The internal decoration of houses of the seventeenth century has already been described, and incidentally a considerable number of examples have been given of the treatment of later houses; but it is desirable to treat the subject a little more fully than has been possible in former chapters.

In entering an eighteenth-century house the visitor found himself in a large vestibule or hall—not the old-fashioned hall of the early seventeenth century, which was itself one of the principal living-rooms, but a hall which was merely a vestibule or ante-room leading to the living-rooms. Sometimes it had a fireplace, but sometimes not; in either case it was not regarded as a room for constant use. In houses of the middle size it contained the staircase, and the same held good in many of larger size; but in the largest the hall was frequently the most striking apartment in the house, as for instance at Houghton (Fig. 174) and Prior Park (Fig. 182).

The staircases were always handsomely treated. As a rule they were of wood, but a few instances occur of marble steps and balustrades, and of stone steps with iron balustrades. The typical English staircase is of wood, with turned wood balusters. For a short time during the seventeenth century foliated balustrades had been the fashion (see Figs. 80–82), but towards its close the turned baluster reasserted itself. Massive handrails and solid strings were still retained, as in the example from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Fig. 277); and many examples of simple staircases of this type are to be found in the Temple, London, and the surrounding neighbourhood.

An important development in design occurred when the old-fashioned solid string was abandoned, and the balusters rested upon the steps themselves. This change took place about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and there is an early example at King’s Weston, in Gloucestershire (Fig. 275). The steps are very deep from back to front, so much so that each step overlaps the second one above it. The nosings are carried along the end of every step and returned back to the wall under the step above; the bottom edge of this is finished with a moulding which returns and rests on the nosing of the step below. A very similar treatment is adopted at Boughton House, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 276), but here the edge of the soffit has a moulding like the nosing, but reversed: the junction of the two is masked by a wood block. These blocks are all painted with arms of the Montagus and their alliances, which prompted Horace Walpole to inquire whether the chief staircase at Boughton was intended for the “descent of the Montagus.” Another point to be noticed in the King’s Weston example is that the two bottom steps are carried out sideways beyond the others and rounded off with a bold sweep, and that the handrail is wreathed round instead of finishing against a large newel. This is a treatment which only became possible on the abandonment of the old-fashioned newels and strings.

A variation of the treatment adopted at Boughton may be seen in an old house in Salisbury (Fig. 278), where the nosings are still carried back some distance, but are supported by carved brackets. It will be seen that the old stout newels have been replaced by small columns slightly larger than the balusters, and that the handrail is continuous, being bent upwards in a ramp where it has suddenly to attain a higher level. It is curved at the bottom in a large sweep similar to those at Kings Weston. At Melton Constable (Fig. 279) the same ideas are adopted, but here the risers of the stairs are panelled. It is clear from this that no stair carpets were contemplated, a point which is emphasised elsewhere by the fact that the landings and treads were often inlaid with different woods cut into patterns. Most of the staircases of the time were broad and of easy gradient, the balusters were short, and were either turned in graceful outlines or were twisted as at Melton Constable. At Denham Place, in Buckinghamshire (Fig. 280), the effect is quite satisfactory, although the stairs are narrower and steeper than usual, and the balusters are longer. This effect is obtained by the care bestowed upon the proportion and outline of the balusters.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century another form of staircase came into vogue. This consisted of a continuous flight of stone steps, often oval in plan, leading from floor to floor in one sweep. Each step rested on that below, and one of its ends was built into the wall, thereby obviating the necessity of any expedient for supporting the other end. By this means a free space was obtained beneath the staircase. The general effect, although light and sometimes graceful, was a little cold and meagre; but it was quite in character with the rather severe schemes of decoration prevalent at the time (Fig. 281).

In the larger houses much attention was bestowed upon the doorways: there is a good example at Godmersham Park, in Kent (Fig. 282), where the broken pediment affords space for the central feature of a design modelled in high relief. As here, so in many other instances, the door is of mahogany and the surrounding woodwork is painted white. The example from Honington Hall, in Warwickshire (Fig. 283), not only shows an important doorway, but also the domed and coffered ceiling of a lofty room, as well as walls with panels of plaster, and large pendants of fruit and birds in the manner of Grinling Gibbons. In houses of the early part of the eighteenth century there was often one room occupying two stories in height; sometimes it was the hall, sometimes, as in this case, a saloon or drawing-room.

In smaller houses were such doorways as that at Bourdon House, London (Fig. 284), where there is carving enough to impart interest to the design without over-weighting it; and at Seckford Hall, in Suffolk, is a simple but effective treatment (Fig. 285) which is well within the compass of an ordinary joiner. A great variety of effect can be obtained at small cost by dint of a little thought and a determination not to be too much bound by correct precedents. It is one of the failings of the ordinary eighteenth-century designer that he feared to depart from the patterns published in books.

Very great changes in the manner of treating the walls of a room occurred during the course of the century. At first they were panelled with wood—not with the small panels of Jacobean times, but with large panels surrounded by bold mouldings, such as those at Denham Place (Fig. 287). Here the mouldings are enriched with carving, which adds considerable richness, but as a rule the mouldings were plain; various examples have already been given in Figs. 122, 126, 135, 139. There was usually a low dado with long horizontal panels, and above the dado rail were lofty vertical panels reaching up to a massive cornice. The effect is always simple and dignified, whether the material is oak or painted deal. Of course the panels very much restrict the freedom of arrangement of pictures, but in those days pictures were not so plentiful as they became later, prints were few, and so were the amateur artists who bestow the fruit of their elegant leisure upon their friends. The panels therefore hampered nobody, and they were in themselves a sufficient decoration. Family portraits or notable pictures were sometimes framed into them as part of the scheme.

The backgrounds of engravings published during the first half of the eighteenth century often show these large panels, as well as sash-windows with stout bars. They seem to harmonise with the flowing wigs, the wide coat skirts and knee-breeches of the actors in the incidents which the prints are intended to record.

An unusual form of panelling, but one which is both cheap and effective, is to be seen in the audit room at Boughton House (Fig. 286). It consists of boards nailed vertically to the wall, having the joints covered with a moulding; below is a skirting, and above is a frieze and cornice.

Wood panelling was gradually superseded by panels formed in plaster on the plastered walls. Gibb’s drawings have already afforded examples of this treatment (Figs. 166–169), and any book of the eighteenth century on house design will supply others. Stoneleigh Abbey, Kenilworth, has panels of unusual richness (Fig. 288), and a house in Queen Square, Bath, by one of the Woods, has some delicately modelled panels on the staircase (Fig. 289). The drawback to this method of decoration is that, being rather ambitious in aim, it challenges criticism much more definitely than does simple panelling. It is conceivable that one eventually might tire of seeing the same youth piping to the same old man, and the same lady for ever playing the same organ without looking at her notes.

But a more radical change in wall decoration was to come in the shape of wall-papers. The early history of this method of adorning rooms has not been fully explored, but it seems clear that already in the seventeenth century sheets of paper covered with stencilled patterns had been pasted on to walls, or perhaps on to the panels into which they were divided. This was a laborious and by no means cheap process, but it contained the germ of the procedure which is so widely adopted to-day. Another and even more effective step was taken when Chinese papers were introduced (Fig. 290). These papers consisted of rolls, each printed with a portion of a large design, which required some five or six pieces to complete it. It was probably of such sets that the vivacious Lady Mary Wortley Montague, most celebrated of blue stockings, wrote to her daughter from Louvere, in 1749, to say, “I have heard the fame of paper hangings, and had some thoughts of sending for a suite, but was informed that they were as dear as damask is here, which put an end to my curiosity.” In some cases curiosity outweighed thriftiness, and the suites still remain in a few old houses; here and there some of the original rolls still exist, rolls which for some reason or other were not used, and which have luckily escaped destruction. Chinese papers became fashionable, and it is not difficult to imagine the process of evolution from rolls—each bearing part of a large design either of trees and flowers, or of a landscape or a figure subject, after the manner of tapestry—to other rolls all printed alike and forming a continuous pattern, with the parts duly repeated, which should cover the whole walls with decoration of a sort. The advantages of the new method were obvious: it was cheap; and although at first the paper was applied to canvas nailed to battens on the wall, yet eventually it was placed on the wall itself, and thus did away with the spaces between the walls and the panelling or tapestry, where dirt or spiders or more noxious insects could harbour; rough surfaces were rendered smooth, joints between wood frames and stone or brick walls were filled with plaster, and draughts were lessened. Most of these advantages were obtained by plastered walls ornamented with panels, but plain surfaces covered with paper were cheaper, and gave greater scope for the unrestricted hanging of pictures and prints as the taste for such things developed. Then, again, more and more people lived in hired houses, and with every fresh tenant new papers could readily be pasted over the old. There was no idea in those days of stripping off the previous papers; and in dealing with ancient houses as many as twenty layers of paper have sometimes been found. But our notions of sanitation have improved, and in the present day everything is removed down to the plaster before the new paper is hung.

The Chinese papers, as already observed, had some affinity in their subjects to tapestry, and tapestry had been a favourite means of covering walls from very early times (Figs. 291, 293). In the seventeenth century it was much in vogue among the rich, both on the Continent and in England, and a noble form of decoration it is. It would be beside the mark to recount the history of tapestry weaving at any length, but it is of interest to know that during the seventeenth century the English factory at Mortlake was the most renowned in the world, and produced some of the finest tapestries that have come down to us. The factory was founded in 1619 by James I., and with it are connected the names of two families who have already been mentioned in these pages. The first was that of the Cranes, the other the Montagus.[86] Sir Francis Crane, who built a house at Stoke Bruerne, in Northamptonshire (see pp. 174, 176), managed the factory for many years on behalf of the king, and made a considerable fortune. The factory flourished under James I. and Charles I., but declined under the Commonwealth. After the Restoration new vigour was imparted to it; it passed from the direct patronage of the king and was acquired in 1674 by the Montagus, whose house at Boughton (see pp. 196–199) retains many splendid examples from its looms. But by this time the factory at Gobelins was producing work as fine as that at Mortlake, if not finer, and this circumstance, together with the declining taste for tapestries, brought the Mortlake venture to an end in 1703.[87] Tapestries were at all times chiefly for the wealthy, but early in the eighteenth century they began to go out of fashion, and were superseded by the other modes of decoration already described.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century fireplaces were, as a rule, still contrived for the burning of wood logs. They were wide and deep, and were generally surrounded by a very bold moulding of stone or marble, like that in the Town Hall at South Molton (Fig. 292). The panelling of the room was often brought up to the marble, and continued above it with an additional richness over the fireplace; but sometimes there was a special margin provided round the large moulding, as in the case of South Molton. Occasionally it was found convenient to place the fireplace in a corner of the room, which led to some such ingenious treatment as that in Fig. 294, which is from a room at Boughton House.

Open fireplaces like these required fire-dogs on which to place the logs for the increase of the draught, and a great variety of such dogs or andirons were produced, varying in character from rich and admirably modelled specimens like that in the queen’s guard chamber at Hampton Court (Fig. 295), down to the simplest forms. It was also necessary to have fire-backs of cast iron to prevent the fire from eating away the brickwork against which it was piled. The various iron works in Sussex and elsewhere produced a great quantity of these backs of all degrees of elaboration. The ornament most frequently adopted was a shield of arms, either those of the sovereign, or those of the family who usually warmed themselves at the fire; but the range of design was considerable, and included floral and figure subjects (Figs. 296–298), as well as patterns of extreme simplicity. Other accessories were tongs, bellows, and sometimes a fire shovel. The tongs were sufficiently stout to enable the logs to be handled; the bellows produced life in an almost dead fire with wonderful celerity; the shovel was used to bank up the ashes, which were allowed to accumulate in a great heap, and thereby preserved warmth during the night.

But early in the eighteenth century a rapid change took place in the kind of fuel consumed, and coal superseded wood. Sea-coal, that is sea-borne coal, had been in occasional use for many years; now it was to become universal. The change is curiously indicated in some inventories of 1720, made for one “Francis Hawes, of London, Esq., one of the late directors of the South Sea Company.” When that great bubble burst Francis Hawes had to be sold up, and in consequence a complete statement of his affairs had to be prepared. It includes three inventories, two of manor-houses in the country, and one of a house in Winchester Street, London. In regard to the point under consideration, some of the rooms, especially the bedrooms, had iron hearths, dogs, tongs, bellows, and fire shovels, which were requisite for the old-fashioned wood fires; others, including the parlours and hall, had the grates, shovels, tongs, pokers, and fenders requisite for coal fires.

So, too, had the servants’ hall, whereas the drawing-room had an open fire. We may, therefore, conclude that the rooms in most frequent use had the newer contrivances, the most noteworthy of which were the grates, the pokers (for breaking the coal, and quite unnecessary with a wood fire), and the fenders. It is clear that in 1720 Francis Hawes had only partially adopted coal as his fuel, but the use of it quickly spread, and henceforward we find grates of various kinds in common use. Some of these were in effect baskets to hold the coal (Fig. 297), and they were placed in the old openings. Others were so large as to hold either wood or coal, an intermediate step of which there is an example at Dyrham, in Gloucestershire. In later years the basket grates gave way to cast-iron grates which filled the whole width of the recess, and were built in as fixtures (Figs. 299, 300). Some of the patterns were delicately modelled and charmingly designed, but as heat-producers these grates were crude to a degree. They merely held the coal. No attempt was made to regulate its consumption, or to direct its heat into the room; a large proportion went up the chimney, and chimneys were still built of the generous dimensions which had been customary in the days of wood fires. These generous dimensions were a length of four or five feet by a width of two or three at the base, gradually diminishing towards the outlet above the roof. Where the flues passed through the bedrooms they occupied a large amount of space, but generally left room at the sides for those deep cupboards which are often to be found in old houses. The only way to sweep such enormous shafts was for somebody to clamber up them with a brush. This dirty and dangerous task was usually imposed upon the chimney sweep’s boy, until it was prohibited by legislation, but modern fires have flues of such small size as not to admit the most diminutive boy.

When huge fires were customary, they warmed the huge flues above them, and down-draughts were prevented; but when the same huge flues were warmed only by a basketful of coal, there was no longer the same upward draught, and the fires began to smoke. To remedy this, new fireplaces were made rather smaller, and the flues were slightly contracted; but the remedy was not effectual, and the next step, taken towards the end of the eighteenth century, was to fill up the large opening, and thereby restrict the access of air to the space occupied by the fire, and thus came into being the first of our modern fire-grates, which carry no suggestion with them of the ancient open fire on the hearth. This form of grate was an improvement, but it was wasteful and inefficient, and was at length superseded by the numerous modern contrivances which minimise the consumption of fuel, and direct more of the heat into the room and less up the flue. It would be rash to say that they have done away with smoky chimneys, but at any rate they have made them the exception rather than the rule.

The inventories of Francis Hawes are interesting in other ways than in marking the change from the ancient wood fires to the modern coal fires: they tell us of the manner in which his rooms were adorned and furnished. It would be outside the scope of the present inquiry to enter into these details at any length, but a few of the words thus spoken direct from the past may be worth listening to. The parlours of the London house were apparently panelled or otherwise decorated with some fixed material, since no mention is made of hangings. They had chimney-glasses, sconces of brass or glass, and curtains to the windows: of furniture one had two card-tables, ten red Turkey-leather chairs, a leather screen, sixteen pictures, and a painted cloth for the floor—not a very elaborate furnishing. The other parlour had a pier glass and marble slab, a scrutoire, six cane chairs, two Dutch chairs, a leather dressing-chair, two tables, a small nest of drawers, eight pictures, and a small carpet. The effect must have been rather bare according to modern standards, but these have gone to the other extreme, with the result that many rooms are now overcrowded with furniture. Upstairs one of the rooms must have been a gallery, for it had no chairs, but was full of curios and objets d’art. The bedrooms of all the houses were also sparsely furnished. They nearly all had large bedsteads, evidently four-posters, with furniture of different kinds, camlet lined with silk, yellow mohair, green or crimson harratine, green serge, and other materials. The walls were hung in most cases with materials of the same kind, blue china, crimson harratine, tapestry, mohair, or Irish stitch and Dutch matting. There were curtains to the windows. One of the smaller bedrooms had but a table and dressing-glass, a couple of chairs and a box; another had a “bewreau” and a card-table in addition. The larger ones had two tables, half a dozen chairs, stools, a nest of drawers, a bookcase, and a number of pictures. It is noteworthy how seldom mention is made of a basin or even of a dressing-table with a glass. This confirms what has already been indicated—that our ancestors of those days spent but little time upon their toilet. Very few rooms had a carpet but nearly every one had a hand-bell, some had as many as four.

But to return to the question of fireplaces, and more particularly to the chimney-pieces which surrounded them. The method adopted in William III.’s time of having merely a bold moulding round the opening, tended to establish the practice of having chimney-pieces of one stage in height instead of two. In Jacobean time most of the large chimney-pieces reached from the floor to the ceiling; so they did in the mid-seventeenth century under Inigo Jones and John Webb, although a few of their designs show one stage only. When the “Designs of Inigo Jones” were published by Kent in 1727, they gave an impetus again to the two-stage type, such as that shown in Fig. 170; but smaller and less pretentious patterns were frequently adopted, of which a typical example is shown in Fig. 301; here a marble slab surrounds the opening, and is in its turn surrounded by a small wood moulding and surmounted by a flat frieze and a cornice which forms the mantel shelf. This type held the field all through the eighteenth century, sometimes plain, sometimes enriched, as in the example from the Deanery at Wells (Fig. 302). A variation, all in marble, is shown in Fig. 304, from a house in Carey Street.

Under the influence of the brothers Adam, detail of exquisite delicacy was introduced, including panels of well-modelled figures. This ornament was sometimes carved in marble or wood, but still more frequently worked in composition and applied to the woodwork. An example by Robert Adam is shown in Fig. 305, and a design by Flaxman in Fig. 303.

We have already seen in Chapter V. how the busy ceilings of the Jacobean type changed into the coffered ceilings of Inigo Jones and Webb, who established a type which held the field, under Wren and his successors, well into the eighteenth century. The general tendency was to increase the relief of the plasterwork, to imitate nature instead of conventionalising it; to work on the same lines which Grinling Gibbons was following with his carving in wood. The result was that the plasterwork had frequently to be modelled on wire which formed the stems of the leaves, and much of it was completely detached from the surface of the ceiling which it adorned. A very fine example of this treatment is to be seen in the Courts of Justice at Northampton (Fig. 306).

Contemporary with this kind of ceiling was a treatment entirely different, which was in vogue in great houses during the reigns of Charles II., James II., and William and Mary; this was the painting of immense plain surfaces with allegorical, mythological, and scriptural subjects. Old Buckingham House had a large ceiling of the kind over the principal staircase (Fig. 308); and the walls were painted so as to produce the effect of architectural perspective. This fashion is intimately associated with the name of Verrio, an Italian painter, who was brought to England by Charles II. He and his assistant and successor Laguerre are the best known of those who worked in this line of decoration, for they are immortalised by Pope, who describes how in a great house, being summoned “to all the pride of prayer” in the chapel—

But there were several other artists engaged by wealthy noblemen to do similar work; among them was Cheron at Boughton House, and Lanscroon at Drayton, both in Northamptonshire. But Verrio was by far the busiest of all, and did a vast amount of work at Windsor, Hampton Court, and Burghley House, among other places. Over the grand staircase at Hampton Court (Fig. 309) the composition which occupies the ceiling is brought down on to the walls. This device was sometimes adopted with the view, apparently, of bringing ceiling and walls into one scheme; but although the technique is clever, the effect is rather confusing. The examples from Boughton House (Figs. 310, 311) show a simpler and more intelligible treatment. Evelyn frequently mentions Verrio with high commendation, and his work and that of his school is extremely clever, and were it more easily seen and with less physical discomfort, doubtless it would beget more admiration than it actually does. Verrio died in 1707 and Laguerre twenty years later. Their tradition was carried on for another ten or twelve years by Sir James Thornhill, but it then died out, and painting on ceilings was confined to small panels.

It was chiefly in the larger houses that ornamental ceilings were now introduced. In those of ordinary size, and those built on speculation to let to tenants, the ceilings were for the most part plain. Where design was employed it became less ambitious, and during the second quarter of the eighteenth century it produced such comparatively simple work as that in a house in Bishopsgate Street Without (Fig. 307), or that in the Spenser room at Canons Ashby, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 312). Cottesbrooke House, in the same county, has some delicate work of much the same type (Fig. 313).

During the last half of the century, where ornament was applied to ceilings at all, it partook of the extreme delicacy and refinement associated with the name of the brothers Adam. The modelling was in low relief, but was done with great care and minuteness, and the flow of the thin lines of ornament was studied with close attention. This type is exemplified in the ceiling from a house in Wimpole Street (Fig. 314), and there are many such ceilings left in that neighbourhood, especially in Harley Street, which in its early days was inhabited by many distinguished people; William Pitt, Viscount Bridport, and Admiral Lord Keith did much to shape the history of their time; Allan Ramsay, portrait painter to George III., may stand for Art, and James Stuart, author of the “Antiquities of Athens,” may represent architecture and archæology. At present these streets are more particularly associated with the pursuit of medicine; their inhabitants are no less celebrated than those of old, but their fame is of a special kind, and those who go to consult them on matters of life and death may well be excused if they spare no thought for the decoration which covers the ceilings above their heads.

The work of the latter part of the eighteenth century was so dominated by the influence of the Adams that a few further examples of their designs may be of interest. In the staircase from a house in Mansfield Street (Fig. 315) all superfluous ornament has been eliminated, so much so that one almost longs for something less chaste and cold. In some moods and to some temperaments Venus is more attractive than Diana. But restraint is ever commendable, and restraint marks most of Adam’s work. It is present in the doorway at Harewood House (Fig. 316) and in the two chimney-pieces, one from Belcombe and one from Bedford Square, figured in the illustrations 317, 318. In these it will be noticed that overmantels are replaced by designs worked on the wall itself. Their interest depends almost entirely upon grace of composition and skill in execution, and derives nothing from aptness of association with the houses or their occupants. In this respect the ornament differs from that of earlier days, when it was usually adapted from the family coat of arms; but the time had now come when houses were more often built to let to unknown tenants than as homes for particular families. In the drawing-room at Kedleston (Fig. 319) the treatment again strikes a note of simplicity and severity—a note which is seldom so well maintained in the disposition of the pictures and the choice of furniture as it is in this case. The ceiling and the great cove beneath it are filled with that flowing and delicate ornament which demands great accuracy of line and equal care in modelling its low relief.

As time went on this delicate ornament faded away and, except here and there, ceilings became merely large unbroken surfaces, save that with the introduction of gas-pendants there came the tradesman’s centre-flower from which they might depend. This and an equally interesting cornice served for years as the principal decoration of most houses; the plasterer’s art seemed to have died out. But for some time past matters have been improving, and, given the requisite money, ceilings can now be devised equal to anything that has been done in the past.

Indeed English craftsmen have always been able to produce good work when adequately guided. But modern conditions, among which one of the most pressing is the supply of an enormous number of cheap houses, are adverse to the display of that capacity for design and execution which requires some amount of leisure and a great amount of wealth to bring it forth.

There are indications that after the war a vast number of workmen’s dwellings will have to be built, and, moreover, will have to be built cheaply. A survey of the domestic architecture of the last three hundred years is fruitful of suggestions for this undertaking, although it will be one demanding little or no ornament. Such a survey points towards a suitable placing of the houses on the site; avoiding dreariness and monotony on the one hand, and on the other avoiding attempts at the grandiose, and the imposing on posterity a scheme too complete in itself to allow of those variations which time will inevitably require. It points equally to treating the houses themselves with a simplicity corresponding to the simplicity of the requirements. It points further to the value of good, sound building. The smaller Georgian houses, which we find so charming, furnish admirable suggestions. No attempt at actual reproduction need be made; but the means which produce the effect in the old houses can be applied to the new. These means are simple enough. The general proportion, the size and shape of the windows, and the shadow of the eaves will be found on examination to be the chief causes of the pleasure which many of the old houses arouse.

The past has not only its suggestions, but also its warnings, and of these the most obvious is against the impairing of comfort and convenience for the sake of appearance. The first canon of utilitarian art is that an object should answer its purpose well. It is in availing himself of these suggestions, and in profiting by these warnings, that the architect is enabled to help his own generation and give pleasure to those that come after.

The vast increase in population during the last two hundred years has accentuated the division of the course of design into two streams; one directed by the highly trained architect, the other by the workman trained only in the use of his tools and the knowledge of his materials. Could the two streams be brought into one channel they might flow on into ideal conditions. But the very complexity of modern life has a tendency to resolve itself into the simplicity of specialisation.