It is needless to insist upon the fact that there was a large amount of work executed during the seventeenth century by men other than Jones, Webb, and Wren. Some of this has already been considered, in so far as it illustrates the gradual change of style in small buildings. But during the reign of Charles II. important work was done by men little known to fame, and much else by others whose names have either not survived or have not yet been disinterred from the ruins of the past. So few architects contemporary with Jones are known that it will be of interest to mention one who, if not intimately connected with architecture himself, wrote a book about it, and trained a pupil who merits more attention than his master.

This individual was Sir Balthazar Gerbier, to whom Horace Walpole devotes several pages in his “Anecdotes of Painting,” where he treats of him as a painter. But Gerbier does not appear to have pursued any art with much application. He hung on the fringe of state affairs, and was a versatile adventurer of indifferent character, if Walpole does him no injustice. Among other things he dabbled in architecture. He was surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham, for whom he is said to have designed a temporary house on the site of old York House in the Strand. According to Gerbier’s own account, in a letter to the duke dated 2nd December 1624, Inigo Jones came to see this house, and “was like one surprised and abashed ... he is very jealous of it.”[47] It may have been so, but it is certain that Gerbier was jealous of Jones, for he makes several slighting references to him in the little book which he published, “Of Counsel and Advice to all Builders.” It is, indeed, this book which gives him a claim to be mentioned in connection with architecture, and that because of incidental allusions to matters of interest. In his dedication to Charles II. (the book was published in 1664) he advises the king to set the main body of his contemplated palace on the side of St James’s Park, and the gardens along the river. This, no doubt, refers to the schemes upon which Webb, as already mentioned, was then engaged. Gerbier has several oblique as well as one direct thrust at Inigo Jones. He carps at those “who have marshald colombs,” and have made them “like things patcht or glewed against a wall, and for the most part against the second Story of a Building ... as if their intent were, that the weight of the colombs should draw down the Wall on the heads of those that passe by.” Doubtless this was an allusion to the Banqueting House, about which he makes further and more definite criticisms. After cavilling at the elaboration of stage effects in masques, he roundly states that “Inigo Jones (the late surveyor)” found the Banqueting House unsuitable for such purposes, and that he “was constrained to Build a Wooden House overthwart the Court of Whitehall.” He then takes exception to the height of the room, alleging that the king and his retinue were lost in it because of its vastness; and goes on to say that he does not undervalue any modern works, “every good Talent being commendable,” including, presumably, even the late surveyor’s. At the same time there were some alive who knew that the king of blessed memory had graciously avouched, in the year 1648, that a room near York Gate not above 35 ft. square (which was the one Gerbier had designed himself) was as apt for masques as the Banqueting House itself. Moreover judicious persons would not deny that the excellence of the Triumphal Arches erected in London (which Gerbier is said to have designed for the entry of Charles II.) consisted not in their bulk.

The book abounds in malicious and egotistical touches of this kind, both in the two treatises into which it is divided, and in the forty dedicatory epistles which he deemed necessary to the launching of his venture. But amid a deal of skimble-skamble stuff, he says a few things worth noting. Chimneys need only be carried about 2 ft. above the ridge; large and lofty stacks he deems unsightly and dangerous. Staircases should be easy of ascent and wide. Anyone who has sound limbs and a “gallant gate” naturally lifts his toes at least 4 inches in walking; if, therefore, stairs be only 4 inches high and 18 from front to back, the ordinary person can walk up them as easily as he can walk on the level. His reasons for these proportions are hardly convincing, but in regard to the width of staircases he is probably nearer the mark, when he says they ought to be so wide that the attendants on each side the noble person who is ascending may not be straitened for room.

His advice to persons contemplating building, that they should employ an architect and should not be constantly interfering with him, is undoubtedly sound: and one reason advanced for employing an architect, namely, that “the several Master-workmen may receive instructions by way of Draughts, Models, Frames, etc.,” is interesting as showing that architects were now accustomed to provide more minute details than in the time of Elizabeth and James. One more reference and this curious book, with its few noteworthy observations buried in pages of involved verbiage, may be left. In speaking of such as were concerned with building he says, “they may perchance have heard of rare buildings, nay, seen the Books of the Italian Architects, have the Traditions of Vignola in their Pockets, and have heard Lectures on the Art of Architecture.” It is interesting to learn that in addition to books on architecture there were opportunities, so long ago, to hear lectures on the subject; but it is probable that, in his usual egotistical way, Gerbier is here referring to lectures which he himself had given at an academy which he founded in Bethnal Green, in imitation, Walpole suggests, of another established by Charles I. for instruction in arts and sciences, foreign languages, mathematics, painting, architecture, riding, fortification, antiquities, and the science of medals.[48]

The “Counsel” concludes with a lengthy schedule of prices at which all kinds of building work could be executed.

Little, if any, architectural work can with safety be attributed to Gerbier. Hamstead Marshall, which is said to be his, is more probably due to his pupil, Wynne, to whom, as Master William Wine, he addresses one of his numerous dedications.

Walpole says that Wynne, or Winde as he calls him, finished the house which had been begun by his master, making several alterations in the plan; but the history of the owner and of the house, as well as the character of the work, renders it doubtful whether Gerbier could have had anything to do with it. The house was one of the seats of William, Lord Craven; it has been destroyed with the exception of some fine gate-piers and part of the lay out, but Kip has an engraving of it in “Britannia Illustrata” (Fig. 108). There are also a few drawings of details in the Bodleian Library, including windows, gate-piers, doors, and a ceiling. The windows and piers can be identified on Kip’s engraving, as also can the general lay out, thus confirming the accuracy of Kip’s view. His illustration shows the house with a front of Jacobean design as to its two lower stories, but of later character as to the third story and the return front. The windows of this later work agree in general appearance with the drawing at the Bodleian, which shows festoons above the windows and panels between them, decorated with Lord Craven’s cipher, W. C., and a baron’s coronet (Fig. 109).

By examining Kip’s view in the light of the principal facts of Lord Craven’s life, and of the dates on the Bodleian drawings, a shrewd guess can be made as to the history of the house. In his youth William Craven achieved such honour through “valiant adventures” in Germany and the Netherlands under Henry, Prince of Orange, that in the year 1626, when he was eighteen years old, he was knighted by Charles I. at Newmarket and was immediately afterwards created a baron, with the title of Lord Craven of Hamstead Marshall. In 1631 he returned to the scenes of his early glories, and continued to reside abroad until the Restoration. Although absence prevented him from fighting for Charles I. he was a staunch loyalist, and helped the king with considerable supplies. This brought him under the notice of the Parliament, and his estates were confiscated in 1651, and sold to different persons.[49] After the Restoration, however, Charles II. created him an earl in recompense for his services, and he must previously have regained possession of Hamstead Marshall, since the drawings for the new work bear a baron’s coronet and various dates, of which the earliest is 1662.

It would appear, then, that the original house was a Jacobean building, and from the fact that Lord Craven was a bachelor and was resident abroad for the greater part of his life previous to the Restoration, it is highly improbable that he did any building during that period; he had neither family nor leisure to induce him. On the sale of the property in 1651, it is quite possible that the house was partly dismantled,[50] as were many others in similar circumstances, notably Holdenby House. On his return in 1660, or as soon afterwards as he could, he set about restoring his home. He preserved the Jacobean front, but added a new top story and new sides. The drawing of the portico, which would be at the back of the house shown by Kip, is dated 1662; that of the gate-piers in the front wall is dated 1663 (Fig. 110), and those in the circular wall at the rear 1673; a ceiling is dated 1686. The baron’s coronet indicates that the work was done before the earldom was bestowed, which was in 1663. The dates on the drawings suggest what one might expect, that the house itself was first taken in hand, then the garden walls and lay out, and subsequently the embellishment of some of the chief rooms.

If the history of the house is rightly conjectured, there would be no room for Gerbier in its design, for he is said to have died in 1662 when he was at least seventy years old, and there is no trace of senility in the Bodleian drawings. They are vigorous in design as well as drawing; the gate-piers (Fig. 111) are still in existence, some scattered, as it were, in a field, others still leading into a walled garden. It is only when the imagination restores the walls that once connected them that an idea is formed of the size of the original enclosures to which those piers were the noble entrances. The ceiling (Fig. 112), dated 1686 on the drawing, is of the type prevalent throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, and usually employed by Jones, Webb, and Wren.

As Wynne—“the learned and ingenious Captain Wynne” Campbell calls him[51]—is the only other person whose name is connected with the designing of Hamstead Marshall, the credit may fairly be placed to his account. The character of the new work, as shown by Kip, accords with the treatment usually adopted by Webb; that is to say, the walls are fairly plain, there is a wide cornice at the eaves. The height of the roof is proportioned to the walls (not merely determined by the span of the building), it is crowned by cupolas and broken by dormers, and the chimneys are short and solid—perhaps, in this case, in consequence of the teaching of Gerbier, Wynne’s master.

It is evident that the restoration of Charles II. gave a great impetus to building. Charles himself revived the project for a new palace at Whitehall; he built a large wing of another at Greenwich; Lord Craven was among those who endeavoured to redeem the time; and Gerbier thought the occasion opportune to publish his “Counsel” to those who were contemplating new houses.

Too little is known of this learned and ingenious Captain Wynne. Campbell credits him with old Buckingham House in St James’s Park, for the Duke of Buckingham, in 1705. This duke must not be confused with either of the Villiers, Dukes of Buckingham. He was the first duke of a new creation, his family name being Sheffield. He was, in fact, the grandson of that “my lord Sheffield” whose house has already been illustrated in Chapter II. as one of the designs of John Smithson. To Wynne is also assigned Cliefden House for the same nobleman, and Newcastle House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, as well as certain additions to Combe Abbey for Lord Craven.[52] Hardly anything remains of all this work, but if it was of a standard equal to the remnants of Hamstead Marshall, Wynne would take a high place among English architects. Newcastle House, originally called Powis House after William Herbert, Viscount Montgomery and Marquis of Powis, for whom it was built in 1686,[53] still stands at the north-west corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but it has been considerably altered; the loss through fire of the original fine wooden cornice has much diminished its effect.

Buckingham House (Fig. 113) stood where Buckingham Palace now is, and, judging by Campbell’s elevation,[54] was of much greater architectural interest than the present building before it was refronted. It was considered “one of the great beauties of London, both by reason of its situation and its building.”[55] It fronted the Mall—the noblest avenue in Europe, according to Campbell—and at the back was a fine garden and a noble terrace, whence the eye roamed over a wide rural prospect, so free from obtrusive buildings as to justify the inscription placed by the duke on this front, “Rus in Urbe.” The description of the entrance court is interesting as giving a good idea of the kind of lay out that went with all large houses of that time. “The courtyard which fronts the Park is spacious; the offices are on each side divided from the Palace by two arching galleries, and in the middle of the court is a round basin of water, lined with freestone, with the figures of Neptune and the Tritons in a water-work.” Campbell’s plan agrees with this description save that he makes the basin octagonal. The “arching galleries” were by this time a very usual feature which will be further described presently. His plan also conveniently illustrates the duke’s own description of the entrance into the house itself. “After crossing the courtyard,” he says, “we mount to a terrace in the front of a large Hall, paved with square white stones mixed with a dark-coloured marble; the walls of it covered with a set of pictures done in the school of Raphael. Out of this on the right-hand we go into a parlour 33 feet by 39 feet, with a niche 15 feet broad for a Bufette, paved with white marble, and placed within an arch, with Pilasters of divers colours, the upper part of which as high as the ceiling is painted by Ricci.” The roof of the house was flat and gave opportunity for obtaining a fine prospect: on the parapet fronting the park were four statues of Mercury Secrecy, Equity, and Liberty, and fronting the garden were the four Seasons. This particular enumeration gives a touch of life and reality to the endless figures which break the skyline of Campbell’s elevations, and of John Webb’s before him. The view reproduced in Fig. 113A shows the house as it appeared in 1790, when it was about a hundred years old. It not only suggests the rural surroundings, but gives a lively idea of the groups which frequented the Mall, down the length of which this front faced. The Mall, it will be remembered, was the principal walk in the royal park of St James, and apparently enjoyed the formality of being guarded by sentries.

Cliefden House, in Buckinghamshire, was another of these noblemen’s “palaces,” with “arching galleries” joining the offices to the house. It stood upon an enormous terrace described by Campbell as 433 ft. long and 24 ft. high, the front of which consisted of a series of alcoves or niches, flanked at either end by a flight of steps (Fig. 114). The original house has entirely disappeared, and has been replaced by one of excellent design by Charles Barry. Merely the terrace, somewhat altered, and the dwarf walls of the lay out remain, and Wynne’s work can only be judged from Campbell’s elevations and from old prints.

The consideration of these two houses brings vividly before the mind the completeness of the change that had come over domestic architecture during the course of the seventeenth century. The description of Buckingham House from contemporary pens (one of them that of the owner himself) gives an air of vraisemblance to Campbell’s cold illustrations. The “arching galleries” indicate a disposition of plan which was being adopted in many large houses, and was for another half century employed in order to impart stateliness to what otherwise might have been a rather bald design.

The idea of this arrangement was to have a central block containing the principal rooms, and to flank it at some distance on each side by a subsidiary block connected to the main structure by curved colonnades—the “arching galleries” of Buckingham House. These outlying blocks contained the offices, which were sometimes the kitchens, sometimes the stables, and occasionally the library or chapel. The inconvenience of the arrangement is obvious; under it compactness was sacrificed to appearance. If these outliers looked out on to the approach, their windows embarrassed the access to the front door. If they looked the other way, they turned their dull backs upon the main approach. Windows suitable for a kitchen had to be balanced by similar windows in the stables which were not suitable; or, as an alternative, sham windows were employed. Designers found themselves obliged to resort to devices of one kind or another, which sacrificed the convenience of one block in order to assimilate it in appearance to the other. Nor did the sacrifice stop here; it affected more or less the whole house. The mistaken claims of “architecture” led to the external appearance being considered as of the first importance; the internal convenience was modified to suit it. Not infrequently rooms were wrongly placed, wrongly lighted, awkwardly shaped, given a bad aspect, or otherwise ill-handled, in order to preserve the symmetry and proportion of the exterior. The placing of the kitchen in a distant block, connected perhaps by an open colonnade, must have been a great inconvenience both to the family and the servants. But inconvenience counted for little so long as an imposing edifice was secured.

The introduction of this particular form of plan, with a central block, two outlying wings, and connecting colonnades, is associated with the name of Inigo Jones and the house of Stoke Bruerne, in Northamptonshire. According to Bridges, the county historian, “the house was built by Sir Francis Crane, who brought the design from Italy, and in the execution of it received the assistance of Inigo Jones. It consists of a body and two wings, joined by corridores or galleries (see plan, Fig. 115). The pillars which support the galleries leading to the wings, are red and of a different colour from the house.... The house was begun about the year 1630 and finished before 1636, during which interval he gave an entertainment here to the King and Queen.”[56] Colin Campbell, however, says that the building was begun by Inigo, who made the wings, colonnades, and all the foundations, and that owing to the interruption caused by the Civil War the front was designed by “another architect.” He puts the date at 1640. Bridges’ account is circumstantial, and he was a careful historian; but Campbell’s elevation shows the body of the house treated in a different manner from the wings, and so far supports his statement. Unfortunately this part of the building was burnt down in 1886, and the opportunity of comparing the differences in the work itself is lost.

Both authorities concur in placing the date as early as somewhere between 1630 and 1640, which was quite half a century before this type of plan became at all popular. Nevertheless among Webb’s drawings, which cover at least thirty years of the half-century, there are several instances in which it is employed; and even the practical and level-headed Wren has a plan of this type among his drawings at All Souls College, Oxford (see Fig. 100). The genesis of this particular form is of interest inasmuch as it was widely adopted in the eighteenth century; so much so that Isaac Ware in his “Complete Body of Architecture,” published in 1756, lays down various rules for its disposition and proportions, and recommends its adoption as raising a house out of the commonplace and making it handsome without being necessarily pompous.

Among the more notable examples of this type of plan may be mentioned Burley on the Hill, in Rutland, where a low curved colonnade is thrust out on each side to a great distance without serving any particular object beyond that of obtaining an appearance of grandeur; this was one of the earlier applications of the idea, dating from late in the seventeenth century: Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire, dated 1702, which will be described presently; Cottesbrooke, in the same county, built in the early part of the eighteenth century; Kelmarsh, a not very distant neighbour of Cottesbrooke, designed by Gibbs and replacing a picturesque Jacobean house;[57] Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, designed by Vanbrugh about 1720, of which the two wings alone remain in use; Houghton, in Norfolk, begun in 1722; Holkham, in the same county, begun in 1734; and Kedlestone, in Derbyshire, dating from 1761; the last three of which will be referred to at greater length in a subsequent chapter.

Wren was not the only man of science of his time who became an architect; there was his acquaintance, Robert Hooke, three years his junior, and, like himself, the son of a parson. Hooke was almost as versatile a genius as Wren, but it was as a mathematician that he achieved most reputation. He was connected with the Royal Society at its inception, and was appointed curator of experiments. The great fire of London appears to have turned his attention to architecture; indeed that event, owing to the necessity it imposed of a vast amount of urgent rebuilding, seems to have led into the paths of architecture men whose previous training, although not architectural, qualified them even slightly for the work. Doubtless Hooke’s mathematics pointed him out as being not unsuitable to become a city surveyor, besides which he had submitted a plan to the Royal Society for the rebuilding of London, which received much commendation from the lord mayor and corporation, who asked that it might be submitted to the king. In this direction, however, he had been forestalled by Wren with his fine scheme. In the end nothing came of either of the suggestions.

Hooke appears to have made a considerable fortune as a surveyor, and he is credited with the design of three important buildings, all of which have disappeared. One of these was Montagu House, in Bloomsbury, for Ralph, Lord Montagu, whose country house at Boughton is presently to be described. Hooke’s house did not last long; it was begun in 1675 and burnt down in 1686, its successor being designed by the French architect, Puget, whom Lord Montagu may have known during his long residence in France. The second building ascribed to Hooke is the old Bethlem Hospital, likewise begun in 1675 and pulled down in 1814 (Fig. 116); and the third is Aske’s Hospital at Hoxton, begun about 1688. Engravings of the last two buildings (there is no record of the first Montagu House) do not lead to the opinion that Hooke was a great master of architecture, although it is true that the long front of Bethlem Hospital is handled in a simple, straightforward manner. He was far behind Wren, but he is interesting as being another whose training led him, under the special conditions of the time, into active practice.

Lord Chancellor Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, built a fine house during the heyday of his prosperity, on a site in Piccadilly, opposite the top of St James’s Street (Fig. 118). It was highly extolled by Evelyn (especially when writing to Lord Cornbury, the chancellor’s eldest son), and after him by Pepys, who went to see it, “hearing so much from Mr. Evelyn of it.” He declared it to be the finest pile he ever did see, and on a subsequent visit he climbed with some trouble to the top, and there found the noblest prospect that ever he saw, Greenwich being nothing to it. The engraving hardly bears out this extravagant praise, but it must have been a stately house. The architect was Roger Pratt, afterwards knighted, another of the men whom the great fire appears to have brought into the service of architecture.[58] Evelyn mentions him more than once; he was a fellow commissioner of his in the inquiry as to the rebuilding of St Paul’s, and Evelyn had met him years before in Italy. The house was begun in 1664, and was approaching completion in November 1666. But misfortune dogged it from the outset. The populace, with whom Clarendon was no favourite, dubbed it Dunkirk House, in allusion to his supposed connection with the sale of that town to the French. The chancellor occupied it but a single year before he fled the country; his son occupied it for another year or two, and it was then let on lease to the Duke of Ormond. After Clarendon’s death at the end of 1674, it was sold to the second Duke of Albemarle, and became known as Albemarle House; he again sold it some three years later to a kind of building syndicate, who in a few years pulled it down and laid out its site and the surrounding land in streets, one of which was called Albemarle Street, and another Bond Street, after Sir Thomas Bond who was one of the principals concerned in the transaction. The house was regarded as an unwarrantable extravagance, and Clarendon himself is reported to have eventually looked upon the building of it as a “vanity and folly.” But after all it only cost £50,000, which was a small sum compared with the cost of many houses both before and since. It is interesting because of its short life—less than twenty years from foundation to demolition—and from the character of the design, which follows the lines laid down by Jones and Webb.

Apart from the large houses which were built for wealthy persons, the new London which sprang up after the fire must have been widely different from the old. The houses which were burnt down were, many of them, built of wood and plaster—relics of mediæval times. Their fronts leaned across narrow lanes, each story projecting over the one beneath it, after such a fashion as may still be seen, though ever less frequently, in some of our ancient country towns. The houses which replaced them followed in most cases the old frontage lines, but their fronts were vertical and admitted as much light and air as the width of the street allowed. Nevertheless, the width was frequently but little, and houses of great size and finely treated within, were built in streets and lanes which in the present day we should regard as mere alleys, and which, indeed, would not be permitted under any modern by-laws. London still preserves many of these old houses (Fig. 117), although they are gradually being improved away. They are generally built of brick, with very little relief to their fronts save a good doorway and a good cornice, and perhaps a few touches in some ironwork. The same general treatment prevailed for half a century or more, with a tendency, however, to even greater simplicity; the result was that, although in the city where the narrow lanes were crooked and had here and there unexpected projections, the effect was interesting, yet where the same plain treatment was applied to long straight streets, the effect became dull and monotonous. Most of these houses had interesting detail within them, many of them were actually sumptuous, and of a richness suitable to the merchant princes who dwelt there. They had fine staircases and ceilings like those in a house in Botolph Lane (Figs. 119, 120), and good doorways and panelling like that in a house in College Hill (Fig. 121).

A fine example of the treatment, prevalent at this period, of a staircase and hall was to be seen, before its destruction, at the Great House at Leyton, in Essex, not far from London (Fig. 122). It is designed in a broad, simple, yet monumental manner, which, however, has led to the dividing of the lower part of the staircase into two separate flights, which merge into a single flight of the same width at the half-landing. The treatment is not quite logical, but—which was held to be more important—it is symmetrical. The Great House was built by Sir Fisher Tenche, Bart., whose father was an Alderman of London, and it is a good example of the houses built by wealthy citizens out in the country, but within reach of the city.[59]

Although, strictly speaking, rather outside the subject of domestic architecture, the city halls and churches should not be overlooked, as they contain splendid specimens of decoration in wood and plaster of the same kind as those to be found in houses. At the period under consideration, as in former times, the same sort of embellishment was applied to churches as to houses; it is quite a modern idea, born of revivals and restorations, to consider it necessary that a church should be Gothic in style; to think of Gothic as essentially ecclesiastic and of Classic as secular. Accordingly in Wren’s churches there are admirable bits of woodwork, which illustrate the methods of design then in vogue in houses. So, too, in the halls of the great city companies. All this work was the consequence of the destruction of the older buildings by the great fire. The new church of St Lawrence, Jewry, was begun in 1671, Wren being the architect, and it was opened in 1677. The woodwork of the interior is as fine as anything that this age of fine woodwork produced, and that of the vestry is designed after the same fashion as the panelling and doorways of a large house (Fig. 124); it is, if anything, more superb. The carving (Fig. 123) is almost certainly the work of Grinling Gibbons. St Lawrence is one of the best furnished of Wren’s churches, but many others possess admirable fittings such as pulpits, pews, organ-cases, galleries, and doorways, boldly designed and richly decorated, which show what a high excellence the joiner’s art had achieved under Wren, Gibbons, and their chief craftsmen.

One of the most interesting of the city halls is that of the Brewers’ Company, in Addle Street. It has undergone restoration and some amount of alteration, but the principal floor, which contains the hall and council chamber, still retains much of its original flavour. The walls are panelled in large panels (Fig. 125), the hall is entered through a screen with a splendid doorway (Fig. 126), and the council chamber has a fine fireplace. This is as good an example as could be found of the manner of panelling and decorating large rooms which prevailed at the time it was built, namely, 1673. The Stationers’ Hall has as fine a screen and doorway as those of the Brewers, and indeed most of the city halls, in spite of modern renovations, retain good work of this period, among the less known examples of which is the rich panelling at Girdlers’ Hall, in Basinghall Street (Fig. 127).

Outside London there was a large amount of work done during this period, much of it fresh and interesting. Stapleford Park, in Leicestershire, a house with a long history and possessing some unusual detail of the date of 1633, was considerably altered and enlarged about the time of Charles II. by Bennet, Lord Sherard, who was in possession from 1640 to 1700. The exterior is plain, but in the interior are two rooms, with charming woodwork; the door of the dining-room is illustrated in Fig. 130, and that of the library in Fig. 129. The two doors differ, but they are alike in that each is placed on a slight projection which causes a break in the main cornice of the room. The dining-room has large panels with a boldly carved bolection moulding. The door has a broken pediment in the gap of which is placed a shield connected by heavy swags to the surrounding work. This was a common feature of the period. The library door is of much the same type, but instead of a shield there is a bust. The panels on the walls are formed by a bold moulding, which is broken backwards and forwards into a pattern that recalls the busy treatment of Jacobean work.

In the Deanery at Wells is a fine panelled room attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, and certainly wrought after his style if not actually designed by him. The walls are divided into bays by heavy Ionic pilasters, the spaces between which are filled with large panels. Here, too, the bolection moulding is carved, as well as several other members, the whole effect being rich and handsome (Fig. 128).

Melton Constable stands in a park amid the undulations of the western part of Norfolk. It is a fine simple house of about the year 1680 (Fig. 131). The eaves cornice gives it its chief character; the rest of the detail is correct, but strikes the modern eye as being a little hackneyed; but this is the fault, not of the original architect but of his successors, who, if they did not copy this actual work, drew, one after the other, upon the same well of inspiration.

These examples serve to illustrate the progress of house design during the later years of the seventeenth century; they show how the fully developed classic manner had superseded the homely treatment of Jacobean times. Its further career of grandeur and stateliness demands a fresh chapter for its consideration.