Norman Clamp on door of Heybridge Church, Essex
The ancient house exhibited at the Franco-British Exhibition at Shepherd's Bush was a typical example of an Elizabethan dwelling. It was brought from Ipswich, where it was doomed to make room for the extension of Co-operative Stores, but so firmly was it built that, in spite of its age of three hundred and fifty years, it defied for some time the attacks of the house-breakers. It was built in 1563, as the date carved on the solid lintel shows, but some parts of the structure may have been earlier. All the oak joists and rafters had been securely mortised into each other and fixed with stout wooden pins. So securely were these pins fixed, that after many vain attempts to knock them out, they had all to be bored out with augers. The mortises and tenons were found to be as sound and clean as on the day when they were fitted by the sixteenth-century carpenters. The foundations and the chimneys were built of brick. The house contained a large entrance-hall, a kitchen, a splendidly carved staircase, a living-room, and two good bedrooms, on the upper floor. The whole house was a fine specimen of East Anglian half-timber work. The timbers that formed the framework were all straight, the diamond and curved patterns, familiar in western counties, signs of later construction, being altogether absent. One of the striking features of this, as of many other timber-framed houses, is the carved corner or angle post. It curves outwards as a support to the projecting first floor to the extent of nearly two feet, and the whole piece was hewn out of one massive oak log, the root, as was usual, having been placed upwards, and beautifully carved with Gothic floriations. The full overhang of the gables is four feet six inches. In later examples this distance between the gables and the wall was considerably reduced, until at last the barge-boards were flush with the wall. The joists of the first floor project from under a finely carved string-course, and the end of each joist has a carved finial. All the inside walls were panelled with oak, and the fire-place is of the typical old English character, with seats for half a dozen people in the ingle-nook. The principal room had a fine Tudor door, and the frieze and some of the panels were enriched with an inlay of holly. When the house was demolished many of the choicest fittings which were missing from their places were found carefully stowed under the floor boards. Possibly a raid or a riot had alarmed the owners in some distant period, and they hid their nicest things and then were slain, and no one knew of the secret hiding-place.
Tudor Fire-place. Now walled up in the passage of a shop in Banbury
The Rector of Haughton calls attention to a curious old house which certainly ought to be preserved if it has not yet quite vanished.
"It is completely hidden from the public gaze. Right away in the fields, to be reached only by footpath, or by strangely circuitous lane, in the parish of Ranton, there stands a little old half-timbered house, known as the Vicarage Farm. Only a very practised eye would suspect the treasures that it contains. Entering through the original door, with quaint knocker intact, you are in the kitchen with a fine open fire-place, noble beam, and walls panelled with oak. But the principal treasure consists in what I have heard called 'The priest's room.' I should venture to put the date of the house at about 1500—certainly pre-Reformation. How did it come to be there? and what purpose did it serve? I have only been able to find one note which can throw any possible light on the matter. Gough says that a certain Rose (Dunston?) brought land at Ranton to her husband John Doiley; and he goes on: 'This man had the consent of William, the Prior of Ranton, to erect a chapel at Ranton.' The little church at Ranton has stood there from the thirteenth century, as the architecture of the west end and south-west doorway plainly testify. The church and cell (or whatever you may call it) must clearly have been an off-shoot from the Priory. But the room: for this is what is principally worth seeing. The beam is richly moulded, and so is the panelling throughout. It has a very well carved course of panelling all round the top, and this is surmounted by an elaborate cornice. The stone mantelpiece is remarkably fine and of unusual character. But the most striking feature of the room is a square-headed arched recess, or niche, with pierced spandrels. What was its use? It is about the right height for a seat, and what may have been the seat is there unaltered. Or was it a niche containing a Calvary, or some figure? I confess I know nothing. Is this a unique example? I cannot remember any other. But possibly there may be others, equally hidden away, comparison with which might unfold its secret. In this room, and in other parts of the house, much of the old ironwork of hinges and door-fasteners remains, and is simply excellent. The old oak sliding shutters are still there, and two more fine stone mantelpieces; on one hearth the original encaustic tiles with patterns, chiefly a Maltese cross, and the oak cill surrounding them, are in situ. I confess I tremble for the safety of this priceless relic. The house is in a somewhat dilapidated condition; and I know that one attempt was made to buy the panelling and take it away. Surely such a monument of the past should be in some way guarded by the nation."
The beauty of English cottage-building, its directness, simplicity, variety, and above all its inevitable quality, the intimate way in which the buildings ally themselves with the soil and blend with the ever-varied and exquisite landscape, the delicate harmonies, almost musical in their nature, that grow from their gentle relationship with their surroundings, the modulation from man's handiwork to God's enveloping world that lies in the quiet gardening that binds one to the other without discord or dissonance—all these things are wonderfully attractive to those who have eyes to see and hearts to understand. The English cottages have an importance in the story of the development of architecture far greater than that which concerns their mere beauty and picturesqueness. As we follow the history of Gothic art we find that for the most part the instinctive art in relation to church architecture came to an end in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, but the right impulse did not cease. House-building went on, though there was no church-building, and we admire greatly some of those grand mansions which were reared in the time of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts; but art was declining, a crumbling taste causing disintegration of the sense of real beauty and refinement of detail. A creeping paralysis set in later, and the end came swiftly when the dark days of the eighteenth century blotted out even the memory of a great past. And yet during all this time the people, the poor and middle classes, the yeomen and farmers, were ever building, building, quietly and simply, untroubled by any thoughts of style, of Gothic art or Renaissance; hence the cottages and dwellings of the humblest type maintained in all their integrity the real principles that made medieval architecture great. Frank, simple, and direct, built for use and not for the establishment of architectural theories, they have transmitted their messages to the ages and have preserved their beauties for the admiration of mankind and as models for all time.