In the large houses which have been described in the preceding chapters, it has been impossible to avoid passing a certain amount of adverse criticism upon the manner in which comfort and convenience were often sacrificed to the claims of fine architecture, as the term was understood during the eighteenth century. When we turn to the smaller houses this drawback is much less in evidence; not because better architects were employed, for doubtless the unknown designers of these smaller buildings would have sinned equally with their more famous brethren, had the opportunity to do so come their way, but because the occasion demanded no great display, and there was no money wherewith to make it. Nothing more was wanted than a handsome-looking house with rooms of suitable size and number. It was very seldom that any great ingenuity was required of the designers. Two, three, or in the larger houses, four sitting-rooms, a hall and staircase, a kitchen, back kitchen, and pantries usually completed the accommodation of the ground floor; the floor above was occupied by bedrooms, which, if insufficient, were supplemented by others in the attic. There were no bathrooms, cloak-rooms, or other sanitary conveniences; it was not necessary to provide a fireplace to each room. The problems of design were therefore much simpler than those of the present day. There was no group of small rooms requiring a convenient yet inconspicuous situation: there was no need to struggle with single flues from isolated bedrooms, which could not be led to the main stacks; this difficulty was met by leaving the rooms without a fireplace. Nothing is commoner in old houses than to find two or perhaps three chimney-stacks, the position of which is determined by that of the sitting-rooms and kitchen, and to find that the bedrooms adjoining these stacks have fireplaces, while those away from them have none. As to sanitary conveniences, with the crude means of sewage disposal then in use, it was impossible to have them in the house; it was only after the introduction of water carriage that this could be done. In the ancient days of fortified houses it was of course necessary for them to be within the walls, and considerable skill was often displayed in placing them so as to be as innocuous as possible. On Elizabethan plans they were sometimes retained indoors, but they were obviously a source of annoyance and danger; in later times, they were removed outside, and in old houses, here and there, may still be found evidence of the handsome treatment provided for the family as distinguished from the servants. The bedrooms, as many old houses still testify, were provided with some variation of the chaise percée.

The rooms, therefore, which had to be provided, could all be of a fair size, and they could be so disposed as to allow their windows to fall into the symmetrical arrangement, which the exterior treatment required. The results can be seen in most of our old-fashioned villages and towns: small manor-houses and parsonages in the former; houses for the doctor, the lawyer, the well-to-do tradesmen in the latter. The vicarage at Puddletown, in Dorset (Fig. 199), is an example of the early years of the century. It has one large chimney-stack in the main part of the house, and two smaller, and probably later stacks in the adjoining wing; its wide eaves give it its distinctive character, and further touches are added by the cut brickwork under the window-sills and the circular panels in the end. Beyond these there is nothing to raise emotions either of praise or blame. There is considerably more attempt at design in the Court at Holt, near Bradford-on-Avon (Fig. 201). This place is in the midst of a district abounding in stone, and the builders availed themselves of the opportunity to impart a more pretentious character to their work. The older methods make themselves felt in the manner in which the eaves cornice is bent up to form a gable, steeper than classic handling usually permits. Here, again, there are but two chimney-stacks, one at each end of the house.

The house in St Giles, Oxford (Fig. 200), is rather more imposing. It is of the period of Wren, and is, indeed, attributed locally to him. The treatment is large, simple, and dignified, and the effect is enhanced by the handsome gate-piers which give access, up a few steps, to the front door. It is evident that here, at any rate, more rooms have fireplaces than those at the ends of the house. There is another house at Oxford, in the High Street (Fig. 203), of a later date, which is quite admirable in its simplicity and careful proportions, and the front is relieved from baldness by the slight projections at each end. Compared with the more famous pieces of architecture by which it is surrounded, this house is insignificant, and may well escape the attention it deserves. Dating from early in the century is the dower house at Deene, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 205), now occupied as a public-house under the sign of the sea-horse, which is the crest of the family owning the village. It presents a quaint combination of the steep coped gables of the district prevalent in earlier times, with the wide eaves, sash-windows, and dormers fashionable when it was built. It has quite a large number of chimneys, but the dowagers who came from the great house no doubt looked for the comforts to which they had always been accustomed. Several of the rooms are decorated with good panelling and plasterwork, and have had skill and knowledge bestowed upon their proportions and design.

The Church House at Beckley, in Sussex (Fig. 202), has no projecting eaves, but above the cut-brick cornice rises a parapet which effectually blocks the outlook from the dormer windows. The usual plain treatment of the walls is here varied by the introduction of a pilaster at each end of the front, and by carrying up a slight projection from the keystone of the middle window. The pilasters are surmounted by a piece of architrave and frieze of the same width as the pilaster, a device which displays a misconception of classic features. The two main chimney-stacks are placed at the back of the principal block instead of at the ends, thus giving them an opportunity to serve rooms behind as well as those in the front.

The house at Shrivenham, in Berkshire (Fig. 204), is of the more ordinary type. It has a good eaves cornice, and the usual two chimney-stacks; the projecting porch forms a pleasing variation, and the whole house gives the impression of comfort and respectability. So, too, does the house at Ely (Fig. 206) which faces the green opposite the west end of the cathedral. It has a chimney-stack at each end, and a pediment of unusually steep pitch. Like several of the other examples, it has five windows along the front; the middle one lights the landing, and the two on each side light the rooms with fireplaces. Additional importance is given by the large gate-piers, and the whole effect is dignified and restful, eminently in keeping with the atmosphere of an old cathedral town. The house at Petersham (Fig. 208) is of larger size, having seven windows along the front; the three in the middle are placed in a slight projection round which the cornice breaks. This projection, together with the bold cornice, the rather large front door, and the wide window margins, is all there is in the way of design to give interest to the house. The rectory at Church Langton, in Leicestershire (Fig. 207), is of somewhat later date, probably about the beginning of the nineteenth century. Here there is a decided attempt at architectural effect in the ornamented pediment, the central arched recess, and the low buildings at the side; but the house itself is not more commodious inside, nor has it larger rooms than other houses of the same type. The adjuncts, too, are added for effect rather than for use.

Houses such as these abound in country districts. There is nothing particularly notable about them, and very little effort at design. But as a rule their proportions are pleasing, and the very absence of any attempt to achieve striking effects is itself one of their charms. They seem the natural expression of the quiet, uneventful lives led by the inhabitants, who, like the Vicar of Wakefield, had no adventures save by the fireside, and no migrations save from the blue bed to the brown. Their interest varies not so much through difference in design as by reason of their surroundings, and the variety of creepers which climb up their walls, and are the less objectionable in that they hide no architectural detail.

In the towns, of course, the surroundings did little to help the appearance of houses; there they had to rely on their own merits. Nevertheless the disposition of the streets often lent picturesqueness to the houses that formed them. It is one of the charms of most English towns that their appearance is the result of fortuitous causes, or of some necessity which is no longer obvious. In some towns, like Marlborough or Dunstable, it is the width of the main street which gives character to the place; in others, like York, Canterbury, and (in a less degree) Warwick, it is the narrowness which strikes the visitor. In the one case the open spaces of the country are embodied in the town; there is room enough and to spare. In the other it is clear that every foot of room was utilised. Yarmouth has a very interesting lay out, evidently the result of premeditated design and not of chance. The river upon which it is built turns suddenly to the right as it approaches the sea, and runs for some distance parallel to the sea front, leaving a certain space between itself and the shore. Upon this restricted space the town was built; streets of no great width were formed parallel with the river, next to which was a broad quay; then at right angles to the streets a series of narrow passages were formed, called “rows.” Although these “rows” are not more than 4 or 5 ft. wide, they were formed of good houses, and it is surprising, in traversing them to-day, when they have become degraded into slums, to find remains of houses which must have been the residences of wealthy people. But the circumstances of Yarmouth were peculiar. At King’s Lynn, another ancient port in the same county, although most of the old streets are narrow, judged by modern standards, there is a very fine open space known as the Tuesday market-place, which still retains much of its old-world flavour. The old print of it which is reproduced in Fig. 209 rather exaggerates its size, owing to the perspective of the draughtsman; the market hall and its circular adjuncts have disappeared, but the Georgian buildings in the front and on either side still remain, and that on the left retains its steps and obelisks. Another old print—one of Chelmsford (Fig. 210)—gives a good idea of that town in Georgian times. Most of the houses are of the eighteenth century, and must have been quite modern at the time when the print was published; others are of an earlier date. Their disposition is the result of a long period of growth, and could never be achieved under a scheme of town-planning. One of the most prominent objects in the view is the inn sign, a good solid structure, thrust well out into the public way; it is characteristic of the times, both in its size and in the wrought-iron scroll-work which surrounds the swinging lion; indeed bits of fanciful ironwork such as this were prodigally used during the eighteenth century, and give interest to a house or a street which otherwise would attract no attention. In the middle distance is another sign typical of many which used to exist, but which are seldom found in the present day. Here it stretches across a large part of the public road, but in many cases these signs were made to span the whole width of the street. An example of an elaborate sign may be seen at the Swan Inn, Market Harborough (Fig. 212), and an unpretentious but effective specimen is shown in Fig. 213.

In most of the county towns the gentry of the district used to have their winter residences, to which they repaired when the state of the roads rendered locomotion difficult. It must be remembered that the roads in those days, except the most important, were little more than tracks across the country; nothing was done to make them hard or permanent—they merely traversed the natural soil. “Where there is good land there is foul way,” was a saying of the time; and conversely, where the ground was stony the roads were fairly hard. Horace Walpole, among other writers, recounts the difficulties he experienced on country roads in bad weather, and this condition of things accounts for the number of horses which, according to old prints, were harnessed to family coaches. These in their turn were built in a strong and heavy fashion, in order to withstand the shocks to which they were inevitably subjected. When the wet weather came on, families who lived in country houses betook themselves to the town for society and amusement. In places like Nottingham and Derby there still remain a fair number of houses which were built for county magnates, but in every instance they have been diverted from their original purpose and have become business premises. This affords another proof, if such were needed, that no lay out can be expected to retain in perpetuity its original character. Half the squares of London point the same moral.

No doubt the house at Warwick, which, for the time being, is the Aylesford Hotel (Fig. 215), was built for some such purpose as has just been indicated; it is a handsome and interesting example of the early part of the eighteenth century. Just outside the east gate is the house where Walter Savage Landor was born in 1775. Another house of the same kind is that of Ralph Allen at Bath (Fig. 214), which is an architectural composition of much greater pretensions, now almost hidden from public view. It will be remembered that his country house was Prior Park.

Bath, of course, is full of good examples of town houses; but Bath was much more than a town to which the neighbouring gentry resorted for the winter. It was a fashionable watering place, and provision had to be made for visitors throughout the year. Some of its buildings have already been mentioned, but the accompanying engraving of Milsom Street (Fig. 211) gives a good idea of its street architecture, devoted partly to residential purposes and partly to business premises. This mixture of dwellings and shops is still met with in old-fashioned towns, where the principal streets are made up of houses—some large and some small—interspersed with shops and inns. But in places where factories are introduced and the population increases, the universal tendency is towards the multiplication of shops and the diminution of houses. Every growing town experiences this change. As the houses part with their tenants, whether through death or otherwise, they are either converted into shops and offices, or they are pulled down to make room for tradesmen seeking the best situations for their business; the tradesmen themselves seek the cheaper and larger spaces of the suburbs for their own dwellings. The intentional combination of shop and dwelling, such as those at Cirencester (Fig. 216) or Cheltenham (Fig. 217), seldom occurs in the present day, when by-laws require for a house a certain amount of open space which can be more profitably used for business pure and simple. In the example from Cirencester the ground story, if not actually of the same date as the superstructure, has been skilfully designed to harmonise with it, and appears sufficiently sturdy to support it. But most tradesmen of the present day require so much room for the display of their goods, that they grudge every inch given to the purposes of support, and they would regard with equal disfavour the columns employed at Cirencester and the caryatides at Cheltenham.

Needless to say, the little old-fashioned shop fronts with small panes are quite out of the question in the present day, except for a very few trades. They would fill a modern shop fitter with contempt, yet there is something quite refreshing about such a front as that at Wareham (Fig. 218) or that at Dorking (Fig. 219). The outward curve, according to the simple ideas of the time, brought the goods into prominence, and when as yet it was unnecessary for rivals to shout each other down, the modest depth of the frieze was sufficient to display the name and calling of the occupier. The delicate ornament in the cornice is in scale with its surroundings, but it would be out of place on the top of a sheet of plate glass two or three hundred feet in area, or surmounting a name board with letters two feet high.

Bristol still retains many interesting old houses, some dating from the early seventeenth century, and bearing witness to the wealth of its inhabitants at that period. These are to be found within a short distance of the quays, where the trade of the town centred. As the town spread further out more good houses were built, and there are still to be found in the outlying parts of the old town such houses as that shown in Fig. 220. It has a handsome, substantial front treated with more than usual richness; but if the pediments over the windows and the pilasters were removed, the residue would resemble one of the ordinary plain brick houses of the time. That is to say, the ornamental features are merely applied, and have no vital connection with the structure. The house is set a little way back from the street, thus leaving a narrow forecourt, which is enclosed by a railing abutting at each end on a handsome stone pier; two similar piers carry a pair of elaborate iron gates in the middle of the front. The piers lend an air of dignity to the whole. In some instances, where a good house was built in a crowded street, it was set back some sixteen or twenty feet, thus forming a forecourt; and high walls were built at the sides of the court from the house up to the street, thus providing screens to mask the ends of the adjoining houses, which were built on the actual street front. There is such a case in Eastgate, Gloucester, but the forecourt is now filled with a shop, above which can be seen the front of the house and the screen walls. Nearly all our old towns retain relics of ancient grandeur such as this, but they are gradually disappearing before the march of modern improvements.

London, as may well be supposed, has innumerable examples of late eighteenth-century houses in such districts as Bloomsbury and Piccadilly. Bedford Square was built about 1780, and presents to the world some inoffensive, although not very exciting fronts. The central feature of one side is shown in Fig. 221; there is nothing of striking originality in its design, but enough to break the monotony of the general treatment, and give a little interest to this rather dull though highly respectable square. Contemporary with this is Finsbury Square, which was laid out by George Dance, the younger, between 1777 and 1791.[80] A part of it is illustrated in Fig. 222. By simple expedients the designer has imparted variety to his front, and has emphasised the principal floor, where, according to custom, the drawing-room is placed. The difficulty attending on the ornamenting of a row of houses with architectural features is illustrated here by the fact that one of the pilasters, which belongs in common to two houses, has been painted of two colours, which meet in a vertical line down the whole length of the pilaster—an effect certainly not contemplated by the architect. All these London houses have their kitchens in the basement, which is lighted from a sunk area between the house and the pavement. The plan generally adopted consisted of two rooms on each floor, one lighted from the front, the other from the back. Alongside the front room on the ground floor was the entrance passage, and next to the back room was the staircase, with its gangway of communication from flight to flight (Fig. 223). On the first floor the drawing-room occupied the whole of the front, behind it was a bedroom; the other floors repeated the arrangement. Sometimes the drawing-room included the space elsewhere devoted to the bedroom, thus making a large L-shaped room. This plan was used for houses of fair size and also for artisans’ dwellings; it is still the staple plan for houses in the long streets which make up the modern extension of growing towns, with the important exception that the kitchen and scullery are not in a basement, but on the ground floor, occupying the back room and the annexe. Of the London examples here illustrated this arrangement applies only to the houses in Finsbury Square; the others are double-fronted. It is said to have been brought from Holland with William III., and this at least is tolerably certain, that no plan of this type is to be found in any collection of English drawings before this period, although there are plenty of plans with underground kitchens and offices. Thorpe has some plans for small houses in the city, with four rooms on the ground floor, one of which is a kitchen; he also has a house occupying the space of “three ordinary tenements,” from which we gather that an ordinary tenement had a frontage of 17 ft.

The house at the corner of Stratton Street, Piccadilly (Fig. 224), is typical of many of its contemporaries in London. It is plain to baldness, the most interesting things about it being the iron balustrades. This appears to be an early example of that method of designing which works on the supposition that the various faces of a building are as distinct in execution as they are on the drawings, and that a rich treatment of the front need not be continued along the side, nor even find an echo there, although the side is equally visible.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century a much plainer and duller type of house was in vogue than had been the case at the beginning of the eighteenth. The trend of design had been always in this direction, always towards a more severe treatment. This severity was endurable in large buildings where variety could be obtained by a skilful grouping of the masses, but in rows of small houses, or even in small detached houses, it resulted in a baldness that can only rouse admiration when other means of enjoyment are exhausted. Tennyson’s “long unlovely” street consisted of buildings thus plainly treated. Another cause of this lack of interest was the erection of houses by speculative builders and owners. Such houses had of necessity to be cheap, and where cheapness is the first consideration the amenities of design are generally the last. Design indeed had lost itself; the traditions which had been its guides were worn out; in looking for help it appealed for a time to Greece, and with its assistance planted a copy of the Temple of Erectheus in St Pancras and of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Regent Street. Upon many a country garden it bestowed a Grecian temple, set amid winding shrubberies, towards which some heroine of Jane Austen would steal to indulge her love-sick fancies.

Such pagan architecture eventually roused protests in this Christian country, and Pugin initiated the Gothic revival. But the consideration of this development is beyond our present scope, and it is only mentioned in order to show how completely design had lost its way. Its last effort in the old paths was to cover in part the plain front of a small house with a verandah enclosed by trellis-work, in which originality is still to be found. There is a good example in Finsbury Circus (Fig. 225), which was built about 1814. Others may be found in Kennington Park Road (Figs. 226, 227), somewhat more elaborate in treatment. Kennington Park was at that time a common, and was the place where malefactors from this part of Surrey expiated their crimes on the gallows. The progress of civilisation has not only reduced the number of crimes for which the penalty was paid on Kennington Common, but has withdrawn the last scene from public gaze. Doubtless, however, balconies such as these were often crowded by persons eager to watch the irrevocable punishment of offences now adequately purged by a few months’ imprisonment.

With the improved methods of road making which were adopted at the end of the eighteenth century, there came greater inducements for citizens to retire to the suburbs of London after finishing their labours in town. Probably no great city had such beautiful suburbs as those which surrounded London a hundred years ago. They were full of fine trees embowering large houses which stood in their own spacious grounds. But year by year these remains of the past are disappearing, and their sites are being covered with dwellings of a humbler kind, towards which an immense population gravitates every evening. Yet in spite of these changes there still remain, along most of the great roads which lead out of London, houses of moderate size dating back to some period of the eighteenth century or the early years of the nineteenth.

During the eighteenth century, especially as it grew older, the play of fancy which marks the work of earlier times diminished more and more. Consequently less interest attaches to particular features than was the case in the days of Elizabeth, James, and the Charleses. Chimneys and parapets had but slight variety, and so also the windows, for the sash-window has very little elasticity compared with the mullioned. Baywindows went almost out of fashion, so unyielding were the sashes with which they would have had to be fitted. In small houses a bay-window is sometimes to be found, such as those in a house in the High Street at Lewes, in Sussex (Fig. 228). Chimneys grew plainer and plainer, and came to be regarded rather as a necessary evil than as a means of adorning the house. Nearly all those on the houses illustrated in this chapter are of the simplest character, far removed, for instance, from that on the north front of Kirby Hall, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 230), which is part of the work attributed to Inigo Jones. The dormer window included in the same group is allied to the Jacobean type, inasmuch as it is in effect part of the wall, whereas from Webb’s time onwards dormers were part of the roof, and were susceptible of very little variety of treatment. The stone chimney from a house at Wansford (Fig. 229, 2) dates from the end of the seventeenth century, and although much plainer, it is clear that pains have been taken with its design. So, too, with the four brick examples in Fig. 229; they are all interesting, though not elaborate. In later years even the touches which gave these their character were withheld, and chimney-stacks became mere oblong masses with the scantiest of caps.

Some compensation was afforded, however, by the introduction of the cupolas or lantern lights which were prevalent during the last half of the seventeenth century and the first few years of the eighteenth. There is an interesting drawing of such a feature for Whitehall by Inigo Jones in the Worcester College collection (Fig. 232). It is entitled in Jones’s writing—“June 1, 1627, for the Cloke house Whight hall.” Webb made use of the same kind of feature, and so did Wren and his contemporaries. There is a fine example on the stables at Neville Holt, in Leicestershire (Fig. 231), a building of great interest, possessing doorways of curious seventeenth-century detail; and another good specimen is at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (Fig. 233). The old hall was altered about the year 1742, when it was described as “very gloomy and dark,” and as being “roofed with old Oak Beams, very black & dismal from y^e Charcoal w^ch is burnt in y^e middle of y^e Hall; and over it in y^e middle of y^e Roof was an old awkward kind of Cupulo to let out y^e Smoak.”[81] The new cupola was considered, presumably, more elegant and less awkward than the old one. The reference to the ancient method of warming the hall by a fire in the middle of the floor is interesting, as showing how long the old practice lingered in places where those in authority were averse to change. A further example is shown in Fig. 234.

While fancy still played a part in the work of local masons, the little date-stones shown in Fig. 235 were built into some unpretentious houses in the Midlands; but a hundred years later the diligent pursuit of correctitude had banished such touches from the work of architects, and masons had lost the feeling which gave rise to them. They are, however, quite suggestive, and provide ideas for the perpetuation of the owner’s name and the date of his work—facts which are of interest in respect of all buildings. The example from Amersham is rather more ambitious, but hardly more successful (Fig. 236).

Another feature of interest to be found on many an eighteenth-century house is the sundial. A specimen from High Wycombe is shown in Fig. 237, but almost every market town, and not a few villages, can produce examples as good. Sometimes an appropriate sentiment or an apt quotation was inscribed on the dial, but the number of cases where this occurs is not quite so great as the literature on the subject would lead one to suppose. In those days, when no cheap watches were to be had, when indeed a watch was handed down from one generation to another as a valuable possession, sundials were of real use, even though they told none but sunny hours. “The Art of Dialling” was a recognised branch of polite learning, and an intricate subject it was; dealing not only with horizontal and vertical dials, but with those which faced in some other direction than due south. Dial stones may sometimes be seen with one side brought slightly forward, so that the face is not quite parallel with the wall in which it is set. This is an expedient to make the face look due south, in order to simplify the setting out of the lines. Needless to say that when the sun was relied on to tell the hour of the day, the introduction of “Summer time” would have been impossible; for the power to set back the shadow on the dial, as it was set back on that of Ahaz, has never been given to man.

From the earliest days it had been customary to give importance to the entrance of a house. When means of defence were a necessity, the access was through a portion of the main building, and so into a courtyard. The portal was flanked with turrets which at first were devised for its protection, but in later times were retained as handsome architectural features. Then came the period when defence was no longer necessary, and the forecourt was merely surrounded by a wall. Access to this court was generally obtained through a gate-house, and Elizabethan and Jacobean houses have innumerable examples of these charming buildings. In the smaller houses an archway replaced the gate-house, and in course of time the archway gave place to gate-piers. But through all the changes, the desire to give emphasis to the entrance remained, and every house with architectural pretensions had gate-piers more or less handsome. At Canons Ashby, in Northamptonshire, there are several good types (Fig. 238); those between the green court and the park have a Jacobean flavour about them, while those at the bottom of the garden are surmounted by the family crest in the shape of a demi-lion holding a sphere. The gates which formerly hung between these piers (Fig. 239) are probably the earliest example of garden gates in wood which survive, but they are so unconstructional in design that they threatened to fall to pieces, and were replaced by something plainer, but more convenient. Among the drawings by Jones and Webb are many of gateways, some rich in appearance, and some quite plain. The finest which remains is the well-known York water-gate at the foot of Buckingham Street (Fig. 35). There are some careful drawings of this by Webb in the Burlington-Devonshire collection at the Royal Institute of British Architects. In the same collection is a design for Temple Bar by Jones (Fig. 240), never carried out; a drawing of the constructional brickwork for the same, signed by him and dated 1638; and a drawing by Webb dated 1636. The two large circular panels represent “Lætitia Publica” and “Hylaritas Publica.” If this design had been carried out, there would have been a grim irony in the custom of exhibiting rebels’ heads just above roundels of such cheerful intention. Among the numerous designs for gateways is the original by Jones of the little doorway which was once at Beaufort House, Chelsea, but is now at Chiswick, and an unnamed example illustrated in Fig. 241. By the same master, in all probability, are the splendid piers at Coleshill, in Berkshire (Fig. 242). Next in order of date are the gate-piers at Thorpe Hall, in Northamptonshire, by John Webb, shown in Fig. 50, and shortly after them is the fine series at Hamstead Marshall, of which some have already been illustrated in Figs. 110, 111. These bring us down to the time of Wren, and at Hampton Court is the lordly pier shown in Fig. 244. At St John’s College, Cambridge, the piers shown in Fig. 243 form part of the bridge built between 1696 and 1712. They perpetuate to some extent the feeling of Tudor work in the rose, the portcullis, and the heraldic animals on their summits. All the large houses of the early eighteenth century, and many of the small ones, had noteworthy gates and gate-piers. There are hundreds of examples up and down the country, and that at Burley-on-the-Hill, near Oakham (Fig. 245), is typical of the larger kind. This treatment, with lofty stone piers and iron gates of more or less elaborate design, is more frequent than that adopted at Ince Blundell Hall, in Lancashire, where an archway forms the main entrance, and is flanked on each side by a length of wall containing gates for foot traffic (Fig. 246). Many smaller examples might be cited, but their general effect can be gathered from the three illustrations in Figs. 247, 249, and 250, one of which is at a house at Castor, in Northamptonshire, another at a little house in Barrow Gurney, Somersetshire, and the third at one of the delightful houses in the Close at Salisbury. They are all quite unpretentious, but they impart a pleasant amount of interest and a certain degree of dignity to the houses which they serve. Another simple example is taken from a derelict house at Rundhurst, in Sussex (Fig. 248), and at Uffington, in Lincolnshire, is the more important example in Fig. 251, one of a pair of stone piers which support some good iron gates, through which, standing on the village road, a glimpse of the hall gardens can be obtained.