Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset
Holinshed, the Chronicler, writing during the third quarter of the sixteenth century, makes some illuminating observations on the increasing preference shown in his time for stone and brick buildings in place of timber and plaster. He wrote:—
"The ancient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the most part of strong timber. How beit such as be lately buylded are commonly either of bricke or harde stone, their rowmes large and stately, and houses of office farder distant fro their lodgings. Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde stone, as provision may best be made; but so magnificent and stately, as the basest house of a barren doth often match with some honours of princes in olde tyme: so that if ever curious buylding did flourishe in Englande it is in these our dayes, wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner comparable in skill with old Vitruvius and Serle."
He also adds the curious information that "there are olde men yet dwelling in the village where I remayn, which have noted three things to be marveylously altered in Englande within their sound remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected, whereas, in their young dayes there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish townes of the realme (the religious houses and mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some great personages [parsonages]), but each one made his fire against a reredosse in the halle, where he dined and dressed his meate," This want of chimneys is noticeable in many pictures of, and previous to, the time of Henry VIII. A timber farm-house yet remains (or did until recently) near Folkestone, which shows no vestige of either chimney or hearth.
Most of our great houses and manor-houses sprang up in the great Elizabethan building epoch, when the untold wealth of the monasteries which fell into the hands of the courtiers and favourites of the King, the plunder of gold-laden Spanish galleons, and the unprecedented prosperity in trade gave such an impulse to the erection of fine houses that the England of that period has been described as "one great stonemason's yard." The great noblemen and gentlemen of the Court were filled with the desire for extravagant display, and built such clumsy piles as Wollaton and Burghley House, importing French and German artisans to load them with bastard Italian Renaissance detail. Some of these vast structures are not very admirable with their distorted gables, their chaotic proportions, and their crazy imitations of classic orders. But the typical Elizabethan mansion, whose builder's means or good taste would not permit of such a profusion of these architectural luxuries, is unequalled in its combination of stateliness with homeliness, in its expression of the manner of life of the class for which it was built. And in the humbler manors and farm-houses the latter idea is even more perfectly expressed, for houses were affected by the new fashions in architecture generally in proportion to their size.
The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
Holinshed tells of the increased use of stone or brick in his age in the district wherein he lived. In other parts of England, where the forests supplied good timber, the builders stuck to their half-timbered houses and brought the "black and white" style to perfection. Plaster was extensively used in this and subsequent ages, and often the whole surface of the house was covered with rough-cast, such as the quaint old house called Broughton Hall, near Market Drayton. Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, is an attractive example of the plastered house. The irregular roof-line, the gables, and the white-barred windows, and the contrast of the white walls with the rich green of the vines and surrounding trees combine to make a picture of rare beauty. Part of the house is built of stone and part half-timber, but a coat of thin plaster covers the stonework and makes it conform with the rest. To plaster over stone-work is a somewhat daring act, and is not architecturally correct, but the appearance of the house is altogether pleasing.