THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE EXPLAINED TREVOR YORKE COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS NEWBURY BERKSHIRE First published 2012 © Trevor Yorke 2012 All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without the prior permission of the publisher: COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS 3 Catherine Road Newbury, Berkshire To view our complete range of books, please visit us at www.countrysidebooks.co.uk ISBN 978 1 84674 301 6 Designed by Peter Davies, Nautilus Design Produced through MRM Associates Ltd., Reading Typeset by CJWT Solutions, St Helens Printed by Information Press, Oxford CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 5 SECTION I COUNTRY HOUSE STYLES THROUGH THE AGES 7 Chapter 1 CHIVALRY AND GLUTTONY 1300–1560 8 Chapter 2 WEALTH AND THE HUMANITIES 1560–1660 15 Chapter 3 COMMERCE AND SCIENCE 1660–1720 24 Chapter 4 LIBERTY AND SENSIBILITY 1720–1800 33 Chapter 5 EMPIRE AND INDUSTRY 1800–1914 45 THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE EXPLAINED SECTION II THE COUNTRY HOUSE IN DETAIL 63 Chapter 6 INTERIOR STRUCTURES 64 Chapter 7 THE UPSTAIRS ROOMS 75 Chapter 8 THE DOWNSTAIRS ROOMS 87 Chapter 9 THE GARDENS AND ESTATE 100 SECTION III QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE 114 PLACES TO VISIT 115 FURTHER INFORMATION 121 TIMECHART 122 GLOSSARY 123 INDEX 126 Introduction he English country house is an Despite no one country house being imposing record of aristocratic the same as another, there are Twealth, innovative architecture underlying trends, fashionable layouts and fashionable interior design; a and technical developments which can glorious museum of world art and be recognised underneath its unique personal history bottled up in one and personal details. A trip to these unique building. More than this, it wonderful yet bewildering houses can reflects the whims of its owners, their be enlightened if you can recognise family’s ancestry, and the lives of the familiar forms in the building, date countless staff who helped develop and some of the decorative trimmings, and run the house, its gardens and estate. It identify from which period the interior also highlights periods of cultural fittings belong. This book sets out to isolation when owners stuck with tried empower the reader to do just this, to and tested methods or domestic historic explain how and why country houses styles, in contrast to times when the developed and to show the details in minds of the ruling classes were the structure which can help date its enlightened by wonders from the various parts. My own drawings, Ancient World, or exotic forms from diagrams and photographs clearly and the far corners of the globe. concisely convey this information, with Each building evolved in a different a text that focuses on the elements you way. Some have at their heart a can see and appreciate today. Any medieval timber-framed structure; unfamiliar terms are explained or others, while appearing of the same contained in a glossary. antiquity, are copies, barely over 100 The English Country House years old. It will be found that most are Explained is divided into three sections. not one complete project. The costs of The first covers five time slots from the erecting such huge structures in late medieval period when country expensive materials, with the finest houses first developed up to the 20th interior fittings, were so vast that even century when they began to be boarded the wealthiest families often built one up and sold off. Each slot describes the part at a time. Many will also show fashionable changes which affected the signs of the money having run out; structure and the interior layout and houses with odd proportions or with a decoration of the building. The second wing missing can reflect an over- section goes inside the building and ambitious owner or cutbacks in the looks at the different styles of interior 20th century when aristocratic rule had fittings which can help date them and come to an end. the changing fashions of the various 5 THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE EXPLAINED principal rooms. It also goes behind the green baize door and describes the working hub of the house: the service rooms in which the household staff spent most of their lives and the garden and estate which helped feed, finance and enter- tain these aristocratic families. Finally, there is a quick refer- ence guide, with details of houses featured in the book and a few others of note which can be visited, the glossary of architectural terms and a list of websites and books for further information. Trevor Yorke FIG 0.1: Drawings of an Arts and Crafts (top) and timber-framed house (left) with labels of some of the key elements which can be found on country houses. 6 SECTION I COUNTRY HOUSE STYLES THROUGH THE AGES 7 CHAPTER 1 Chivalry and Gluttony Late Medieval and Tudor Houses 1300–1560 FIG 1.1: LITTLE MORETON HALL, CHESHIRE: This rambling timber-framed house has, at its core, a 15th-century hall which over the following century was added to, with the famous gatehouse range pictured here being the final piece of the jigsaw in the 1570s. Typically for the period the composition of the house is irregular as rules on symmetry and proportions were unknown to its builder so it did not seem to matter that this main front, with its spectacular row of windows, had a garderobe tower (a toilet block) prominently positioned in the middle! o start our journey through the back some 700 years to the Middle history of the English country Ages. It was a time when military might Thouse, we need to turn the clock and the respect it commanded were of 8 CHIVALRY AND GLUTTONY primary importance in the life of an entertainment (anything from half to aspiring lord of the manor. His three-quarters of his total budget would household officers were his show of have been spent on food and drink), but strength, with the size of his personal he also had to build somewhere to army and its loyalty to him acting as a house them and his increasingly large barometer of his standing among household. By the 15th century, castles fellow nobles. He, in return, provided a and manor houses had been expanded roof over their heads and regarded to form the basis of what we would them as an extended family. term a country house. This community would travel with their lord as he moved from one of The Style of Houses his estates to another; a surprisingly In this period the exterior style was not frequent event, perhaps occurring every a major consideration in the design of couple of months or so, and involving a houses. They were laid out with huge baggage train in which even the domestic function and military owner’s bed was taken along! This requirements in mind, hence they portable household, which included a would appear to be a jumble of wide social spectrum from young buildings set around a courtyard aristocratic knights down to local surrounded by crenellated walls, a peasant boys, could number into the moat, and accessed through an hundreds, although many would have imposing gatehouse. Even though been based on one estate and only defensive features would hardly ever be worked when the lord was visiting. As tested in the relatively peaceful counties these medieval manor houses were derived from the castles of the 11th and 12th centuries, they still played the role of a barracks and, hence, most of the household were male, even the entire kitchen staff. At the head of this family stood the lord, a military leader and faithful Christian, strong in his dispensation of justice, yet hospitable to strangers at his door; a chivalrous and graceful socialite, as much at ease with the dance or the pen as with the horse and sword; FIG 1.2: STOKESAY CASTLE, and although few would ever have SHROPSHIRE: This manor house close attained this ideal image, these were the to the Welsh border had defensive expectations heaped on the aspiring features like a tower (right) but later noble. Therefore, not only did he have additions, as with the 14th-century hall to worry about impressing his guests (centre), were more focused on luxury with huge banquets, feasts and and status. 9 THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE EXPLAINED FIG 1.3: Medieval framing, with its distinctive large panels and thicker, irregular timbers (left), was replaced during the 15th century by close-studding (centre) mainly in the south and east of the country, and small square-framing in the Midlands and the north; the finest with decorative pieces inserted to form elaborate patterns (right and Fig 1.1). away from the turbulent border timber specially reserved for the lord regions, they were used by the owners from within his manor being used in as statements of power and wealth; most other regions. Although the some even making their houses in the Romans introduced brick to these form of castles and naming them thus. shores, after they departed it was not The buildings were generally used again until the Late Medieval vernacular, that is they were built using period, when it became a fashionable local materials and craftsmen. Only the material for the finest buildings in the wealthiest aristocrats, the Crown and eastern counties. the Church would import stone or use a notable mason or carpenter from The Layout of Houses outside the region. Most would have The plan of the main parts of the house constructed the main parts of the house was influenced by the move away from using methods passed down through the open communal living towards more generations; with the only concession to privacy for the lord and his family, a fashion appearing in the detailing, like progressive change which was not the shape of a window and door, or the complete until the 18th century.