Chapter 20

Fig. 249.—Gateway at Barrow Gurney, Somerset.

Fig. 250.—Gateway in the Close, Salisbury.

Fig. 251.—Gate-Pier at Uffington, near Stamford.J. A. Gotch,del.

Fig. 251.—Gate-Pier at Uffington, near Stamford.

J. A. Gotch,del.

The tendency being, as already pointed out, towards a plain treatment of the exterior, largely owing to the substitution of sash-windows for mullioned, some amount of relief was imparted by a rich treatment of the principal door, but there came a time when even this modicum of decoration was abandoned, and the exterior of a house was dealt with on purely utilitarian principles, the necessary openings being provided, but devoid of any attempt at ornament. But before this last stage of imaginative poverty, or inertia maybe, was reached, doorways were provided which gave a touch of fancy to an otherwise bald front. The form of circular hood, supported by carved brackets and filled with a fluted cove, usually described as a shell, is a commonfeature of the work of the end of the seventeenth century and twenty years later. An example from Castle Combe, in Wiltshire, is shown in Fig.252. The centre from which the flutings radiate is here occupied by a small shield of arms. There is a rather plainer rendering of the same idea at Oundle, in Northamptonshire (Fig.253). Another rich form of hood, with straight outlines, may still be found in out-of-the-way streets and lanes in London, where the necessity for radical changes has not yet arisen. A simple form of this idea is shown in Fig.257, where one hood covers two contiguous doorways. A treatment very commonly adopted was that shown in the example from York (Fig.255), where the circular-headed doorway is covered with a pediment supported by pilasters; the semicircular space over the door is filled with a fanlight divided by thick bars. In this case the bars are simple in form, but they were often curved into curious patterns, surprising in their variety, and suggesting that the designers of the time had no lack of ingenuity had circumstances allowed them to display it. The extinguisher to the left of the doorway should be noted. It is a reminder of the times when there was no public lighting of the streets, when indeed the casual illumination from shops and from houses, private and public, was of the feeblest, and citizens had to find their way home through thoroughfares where no scavenger was employed, by the light of torches, which they extinguished as they entered their houses.[82]

Fig. 252.—DOORWAY AT CASTLE COMBE,Wiltshire.

Fig. 253.—Doorway at Oundle, Northamptonshire.

Fig. 254.—Doorway in Mark Lane, London.

Fig. 255.—A Doorway in York.

Fig. 256.—Doorways at Norwich.

Fig. 257.—Nos. 16 and 18 Fournier Street, London.

Fig. 258.—Door, 22 Buckingham Street, Strand.

Of the same type as the last is the doorway at No. 33 MarkLane, London (Fig.254), but it is far more elaborate, and served as the entrance to one of the fine private houses which lined Mark Lane, but which now are utilised as offices, if by chance they have escaped the wholesale demolition and rebuilding which expanding commerce entails. Another good example is to be seen in Buckingham Street, Strand (Fig.258). Of later date is the double porch at Norwich (Fig.256), which is simple and dignified, and will so remain as long as the two occupants are of the same mind as to the colour it should be painted. It will be noticed that in all these examples the doorway is the only feature of interest; the surrounding work is quite plain. Atthe Stationers’ Hall, in London (Fig.259), we get a still later treatment, dating from the year 1800, when Robert Mylne cased the building with stone. The iron standards were probably devised to carry lamps, which shed enough light to help incomers up the steps; but all things are relative, and doubtless, at the time, two oil lamps were considered a brilliant illumination.

Fig. 259.—Doorway at Stationers’ Hall, London.

Fig. 260.—House at Yarmouth.

Here and there in old towns are to be found two-storied porches projecting from the face of a house like that at Yarmouth (Fig.260), which is the central feature of a front rather more elaborately treated than usual. In this casethe porch stands on its own ground, but occasionally porches were built over part of the pavement, and the public traffic passed through them. It would be impossible for a private owner to take such liberty in the present day, when plans have to be submitted to the local council; but in those far-offtimes men of influence did many things which nobody was bold enough to stop; and while heartily agreeing that private interests must be subordinated to public, we may, perhaps, indulge in feelings of secret gratification that among our ancestors individuality had more play than is possible in these well ordered times. Another picturesque but, strictly speaking, intolerable effort at design is to be seen at The Martins, Chipping Campden (Fig.261). The great truncated corner pilaster, the porch with its cornice running into the window, can be defended on no grounds save that there they are. But so imperfect is our nature that this bit of haphazard composition gives more pleasure than many a more correct attempt at design; a pleasure allied, perhaps, to that cynical satisfaction we experience in watching shortcomings in our friends from which we ourselves are free.

The ironwork of the early eighteenth century is one of its most remarkable productions. In England ironwork design seems to have burst suddenly into full splendour, without any gradual preparation. There are no elaborate specimens to be found throughout the seventeenth century until its close, nor are there any drawings by Thorpe, Smithson, Jones, or Webb, which lead one to suppose that they treated ironwork in any but the simplest way. But with the advent in 1689 of Jean Tijou, a native of France, who was probably brought over from the Netherlands by Queen Mary, consort of William III., the whole aspect was changed, and a school of clever blacksmiths grew up who filled the country, and more especially London and its suburbs, with beautiful bits of design in gates, fences, sign-boards, mace-holders in churches, balustrades of staircases, screens, and other objects where iron could be employed. Their work is marked by great judgment in varying the sizes of the iron bars and scrolls, by the variety and elaboration of the design, and by the judicious introduction of thin sheet iron, hammered and modelled into foliage or some heraldic device. The craftsmen seem to have known exactly how to handle their material so as to combine strength with lightness, vigour with delicacy, the open effect of scroll-work with the solid effect of foliage. The due mixture of the curved line with the straight, the growth of one from the other, the repetition of straight lines in suitable positions, all seem to have come to them by intuition which seldom erred. Of the immense amount of workwhich still survives, the proportion of weak, unmeaning, or ill-adapted design is infinitesimal. Something, no doubt, they owed to France, but they worked largely on their own lines, and established a school of design which is essentially English.

Fig. 261.—The Martins, Chipping Campden, 1714.

Fig. 262.—Part of Iron Screen, Hampton Court Palace.

Fig. 263.—Iron Gateway, Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire.

Tijou worked for Queen Mary at Hampton Court, where he placed some of the richest screens and gates which the country can boast. A portion of his work is illustrated in Fig.262. He also executed some splendid ironwork at Chatsworth, Burghley, and St Paul’s, London. The balustrade to the king’s staircase at Hampton Court (Fig.264) may also in all probability be assigned to him. He must have had assistants, among whom Huntingdon Shaw, of Nottingham, has been reckoned the chief, and indeed the actual work on the screens at Hampton Courthas been claimed as his; but recent investigations show conclusively that the claim cannot be sustained.[83]Another of Tijou’s assistants was Robert Bakewell, who settled in Derby and was widely employed in the Midlands. To him, perhaps, we owe the gates at Stoneleigh Abbey, illustrated in Fig.263, although tradition says that these were brought here from Watergate, a dismantled mansion beyond Southam.[84]The ironwork in and round London may be largely attributed to Thomas Robinson and his successors, and it would appear that skilful smiths settled in different centres in England, round which they influenced the work over a wide area. Bristol was the home of such a man, William Edney by name, and that he was an accomplished craftsman is proved by the magnificent gates at St Mary Redcliffe (Fig.265), which date from 1710.

Fig. 264.—Balustrade to the King’s Staircase, Hampton Court.

Fig. 265.—IRON GATES AT ST MARY REDCLIFFE, BRISTOL.

Fig. 266.—Gateway formerly at Quenby Hall, Leicestershire.Museum, Leicester.

Fig. 266.—Gateway formerly at Quenby Hall, Leicestershire.

Museum, Leicester.

Examples without number could be produced of English ironwork of this period, but space forbids any but a few specimens being cited. There was a splendid gateway at Quenby Hall, Leicestershire, with elaborate iron piers, now infront of the museum at Leicester (Fig.266).[85]The four examples shown in Figs.268–271are of far simpler design, but they are worth careful study, and are typical of the ordinary work of the time. In the gate from Acton the solid work is aptly introduced and gives it richness and importance; the others exhibit a judicious combination of simplicity and richness which is quite admirable. Indeed the ironwork of the early part of the eighteenth century has never been bettered either in design or execution.

Fig. 267.—Lead Cistern in the possession of Mr L. A. Shuffrey.

Fig. 268.—Gate at Elm Hall, Snaresbrook.A. H. Ough,del.

Fig. 268.—Gate at Elm Hall, Snaresbrook.

A. H. Ough,del.

Fig. 269.—Gate at Acton, now demolished.Launcelot Fedder,del.

Fig. 269.—Gate at Acton, now demolished.

Launcelot Fedder,del.

Fig. 270.—Gate at Lawn House, Woodford Road, London.A. H. Ough,del.

Fig. 270.—Gate at Lawn House, Woodford Road, London.

A. H. Ough,del.

Fig. 271.—Gate at Romford Road, Stratford, near London.G. G. Poston,del.

Fig. 271.—Gate at Romford Road, Stratford, near London.

G. G. Poston,del.

Fig. 272.—Lead Rain-Water Head, High Street, Birmingham.

Fig. 273.—Lead Rain-Water Head at the Aylesford Hotel, Warwick.

Ornamental leadwork was a characteristic feature of English houses as early as the time of Elizabeth, and many beautiful rain-water heads of that period still survive. They had worthy successors all through the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth. Some of the rain-water heads at St John’s College, Oxford, of the time of Charles I., are splendid things of their kind. Many houses built during the next hundred years retain fine examples of similar features (Fig.272), and indeed, as long as it was necessary to fashion such things by hand, thecraftsman imparted character to his work even if it was of a simple and unobtrusive kind (Fig.273); but with the advent of the speculative builder, the number of such things required, and the necessity of a rapid and cheap supply, led to more expeditious methods, and with the advent of cast-iron heads a general level of dullness and monotony was reached. The scope of lead ornament was necessarily restricted, it was only here and there that it was applicable; the other direction in which it was largely used was in cisterns or troughs of which examples occasionally occur, but lead being always a marketable commodity, most of these objects, when once out of use, were sold for melting and re-use. Some good examples dated 1728, 1714 and 1755 are shown in Figs.267,274.

Fig. 274.—Two Examples of Lead Cisterns.

Fig. 275.—THE STAIRCASE, KING’S WESTON,Gloucestershire.

The English craftsman has always been able to do good work when he has had the opportunity. Even during the period when house design may be held to be void of interest, there are numberless examples of fittings, or furniture, or household articles which show his skill, and if a free and reasonable view of design is maintained, there is every prospect of his doing as good work in the future as he has done in the past.

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