broad distinction of the Perpendicular style lies in the form of the tracery in the head of the windows; and in fully developed examples the distinction is sufficiently obvious. We have no longer the head of the window filled with the gracefully flowing lines of the Decorated tracery, but their place is supplied by the rigid lines of the mullions, which are carried through to the architrave moldings, the spaces between being frequently divided and subdivided by similar Perpendicular lines; so that Perpendicularity is so clearly the characteristic of these windows, that no other word could have been found which would at once so well express the predominating feature. The same character prevails throughout

Fotheringhay, Northants, A.D. 1435.

A remarkable example of a Perpendicular church, the contract for building which has been preserved, and was published by Mr. Hartshorne for the Oxford Architectural Society in 1841.

the buildings of this period: the whole surface of a building, including its buttresses, parapets, basements, and every part of the flat surface, is frequently covered with panelling, in which the Perpendicular line clearly predominates; and to such an excess is this carried that the windows frequently appear to be only openings in the panel-work. This is equally apparent at the beginning, in the interior of the west end of Winchester Cathedral, and in the exterior of the Divinity School, Oxford, near the end of this style. The towers of Boston in Lincolnshire, and Evesham in Worcestershire, are also fine examples of exterior panelling. Panelling, indeed, now forms an important feature of the style; for though it was used in the earlier styles, it was not to the same extent, and was of very different character, the plain surfaces in those styles being relieved chiefly by diaper-work.

In the earlier or transitional examples we find, as has been mentioned, a mixture of the two styles. The general form of the tracery is frequently Decorated, but the lines of the mullions are carried through them, and perpendicular lines in various ways introduced. A very common form of transition is the changing of the flowing lines of a two-light Decorated window into a straight-sided figure by the introduction of perpendicular lines from the points of the sub-arches, as at Haseley, Oxfordshire. Sometimes we have Decorated moldings, with Perpendicular tracery, but frequently the features of both styles are intimately blended, and produce a very good effect.