It was during the sixteenth century that took place the most remarkable development in domestic architecture which occurred in England until the middle of the nineteenth century; and especially during the second half was this extraordinary advance particularly noticeable. Several causes produced this effect, chief among them being that great upheaval in thought which gave rise to the wonderful movement known as the Renaissance. The Renaissance stands not only for a revival of ancient forms in architecture, sculpture, and painting, but for a vast awakening in all departments of human enterprise, and the final abandonment of mediævalism with all its crude and crabbed methods and ways of thought. New ways were followed in science, in learning, in religion, in art; and the knowledge of these new ways was widely disseminated by the new invention of printing. So far as architecture was concerned, Italy was the fountainhead of the new stream of thought; and so far as England was concerned, it was in the reign of Henry VIII. that the stream first reached our shores, and affected our traditional methods of design.

The dissolution of the monasteries was another cause of the change which came over building, inasmuch as it transferred into private and secular hands much of the vast possessions hitherto held by the Church. The confusion into which religion was thrown put an effectual stop to church building, and consequently opened the way to increased house building. The abatement of civil strife and the general security of life and property under the strong and sagacious rule of Elizabeth was a further inducement towards the erection of comfortable homes. The rise of the new nobility which sprang from her recognition of talent in persons of comparatively obscure origin, led to the founding of some of the finest houses of which the country can boast. Finally, the desire for magnificence, which has already been noticed in a few instances in the preceding century, became general, fostered as it was by rivalry, the possession of wealth, and the sense of security from internecine strife.

Italy, being the home of the new manner in art, communicated her methods in course of time to her neighbours. Out of her superabundant craftsmen she spared some for other lands. They settled in France, they settled in England; at least they hardly settled here, but they visited us for longer or shorter periods, and left us a legacy in design. Our own craftsmen gradually, and with some reluctance, adopted their methods, and having become accustomed to the strange forms brought from the far south, they turned in later years with increased eagerness to their near neighbours the Dutch, who had themselves learnt the new lesson in their own stolid and unimaginative way.

The early steps in the change of design are of great interest. They appear at first infrequently and tentatively in insignificant ornament; then rather more freely; after a time they affect prominent features such as cornices; then the pediment appears; the pointed arch gives way to the semicircular, windows become square-headed; classic pilasters are introduced, sparingly at first, but afterwards with more freedom; symmetry of disposition in the plan of the house becomes more frequent. Yet beneath all these Italian adornments the body of the house is of the old English type; with all its foreign variations, the melody itself is native. It is an endless delight to watch the struggles of the English craftsman with his novel ornament. Sometimes they resulted in quaint applications of misunderstood features; sometimes in proportions which would have pained the eye of Palladio; but frequently in charming little bits of design, refreshingly simple and unobtrusive.

Meantime the plan of the house was continued on the old lines, and Henry VIII.’s reign saw no great or general development of accommodation. A large number of houses were built during his reign and that of his predecessor, and it is to this period that may be attributed a great proportion of the domestic work of late Gothic or Tudor character.

Horham Hall, in Essex, is a good example, moderate in size, of this period. It was built in the early years of the sixteenth century by Sir John Cutt, who died in 1520. The plan (Fig. 92) follows the ancient lines, the great hall being in its traditional relationship to the rest of the house. The old indifference to regularity is well illustrated by the passage, treated as a kind of bay window, which leads from the hall to the north wing. The windows in general have but one range of lights, but in the bay of the hall and in the passage, the lingering reluctance to adopt large windows is thrown away (Fig. 93), and we get a foretaste of that vast array of lights which was presently to become a distinguishing feature of domestic architecture. There is a large fireplace in the hall and a contemporary louvre in its roof; a somewhat curious combination, inasmuch as the louvre would be needless, either for the escape of smoke or (in view of the large bay window) for the admission of light.

There is a strange craving among dwellers in old houses to exaggerate the antiquity of their dwellings. Imagination is fond of peopling with monks halls which were built subsequently to the suppression of the monastic orders, and probably with the wealth acquired in consequence of that event. King John has been made to sleep upon a bed which was constructed when King James was on the throne. A cusped window light will carry its enthusiastic proprietor back two centuries earlier than the facts warrant. But domestic work of a date earlier than Henry VII. is not abundant, and it is probably within the mark to say that nine-tenths of the Gothic stonework of ancient houses and ninety-nine hundredths of the Gothic woodwork are attributable to the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.

These new houses were evidently built for pleasure more than for security, although defensive precautions were not entirely omitted. They often occupied the site of an earlier house; but whether this were the case or not, they were generally surrounded by a moat, crossed no longer by a drawbridge, but by one of permanent character. Permanent by comparison, that is to say, for even where moats still remain, bridges of this date are rare; but as a rule the moats have been filled in and the bridges removed, or in any case the moats have been so much filled in as to give easy access to the front entrance.

Some sort of courtyard was contrived in the majority of instances, and as a rule it was surrounded by buildings rather than by a simple wall of defence. The entrance was through a gateway, generally emphasised with a tower over it; indeed one of the characteristic features of large Tudor houses is the lofty tower in which the entrance is set. The bold projecting turrets which usually flank the gateway on each side are a peaceful reminiscence of the defensive towers of earlier times. These gatehouses sometimes rose to a great height. At Oxburgh in Norfolk, Kirtling in Cambridgeshire (Fig. 94), and Cowdray in Sussex, they are from four to six storeys; and the splendid tower at Layer Marney in Essex has as many as eight. The gates were massive, and there was a porter to keep guard, who passed his time in a room adjoining the entrance. In smaller houses where there was no porter there was sometimes a little window or opening commanding a view of the entrance from an adjoining room. It is evident that the household was jealous of strangers, but it was less the bold marauding neighbour whom they feared, than the sturdy beggars who caused no little anxiety to those responsible for the public peace, especially in the years succeeding the suppression of the monasteries, where hitherto mendicants had found shelter and help.

The old reluctance to have large windows in outside walls still lingered; indeed most of the windows of this period (i.e., the first thirty years of the sixteenth century) are composed of only one row of lights; the majority of Tudor windows have no transome or cross-bar. In many cases, it is true, the height of the rooms did not call for an upper row of lights. Where, however, there was no reason to restrict window space, particularly in the bay windows of the hall or the principal living rooms, fine lofty windows of many lights were introduced. The bay window and the oriel—by which is here meant a bay window to an upper floor, springing from the wall and not carried down to the ground, of which Kirtling has a fine example (Fig. 94)—were very considerably developed, and may be reckoned among the most striking characteristics of English domestic architecture of this and the Elizabethan periods.

The window heads were still cusped, and, although tracery was very seldom introduced, the upper part was sometimes emphasised by a row of quatrefoils or some similar elaboration (Fig. 91). This obstructing of the top of the window with solid stonework, where the greatest amount of light is to be obtained, was gradually relinquished; then the simple cusps, which also diminished the light, were dropped, and finally the curved heads gave way to straight ones, and thus the maximum amount of light was secured.

The upper range has cusping formed by floriated dolphins, and mullions ornamented with arabesques. The lower range is treated in the customary manner of the Tudor period. There is a row of egg-and-tongue ornament above the cusped corbels over the lower windows.]

The new fashion in ornament which came in with the Italian influence led to quaint adaptations of ancient features. At Layer Marney, for instance, the cusping is obtained not by bending out a portion of the mullion, a growth springing naturally from its parent stem, but by the introduction of little floriated dolphins “counter-hauriant”—to use a heraldic term. The mullions, too, are not the splayed or moulded shafts of English tradition, but rectangular shafts with faces elaborately carved with arabesques (Fig. 95). The effect at a distance, where the eye cannot detect the detail, is very like that of a cusped window. So, too, in still later years, where traceried windows were used, as in some of the college halls, the forms of the tracery were ingeniously contrived to accord with the new Italianised detail rather than the old Gothic. At Layer Marney the mixture of the ancient and the modern is further exemplified by the presence of the classic egg-and-tongue ornament above a cusped corbel table, below which are windows with the flat pointed heads characteristic of the Tudor style. At Sutton Place in Surrey, the mixture is again seen. The windows with their pointed and cusped heads are thoroughly Gothic, while the amorini over the door and in the parapet are equally Italian in feeling, though not in delicacy of modelling. The diamond-shaped panels are likewise of southern origin (Fig. 96). Both these houses were built about 1520 to 1525. East Barsham in Norfolk (Fig. 97), which preceded them by about ten years, and resembles them in general style, just misses the Italian detail, although at first sight some of its ornament appears similar to that at Sutton Place. All three houses are of brick with terra-cotta embellishments, and are fine specimens of the brickwork which was used with such excellent effect during the first thirty years of the sixteenth century. A very prevalent custom at this period was to diversify the red brickwork with a diaper of darker bricks.

But, as already said, the new Italian fashion, although it affected the embellishment of the house, was long before it affected the plan. In the reign of Henry VII., indeed, it is nowhere apparent, either in plan or ornament. A few prominent dates are useful in fixing on the mind important changes of style; and the advent of the Renaissance manner into England can be fixed by remembering that it made its first appearance in the tomb of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, which was erected by the order of Henry VIII. in the year 1516. Any work with Italian or Italianised detail, may safely be dated subsequent to that year. There is a considerable amount of work of this kind to be found up and down the country, but chiefly in the southern and eastern counties. The only building which it actually dominated appears to have been Henry VIII.’s house of Nonsuch in Surrey, now entirely destroyed; but in such isolated features as screens, panels, tombs, and doorways, it frequently occurs.

During the reign of Henry VIII., who was a munificent patron of the arts, the new style did much to establish itself, but houses were still arranged on the traditional plan, and were rather haphazard in their disposition. The hall continued to be the principal room; it lay between the family rooms and the servants’ quarters. But it was supplemented by retiring rooms of greater size, greater comfort, and greater number. East Barsham (c. 1500–15), Thornbury Castle (c. 1511), Compton Winyates (c. 1520), the enlargement of Lytes Carey manor house (c. 1525), Hengrave Hall (c. 1538), Little Moreton (c. 1559), all these, and others that might be named, show the same free and irregular disposition, which had always been distinctive of the English house.

Hengrave Hall (Fig. 98) is a stepping-stone from the mediæval to the Elizabethan type. It is full of irregularity, but it is planned on much more regular lines than South Wingfield, for instance. The entrance front is symmetrical, although not absolutely so; it has a large central doorway flanked by turrets, and is broken at intervals by other turrets—features quite familiar in sixteenth-century houses. It has a courtyard, encircled on three sides by a corridor, and the hall looks out on to the limited area of the court. The windows are small in comparison with the blank wall spaces, and the detail is Gothic, except for some quasi-Italian amorini supporting the oriel over the front door. While many of the old haphazard arrangements are retained, there is a certain attempt at orderliness and symmetry which points the way to the more regular planning of later years.

Wolsey’s great palace at Hampton Court, although planned with considerable attention to symmetry round several rectangular courts, and with an eye to an axial line—arranged, that is to say, with a view to noble and dignified effect, was still very irregular both in disposition and in grouping, with roofs of different heights, lofty towers, turrets, and chimneys. Spenser incidentally sketches such palaces in the “Faerie Queene.” The house of Pride was “a stately Pallace built of squarèd bricke,” where

The red-cross knight passing through the gates which “stood open wide,” although in charge of a porter, came to the hall, “which was on every side with rich array and costly arras dight.” The house of Temperance, too, was entered through a porch of hewn stone fairly wrought, provided with a “fayre portcullis” and a gate, likewise under the charge of a porter, who, unlike the careless guardian of the house of Pride, duly kept watch and ward and saw that every one passed in good order and due regard. The gateway passed, the visitors came to

Thence their hostess led them to see the kitchen,

and later,

The only other part of her house to which Alma took her guests was a turret,

No other rooms are particularly mentioned, but these glimpses at the palaces of Spenser’s days bring before our vision their gatehouses, their towers and turrets, their long galleries, and their many windows. It is both interesting and curious to find that even to Spenser, who wrote in the latter part of the sixteenth century (the “Faerie Queene” was being written in 1580), the hall, the kitchen, and the parlour were still the principal apartments. Except for the sumptuous hangings and the other embellishments with which he adorns his rooms, and except for the parlour and gallery, the houses which he pictures resemble those of Chaucer. The parlour, however, stands for a good deal; it typifies the extension which had taken place in the family apartments. Spenser’s descriptions, too, although indicating no great advance in the classification of rooms, point to a much more magnificent furnishing and adornment than anything to be found in Chaucer’s.

During Spenser’s life, however, a very great advance was being made in domestic architecture, and in particular the planning of houses was receiving especial attention, and was being undertaken by trained experts. Doubtless the growth of Italian ideas had something to do with this. Symmetry of disposition, instead of being occasionally adopted, had become universal, and it required more than the skill of a home-bred mason, such as hitherto had devised houses, to arrange the increased accommodation now necessary, within the requisite symmetrical outline, and at the same time to ensure a workable relation of rooms one to the other. In addition to this a considerable acquaintance with the new fashion in detail was required of designers, and accordingly not a few of them made tours abroad to France and even as far as Italy in order to familiarise themselves with foreign methods and to bring to their work the most novel ideas of the time.