With the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century there opens a new chapter in English Architecture. Hitherto it had been largely impersonal; now it began to be personal, and its finest manifestations were henceforth to be linked with great names, with Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, and others. The main cause of the change is to be found in the pursuit of the Italian ideal. Up to this time the erection of houses and churches had not been thought of as “architecture,” but merely as “building.” The processes employed, both in regard to design and to construction, were the outcome of tradition. We have already seen how tradition had been modified in the sixteenth century by the introduction of Italian features, and the imperfect study of Italian models, in obedience to the prevailing fashion of the day, which demanded that particular form of decoration. But it must have been obvious to all instructed eyes that the efforts of English designers, so far as they aimed at a faithful transcript of the foreign copy, had been very wide of the mark. This was only to have been expected from the nature of the circumstances. There was no single mind at work controlling the whole of the design in all its branches. It is true that surveyors were employed to give a general superintendence. These men usually supplied a plan of the house, and not infrequently an elevation. This, at any rate, was the case during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, although there is little evidence that it had been the custom in earlier times. To the surveyors, of whom John Thorpe was the most remarkable, must accordingly be attributed the credit of the houses as a whole; of their arrangement, and of their general appearance. But the details of the treatment were left to artificers in the various trades, to the masons, the carpenters, the plasterers, and the plumbers. It is obvious that these men could not all be equally skilful, or equally conversant with the foreign fashion; and we may well be grateful that it was so, for from their diverse limitations sprang the quaint, piquant, and charming work of the period, endless in its variety yet throughout essentially English; in no other country is just the same development to be found.

But the tide of fashion was flowing strongly in the Italian direction. This can be gathered not only from the appearance of the work itself, and from subsequent developments, but from the drawings of Smithson, the surveyor (or architect), made about 1618, among which are designs for “Italyan wyndowes,” “Italyan gates,” an “Italyan grate,” and a “pergular.” Thorpe, although he had studied foreign books on architecture, and had made careful drawings of the “orders,” makes no reference to “Italyan” features, nor do his details show anything like the same striving after “correct” design that is evident in Smithson’s. A considerable number of young men travelled to Italy for the express purpose of studying the buildings of that country, some being sent thither by wealthy noblemen. A few of their names have been preserved, either through their having, like John Shute, published the results of their labours, or through their having written, as Charles Williams did to Sir John Thynne at Longleat, to offer their services in doing work “after the Italian fashion.” But among all those who went none made such good use of his opportunities or was so gifted by nature to take advantage of them as Inigo Jones. It is to him that we owe the establishment of the matured Renaissance manner in England, the handling of Italian features with real knowledge and skill, the introduction of the full “Classic” style as distinguished from the tentative “Renaissance.” With him, too, started the personal architecture of the designer who controlled the decoration throughout, as opposed to the impersonal architecture of the independent craftsmen who preceded him. The change was a momentous one; whether it resulted in a more pleasing type of building will probably always remain a matter of individual taste.

One notable result of the change was the dividing of house design into two streams: one academic and stately, the other traditional and homely. The one dealt with great mansions and public buildings, and was guided by men of eminence, who studied architecture as a fine art. The other dealt with the smaller houses, with schools, almshouses, and other buildings of less importance, and was guided by men of no especial culture, who probably underwent no more training than could be obtained in a builder’s yard. Hence in out-of-the-way places houses may be found dated in the early years of the eighteenth century closely resembling those built in the early years of the seventeenth. But gradually the early traditions died out; the new classic manner permeated the whole of the building world, and even the smallest houses, so far as they had any pretensions to design at all, complied with the prevailing classic taste.

In the larger buildings there was a tendency to become more and more academic, to design more and more according to rule. Men of genius, like Inigo Jones and Wren, bent these rules to their own purposes; but their successors of the eighteenth century found it easier to let the rules have the mastery, with the result that much of their work is tame and insipid. At the same time they pursued architecture in the abstract, without due regard for its application to house design. The consequence was that most of their efforts, although striking as architectural compositions, are inconvenient as dwelling-houses. This point will be more fully dealt with in its chronological order, meantime we must return on our steps and take up the story where it was left at the close of the reign of James I.

The two tendencies in design just mentioned may already be observed during the lifetime of James, for in 1622 was built the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, designed by Inigo Jones as part of a vast palace for the King, of which the rest was never undertaken. It is perhaps the most classic building of that century, quite devoid of any trace of Elizabethan detail. At the same time, and indeed for another ten or twelve years, were being built houses which still retained all the old characteristics. Such is Aston Hall, near Birmingham, which has the curved gables, the turrets, the chimneys, the mullioned windows, the ribbed ceilings, the busy staircase, which had been customary in fine houses for the last fifty years. Yet Aston Hall was not completed till 1635. The most significant sign of change at Aston is the disposition of the hall, which, as already stated, is no longer intended as a living room, and is entered in the middle of its length instead of at one end through the customary screens. The change of habits which this alteration implies, coinciding as it did with the advent of more accurate knowledge of Italian ways, undoubtedly helped forward their establishment. It was no longer necessary to provide on the ground floor a great hall suitable for a living room, and dividing the family apartments from those where the servants worked and lived. The whole ground floor was devoted to the family, who were provided with a suite of salons surrounding the hall, which itself became a large vestibule leading to them. The servants were relegated to the basement; not indeed for the first time, for Smithson has several plans in which this arrangement was adopted, and so has Thorpe; but these were exceptions to the general rule. The long gallery and the great chamber went out of fashion. These rooms had been upstairs, the long gallery sometimes on the topmost floor, while not a few of the rooms on the ground floor had been “chambers” or “lodgings,” that is in effect bedrooms. It now became more customary to devote the ground floor to the day-rooms, and the upper floor to bedrooms, especially in houses of medium size. In great mansions complete suites of living and sleeping rooms were still provided on the same floor. The plan of Raynham Park (Fig. 147), built according to various authorities either in 1630 or 1636, and attributed to Inigo Jones, shows the change that had taken place in domestic habits. So too does the plan of Coleshill in Berkshire (Fig. 149), built in 1650 from designs by the same master; but in this case some of the ground-floor rooms are still intended to be used as bedrooms, and the dining-room is upstairs.

These two houses illustrate equally well the new methods adopted in treating the exterior. Elizabethan and Jacobean houses were picturesque and busy in their appearance owing to the varied outline of their plan, and to their irregular and broken sky-line caused by the gables, turrets, and chimneys with which they were furnished. The many lights of the mullioned windows also added much to their lively effect, while bay windows were used with great skill to give rhythm and interest to the design.

The two most distinctive characteristics of the new style were the absence of gables and the substitution of sash windows for the old mullioned form. Both these changes had a sobering effect on the appearance of a house. In the absence of gables roofs had to be hipped, thus compelling a greater simplicity in their plan, and a much plainer sky-line. The sash window was more stubborn of treatment than the mullioned window. The latter could be either lengthened or widened by a row of lights and yet be in harmony with its neighbours; the sash window was not susceptible of such variation; it had to be of the same width and height as others of the same range. For these reasons it lent itself ill to the forming of bay windows; it was too wide and too high, and altogether too large a feature to be adapted to the purpose, and accordingly bay windows went out of fashion. The elements of design being thus greatly restricted, they required much skilful handling, and a keen sense of proportion to render the result satisfactory. It was just in these points that Inigo Jones’s natural gifts and careful training enabled him to succeed.

Raynham Park (Fig. 148) is a link between the two styles; its projecting wings, finished with gables, are reminiscent of the past; its sash windows and its bold, carefully profiled cornice are a foretaste of the future. Coleshill (Fig. 150) has left Elizabethan times far behind, and retains nothing of their peculiarities either in plan or appearance. There are no gables, the roof is hipped at each corner and starts from a widely projecting cornice. The chimneys are gathered into large stacks, symmetrically placed; not into groups of single, slender shafts. The dormers have no stonework about them; they belong to the roof, not to the walls. The designer, having eschewed picturesque details, had to rely for his effect upon proportion and the careful spacing of his windows. Coleshill may be regarded as typical of the style adopted for large country houses down to the end of the seventeenth century. Up Park, Squerries, Melton Constable, and many others built towards the close of this century or in the first years of the next, are of the same type, although somewhat varied in treatment. There were many intermediate steps between Jacobean houses and houses like Coleshill. Some of these steps have been attributed to Inigo Jones himself—taken by him, the chroniclers assert, before his visit to Italy. Such are St John’s College, Oxford, and the house at Houghton Conquest, in Bedfordshire, built for the Countess of Pembroke, “Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother.” But expert opinion is now inclined to doubt the correctness of such attribution. If Inigo Jones made no use of a transitional style, others did so.

Swakeleys in Middlesex (Fig. 152) is a case in point. Here mullioned windows are still retained, but the cornices, breaking out into pediments, and the gables crowned also with pediments, indicate the impending change.

It would seem as though the small size of the lights of mullioned windows had begun to be irksome before the solution of the difficulty by the adoption of sash windows. Accordingly round-headed lights of double the usual width were sometimes introduced among the small oblong lights, as may be seen in the drawing of the house of wood and plaster which formerly stood in High Street, Southwark (Fig. 151). Gables are still retained here, and also the old fashion of bringing forward the upper storeys beyond the lower. But indications of the change to a later treatment are to be found not only in the round-headed lights with their wood key-stones, but in the character of the ornamental plasterwork. If this street front is compared with that in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, by John Webb (Fig. 153), the completeness of the impending change will be more readily grasped. In the later example there are no gables, no mullioned windows, no lead-lights. Instead we have a well-developed classic cornice with a row of dormers above it, sash windows, and bold pilasters, carefully proportioned. If again Sparrow’s House at Ipswich (Fig. 154) were remodelled, as alleged, subsequently to the Restoration, it is a striking instance of the survival of the old-fashioned methods of treatment. But in the absence of any definite evidence it is probable that whatever was done in the time of Charles II., including the modelling of his arms in plaster, was merely a renovation. In style, at any rate, it is a step later than the house in Southwark. The windows in both cases are of the same family, but instead of the walls being finished by gables, they are crowned with a heavy classic cornice.

Another example of the transition is to be seen at Cold Overton in Leicestershire (Fig. 155), an interesting although somewhat plain house built among the grassy slopes beloved of hunting men. Here the mullioned windows are survivals from the ancient ways; even more so is the projecting porch, with its round-arched doorway flanked by columns and surmounted by a four-light window; while the plain flat bands which replace the old profiled strings, and the wide, flat-pitched gable belong to the newer methods of design. The date of this house is not known, but it must be in the earlier half of the century, and some of the work inside, notably the staircase with its dog-gate (Fig. 144), is frankly Jacobean in character. The survival of old ways in remote places is well shown in the vicarage at Burford in Oxfordshire, a house dated 1672 (Fig. 156). Here there is no attempt at pronounced classic. The roof is gabled, it has no cornice of any account; the windows are mullioned, and the dormers retain some of the fantastic curls of the early years of the century. Nevertheless, in the plainness and precision of the whole treatment, in the flat shape of the mullions, and in the ovals of the dormers, the experienced eye can detect the march of Time. When it is remembered that this house was built when Wren was in the midst of his career, it will be realised how distinct were the two streams of design already alluded to—the stately, guided by great artists; the homely, guided by unknown artisans.