Sarah Holland Presents EASTERN DELIGHTS

BY DEREK HOLLAND Copyright

Published by Sarah Holland in November 2012

ISBN 978-1-909468-00-9

Copyright © Sarah Holland All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

i Eastern Delights

Tudor to Georgian Buildings in Eastern England

By Derek Holland

ii Dedication

This memorial edition is drawn from the research and writings of Inevitably, his passion for the buildings and history of England, my late father, Derek Holland. Derek was a historian and tutor and his vast knowledge of the subject, meant that he continued to who wrote, published work and lectured predominantly on build- research and write. The buildings of Eastern England became a ings, landscapes and history. He developed a passion for the build- multi-volumed work, expanded to cover a larger geographical area, ings of Eastern England, and was commissioned to write a volume a longer time period, and to encompass additional building types in a series of books about the buildings of England. Unfortu- such as castles and fortifications. nately, the series was never completed and the manuscript remained Following my father’s death, and the success of the digital version unpublished. of ‘A Yorkshire Town - The Making of Doncaster’, I decided that Many a family holiday saw us exploring the buildings and land- ‘Eastern Delights’ deserved a wider audience. This book is the scapes of Eastern England, whether it be Norfolk, Cambridgeshire original one that my father wrote and revised. It may be possible at or Lincolnshire. Never did my father’s research impinge upon the a future date to publish the expanded versions, but in the meantime excitement or fun of these holidays, it was seamlessly incorporated I hope you enjoy these ‘Eastern Delights’. and provided me with plenty of inspiration which I am now able to My thanks go to Louise Robinson, who transformed the original draw upon. manuscript into a digital format ensuring my father’s work lives on. At home, many hours were spent crafting the text into a detailed To introduce each chapter I have written a small piece which links and accessible account of the buildings and their history. Collec- my experiences of my father’s research with my current perspectives. tively, my mother, sister and myself contributed to this project, whether it be in discussions about where Eastern England covered, the physical typing process, accompanying my father on field trips, acting as sounding boards, or simply by being there. Sarah Holland November 2012.

iii About...

Derek Holland Sarah Holland Derek was a passionate historian who special- Sarah is a social and agricultural historian ised in buildings, landscapes and social his- who, like her father, has an infectious enthusi- tory. He was educated at schools in Doncaster asm for her work. She lectures at Sheffield and at the University of Nottingham. Upon Hallam University and for the WEA, as well qualification he began a career in adult educa- as undertaking bespoke educational work in tion, both as tutor and as an organising tutor the field of history and heritage. Her passion for the Workers’ Educational Association for history and heritage began as a child ex- (WEA) in South Yorkshire. He never tired of ploring the past on family holidays. She im- sharing his wealth of knowledge with other parts both knowledge and enjoyment when people, and inspiring them to explore the heri- she teaches, and relishes the challenge of tage on their doorstep and further afield. In bringing her research to a wider audience. In addition he encouraged several groups to re- her spare time she enjoys travelling, and has search and publish local history projects. recently combined this with giving papers as part of her PhD research. If you are interested in her work then follow her at sarahholland3012.wordpress.com

iv A Selection of other Published Books and Articles by Derek Holland

Warmsworth in the 18th Century: Population Change, Agriculture, and Derek Holland also edited several WEA publications - one of Quarrying in a Rural South Yorkshire Community (Doncaster, 1965) which has been recently re-published. "An Edlington Account Book of the Early 18th Century", in History in Laughton-en-le-Morthen (1st pub. 1969, revised 2012) South Yorkshire Historian, 2 (1973) If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the Laughton Bawtry and the Idle River Trade (2nd edn.; Doncaster, 1976) book (paperback) please contact me. "Made in Doncaster: Jackson's Cheswold Motor Car", in South Yorkshire Historian, 3 (1976) Some of these publications, and others by the author (includ- Changing Landscapes in South Yorkshire (Doncaster, 1980) ing works edited by), are available to read in the Doncaster "Local Communities in South Yorkshire: The Framework of Local Studies Library and Doncaster Archives. Society, 1750-1850", in South Yorkshire Historian, 4 (1980) “Jigsaws of Building History: Three Parish Churches in the It is hoped that further works by the author of this book will Lower Don Valley”, in B. Elliott (ed), Aspects of Doncaster: Dis- be digitised in the future. covering Local History 2 (Barnsley, 1999) “Bawtry: History in the Townscape”, in Aspects of Doncaster: If you are interested in receiving information about these Discovering Local History 2 (Barnsley, 1999) then you can follow my blog sarahhollad3012.wordpress.com “A Yorkshire Town - The Making of Doncaster”, eBook edi- and enquiries can be made to [email protected] tion September 2012

v Chapter 1 COLLEGES, SCHOOLS & ALMSHOUSES

I have particularly fond memories of exploring the streets of Cambridge as a child as my father researched and wrote this chapter. The elegant facades and the courtyards beyond appeared magical to a young child. Of course these centres of scholarly excellence have taken on new meaning as I have embarked upon my own university studies, the latest being my PhD research. Whether a grand college or a small village school, the buildings discussed in this chapter had a profound impact on the landscape, as well as on the lives of those who entered through their doors.

Photograph taken by Enid Holland, 1989 - Trinity College, Cambridge COLLEGES, SCHOOLS, & ALMSHOUSES Several projects illustrate the wealth and diversity of building work going on in early Tudor Cambridge, reflecting the benefits Cambridge Colleges: of peace and prosperity ushered in under Henry VII and Henry VIII. This period saw the completion in 1508-15, under master During the Middle Ages Cambridge was transformed from a mason John Wastell, of the great Perpendicular limestone busy little commercial centre - of some 500 households in chapel begun by Henry VI in 1446 at King's College. The great c1200 - into one of Europe's main educational centres. From vault planned c1480 was executed in 1512-15, as were the the University's foundation in the early 13th century, with a mi- side-chapel vaults, and the interior furnishings of the chapel are gration of scholars from Oxford in 1209 and from Paris in 1229, early Tudor work. The lofty vault, the light and space of the it attracted a long series of benefactors from kings, queens, no- building as a whole, the fantastic early Renaissance wooden bles, and clergy for the establishment of halls and colleges. screen of the early 1530s with its trumpeting angels, and the Sites in the old commercial centre of the 12th and 13th centu- contemporary choir stalls, together with a wonderful array of ries were gradually turned into college complexes, principally early 16th century stained glass, cannot fail to inspire visitors along the eastern bank of the river Cam. To the one college from generation to generation. Nowhere else in England can be founded in the 13th century were added five in the 14th century, seen such a fine display of woodwork and glass from the early six in the 15th century, six in the 16th century, and one in the 16th century. 18th century. Thus, the most prolific period of college founda- tion came between the 14th and 16th centuries, with a falling-off Jesus College was founded in 1497 by Bishop Alcock of Ely, af- during the 17th and 18th centuries. Between 1550 and 1750 ter Henry VII had permitted him to dissolve the small Benedic- only three new colleges were founded in Cambridge, all of them tine nunnery of St Radegund, on the edge of Cambridge. The in the second half of the 16th century. After the Elizabethan ex- college buildings are set well north of Jesus Lane, and are ap- pansion came stagnation and decline, and the numbers of stu- proached along a path leading down to the tall brick gateway of dents matriculating confirm this picture - 265 in 1600, 280 in c1500. To the left (west) of the gateway an early 16th century 1660, 190 in 1700, 150 in 1750, and 150 in 1800. brick range adjoins, and this was built as a grammar school. The facing north range of the outer court was built in the late 1630s and early 1640s. Immediately to the east lies Cloister Court, which is the nunnery cloister adapted and partly rebuilt to become college buildings. The nunnery church along the south

7 side of the cloister, became the college chapel, which was So the years 1550-1750 offered few opportunities for the build- mainly adapted by demolition of the nave aisles and choir ing of newly-founded colleges. Yet these years are among aisles. some of the most fruitful for explorers of Cambridge College ar- chitecture. Careful management of college estates in times of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and mother of agricultural prosperity, together with benefactions, yielded Henry VII, founded Christ's College in 1505, taking over the money to spend on new buildings, in response to physical dete- premises and lands of God's House, itself founded in 1442. rioration, to changes in religion, to changing standards of do- The gateway, though recased in the mid-18th century, is the mestic comfort, and (in some colleges) rising numbers of fel- showpiece of her time. Lady Margaret, who died in 1509, also lows, provided the urge to do so. founded St John's College under the terms of her will. The First Court dates from 1511-20 and includes sets of rooms and the In 1556, after long study of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and medicine, hall, though the chapel was demolished in Victorian times. The at both Cambridge and Padua, and travels to Rome, Florence, hall, originally 70 ft. long, was extended to 110 ft. In 1862-5, to and Bologna, Dr John Caius returned to England and became a make more space for the greater numbers then in college. physician in London. He was a staunch supporter of the old re- Much of the original hammer beam roof (finished by 1540) sur- ligion and formulated his plans for a new college whilst Mary vives, though was redecorated in 1868. St John's College is en- was still Queen. He was a Cambridge graduate and a Fellow of tered from St John's Street via the gateway of pink brick, with Gonville, and decided to refound "that poor house now called limestone dressings. It has a statue of St John (a replacement Gonville Hall", originally founded in 1348 at the time of the Black of 1662) and the appropriate early Tudor display of heraldry. Death. The foundation charter was dated 1557, and Caius was made master in 1559. His mastership was soured by sharp re- Trinity College was founded by King Henry VIII in 1546, taking ligious and personal differences between himself and the fel- over the medieval King's Hall. Great Gate was built mostly be- lows, and (after the sacking of the master's lodge in 1572) he tween 1528 and 1535, though work had started in 1518-19. resigned and died in the same year. When first completed the Great Gate stood alone, and it's size and majesty probably indicate what was planned for the rest of Yet these years were marked by striking architectural innova- the court, which was not further advanced until Mary's reign. tion. Two sides of Caius Court were built in 1565-7, but most significant were the three symbolic gateways built to mark stu- dents' progress through college. The Gate of Humility reflected

8 the ideal state of mind of scholars entering the college, whilst in the construction c1540 of President's Gallery along the east- the Gate of Virtue was meant to typify their progress through col- ern side of Cloister Court at Queens' College. Yet, even so, the lege. The Gate of Honour led students out of college towards timbered two-storey oriel windows are supported on wooden the Old Schools, where they received their degrees. The Gate Ionic columns. of Virtue (1567) was so completely Renaissance in its design that the Cambridge of the 1560s had nothing comparable. A Emmanuel College was founded by Sir Walter Mildmay, a Puri- semi-circular-headed archway, with windows above and tan, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer early in Elizabeth's crowned by a triangular pediment at roof level, occupies the cen- reign. The site - occupied by a Dominican friary before the Dis- tre of the gateway, whilst its limits are defined by three orders of solution - was purchased in 1583, and the college founded in pilasters. Such gateways are known from mid-16th century Italy 1584. Its buildings were ready for use by 1558, some of them and France. The Gate of Honour (completed in 1575, after being converted friary buildings; for example, the friary church Caius' death) has a wealth of Renaissance motifs, but they became the college hall. Some new buildings were erected by were assembled in a particularly Elizabethan manner. The gate- Ralph Symons, and the plain Puritan chapel had a north-south way is bulbous and crowded, and it's archway is actually four- alignment. Emmanuel became increasingly Puritan, and was centred Gothic. Above is an impressive blank portico crowned Cambridge's leading college in the early 17th century. Over by a triangular pediment. The whole composition is topped by a one-third of the Cambridge men, who went to New England be- roof, which looks as if it had been designed for a roof pavilion in fore the English Civil War, were from Emmanuel. During the an Elizabethan country mansion. Equally lively in its native clas- Commonwealth period eleven Cambridge college masterships sicism was Dr Caius' monument in the college chapel. went to Emmanuel men, and the College's numbers increased at this time. James Essex's ashlaring of the college hall in 1764 The sharp architectural contrasts of the period can be seen else- transformed its external character, whilst the traditional plan re- where in Cambridge. The huge, 205-feet-long chapel of Trinity mained. It was refitted internally at the same time. It has the College was designed and begun in Mary's reign (1555) and fin- usual arrangement of entrance and screens passage at one ished during Elizabeth's (1567). It is completely Gothic, with end and large bay windows (mullion and transom) lighting the large Perpendicular windows, buttresses and pinnacles, and high table at the other. Despite restoration, these bay windows was a visual expression of the brief return to Catholicism under conform to their Elizabethan prototype. Mary Tudor. Shortly before that, the East Anglian timber-framed tradition had found one of its latest expressions in Cambridge,

9 The late Elizabethan and early Stuart buildings of Trinity Col- First Court. The gateway giving entry from First Court to Sec- lege illustrate another rare shift of emphasis from a native Eng- ond Court has a statue of the Countess of Shrewsbury (added lish style to one directly influenced by the Italian Renaissance. in 1671) and a display of Tudor dynastic and Shrewsbury family Dr Thomas Neville became Master of Trinity in 1593, and initi- heraldry. ated several interesting projects. The hall was built in 1604-5 to the design of Ralph Symons of Berkhamstead, a freemason of One of the most charming early 17th century buildings in Cam- Westminster, who had worked at St John's College from 1598 to bridge is St John's College Library of 1623-4, paid for by Bishop 1602. This has the traditional college hall plan, and the architec- John Williams of Lincoln, Keeper of the Great Seal. It now ture is still a combination of Gothic and Elizabethan - eg the bay forms the north side of the later Third Court at St John's, and window at the dias end. Only in the entrance is there any fla- was built with its gabled-end to the riverside. The books were vour of the Renaissance; it has a semi-circular arch, flanked by housed on the first floor, safely away from the water. Built of Ionic columns, and the whole composition is topped by a large brick, on a stone base with stone dressings, it is completely thoroughly-Elizabethan strapwork display. The stone fountain in Gothic, except for Mannerist touches to complete its gable. In- Great Court, erected in 1602, displays Renaissance forms in its deed, it represents one of the earliest self-conscious usages of Tuscan columns and semi-circular arches around its octagonal the Gothic style in the 17th century. This building now provides plan. But again, it is capped by a coronet of typically Elizabe- a wonderful traditional counterpoint to the Cripps' Building of the than strapwork. Far more ambitious than either of these build- 1960s on the opposite bank. ings was the new Neville's Court. The classical splendour of Neville's Court (open on the riverside, until the 1670s) was sim- Peterhouse saw an expansion of its numbers in Elizabethan ply unparalleled, either in Cambridge or the English province times, and in the early 17th century the college became Laudian generally, in the early 1600s. Tuscan columns and semi- (High Anglican) and Royalist. A new chapel was begun under circular arches support rooms over, forming a colonade, which Dr Matthew Wren, on the east side of the front court. It was con- would not have looked out of place in Italy. secrated in 1632, and the service included the full array of the Laudian liturgy. The exterior design included Perpendicular A gift from the Countess of Shrewsbury enabled St John's Col- Gothic tracery and ogee-headed niches, four-centred blank ar- lege to add Second Court in 1598-1602. The brick buildings cades and doorways, but these traditional motifs were com- were designed by Ralph Symons and Gilbert Wigge, in a style bined with the newer motifs of scrolly gable, ball finials, Ionic pi- kept deliberately close to the work of the early 16th century in lasters, and classical pediment. Either side of the chapel ran a

10 gallery over a classical loggia, with semi-circular arches and Inevitably, the Civil War brought a lull in Cambridge college Ionic columns. building activity. After the Restoration of 1660 several new schemes were soon in hand, and these years were marked by In 1638-40 John Westley began a complete rebuilding of Clare Christopher Wren's contributions to the scene. In 1663 he de- College; it was interrupted by the Civil War, restarted after the signed Pembroke College Chapel, and the finished building was Restoration and continued into the early years of the 18th cen- consecrated two years later - the gift to the college of Dr Mat- tury. Alternate bays project slightly, and the windows are mul- thew Wren, the architect's uncle, who became Bishop of Ely in lioned. Hipped dormers are partially hidden by a classical balus- 1663. He had studied here in the early 17th century, and now trade, and classical motifs appear on the chimney stacks. How- decided upon a thank-offering to his old college. Italian pattern- ever, the entrance bay is flanked by ogee-headed niches, these book architecture showed Wren the way to a building with re- being evidence of Gothic revival. The oriel window has a scrolly strained pediments. In short, it is Cambridge's earliest pure clas- segmental pediment of Baroque influence, and the scrolly deco- sical building. Corinthian pilasters, semi-circular-headed win- rations on the gable hide angels. dows, triangular pediments, a cupola and urns, all combined to make Pembroke Chapel the most modern building of Cam- The Fellows' Building at Christ's College is the most important bridge in the mid-1660s. mid-17th century building in Cambridge; although its designer is unknown, it evidently owed much to the followers of Indigo After the Restoration William Sancroft returned to Emmanuel Jones. Dating from 1640-5 (masonry finished by 1642), it is College as master; Emmanuel was the largest Cambridge col- solid, symmetrical, and built in isolation away from the old court. lege at this time. He realigned the college, as Commonwealth Triangular pediments alternate with semi-circular pediments Puritanism gave way to Restoration High Anglicanism. Sancroft over doorways, cross-windows, and dormers. From the rusti- decided to replace the Puritan chapel with a new building, which cated ground-floor windows up to the balustrade, the three and would set the seal on the college's new regime. A site was cho- a half storey building is thoroughly classical. The little semi- sen in the middle of the main court's eastern side, and Wren circular crenellations sitting on top of the balustrade probably de- was appointed as architect. Designed in 1666 and begun in rive from those on the St John's Library. The Fellows' Building 1668, it was completed in 1674. The chapel was decorated at Christ's remained Cambridge's most modern building for the with an array of classical motifs and a colonnade was built next twenty years. along the eastern side of the court, but the flavour of the whole was more Baroque than pure classical. A lively Baroque frieze

11 decorates the gable facing the court, and it's great broken trian- Court, to accommodate increased numbers. The earliest third gular pediment is pierced by a giant clock crowned with a cu- court to be added to a Cambridge college was at Gonville and pola. Caius in 1617, but that was demolished in the 19th century. Thus Third Court at St John's is the earliest survivor of such ex- Wren's Cambridge masterpiece was his Trinity College Library, pansion, begun in 1669 and finished externally by 1671 (the begun in 1676 and finished in 1690. Originally envisaged by date on the curved west gable of the south range). Its south him as a circular library, it was eventually commissioned as a range is two rooms deep, the first Cambridge instance of such a rectangular building to complete Neville's Court on its riverside plan, as all previous ranges were only one room deep. Built of front. Built of Ketton limestone, it's pink and cream hues glow brick, with stone dressings, the west range is the showpiece, magnificently in the summer sunlight along the 150 feet of its with an elegant classical colonnade at ground level and rooms river frontage. The books were housed at first floor level, and over, reached through ground-floor doors behind the colonnade. the tall bookcases placed between the windows at right-angles The central bay is emphasised and crowned by a broken semi- to the walls. These bookcases were carved with fruit and flow- circular pediment, with a pedestal and ball finial in the centre. ers by Grinling Gibbons. Trinity Library is of immense scale, The range has both cross windows and mullioned windows. compared with the early 17th century work in Neville's Court. The semi-circular crenellations on the parapet were probably de- Below the library is a broad colonnaded walk, so wide that a rived from those on St John's Library, and also echoed the main middle row of Tuscan columns was built to support the library gables of the ranges of this court. The elegant bridge across above. Wren blocked his semi-circular arches above the Tus- the river here was built by Robert Grumbold in 1709-12, though can column capitals - i.e. above the level of the early design be- Wren had proposed such a bridge in 1697. tween the two. Isaac Barrow, the great mathematician, was Master of Trinity from 1672 to 1677 and had earlier taught Work resumed on the rebuilding of Clare College in the late mathematics to Isaac Newton. He was a close friend of Wren, 17th century. Robert Grumbold, Wren's master mason for Trin- himself a Fellow of Trinity, who had rooms in Great Court until ity Library, began the north range in 1683, and his work ab- 1696. sorbed the new classicism. Meanwhile, work had begun on re- building St Catherine's College, where the western half of Princi- St John's College enjoyed a boom-time after the Restoration, ple Court was erected during the 1670s and 1680s, whilst the and settled down to a long spell of Tory politics and High Angli- eastern half was built in the 1690s (chapel) and 1756-7 (Library can religion. Prosperity made possible the completion of Third and Ramsden Building). With its wrought-iron gates of the mid-

12 18th century, this court is one of the most attractive college- height of this room; they are placed along the walls, and not at scapes along Trumpington Street. It would not have been thus, right angles as in the Trinity Library. if the original plan to close it with an east range had been exe- cuted. At St Catherine's Celia Fiennes found everything: "new In pursuit of a new building for its Fellows, King's College first built the Chapple was not quite finish'd, the apartments for the approached the then elderly Christopher Wren, who suggested Fellows and Gentlemen Commoners are very fine, a large Hawksmoor. His designs turned out to be too grand and too ex- dineing-roome, a good Chamber and good Studdy and this for pensive, and they finally selected James Gibbs as their archi- 8£ a year" (JOURNEYS, p.82). tect. His Fellows' Building of 1723-9 was, in effect, a modifica- tion of Hawksmoor's designs. Gibbs' plan was for a three-sided Magdalene College was a medieval foundation, refounded in court, of which only the west range was built. Its plan was two 1542 by Lord Audley of Audley End (Essex). The Pepys Library rooms deep, with a central corridor, so that all sets of rooms here was begun c1587, after a bequest to the college from Sir were approached via the main entrance. Restraint in the deco- Christopher Wray, Lord Chief Justice. The building was de- ration of this building in Portland stone was due to the fact that signed to an E-plan at that time, but the E was later filled-in. a never-built south range was to have been the centre-piece of The narrow original wings, with steep gables, contrast with the the scheme. later part. The infilling is much more classical than the rest of the building, with a colonnade, pilasters rising to the full height Nicholas Hawksmoor had plans in 1713-14 to rebuild the centre of the building, triangular and semi-circular pediments over of academic Cambridge as a grand Baroque design, though it cross-windows, and a balustrade over all. Over the entrance it failed to attract sufficient support and finance. In 1722 James has the inscription: "BIBLIOTHECA PEPYSIANA. 1724.". The Gibbs revived the idea of replanning this area. His grand plans datestone refers to the transfer-date of Samuel Pepys' books to failed to attract support, but he was commissioned to build the the college under his will of 1703, for this part of the building Senate House in 1722. This was the first impressive University was completed in 1679 to the designs of Robert Hooke, the fa- (rather than college) building, and it combined the English tradi- mous scientist. A room on the first floor houses Pepys private tion of Wren with the new Palladianism. Richly decorated inside library of 3,000 volumes in his own bookcases made in 1666, and out, its grand portico, of four Corinthian columns supporting together with his personal desk. The bookcases were originally a triangular pediment, defies the central three bays of the build- made for Pepys' own house and consequently do not fit the ing. Around the top runs a balustrade with urns.

13 At Emmanuel college Ralph Symons' south range of Front Schools: Court needed replacing in the early 18th century, but financial resources were not readily available. Much money had to be After the Reformation there was a substantial increase in educa- borrowed and much was also given by the 6th Earl of Westmor- tional charity. Wealthy members of town and village communi- land, a descendant of the college's founder. The building was ties regularly conceived it part of their social duty to provide for erected in the years 1719-22, and became known as the West- the education of children of their less fortunate neighbours. The morland Building. Nineteen bays long and three storeys high, it local schools, which such people founded and supported, were was built of ashlar at the front and brick at the rear. Its designer obviously less grandly built than the Cambridge colleges. In may have been John Lumley, the Earl of Westmorland's estate their size and planning, they usually related to the ordinary agent. houses of their locality, but many of them proudly displayed close links with the classical architecture of grander buildings, James Burrough's Fellows' Building at Peterhouse was built in especially after 1660. 1738-42 in a modest Palladian style. That style received a more formal recognition in Cambridge with the building of Ste- Two small schools may stand for the many founded in the 16th phen Wright's graceful east range of the Old Schools in 1754- and early 17th centuries. At Godmanchester (Hunts.) the little 58. In the decades around the middle of the 18th century, the brick grammar school, once attended by the young Oliver Crom- refacing of old buildings with ashlar was more common than the well but now no longer used for education, was built c1559. Sir building of new ones. This did much to change the appearance John Leman's grammar school in Beccles was built in 1631. It of many college buildings, which had previously been faced with has pale red brick gables, whilst the symmetrical facade is of brick or rubble. Much regretted by some purists, it can hardly flint and has mullioned windows (Gothicised in the mid-19th cen- be denied that it increased the elegance of some buildings, just tury). It is two and a half storeys high (including the dormers), as patrons and architects (especially James Burroughs and with the master's house at one end and the usher's house at the James Essex) of the 18th century intended, but it left Cam- other end (one bay each). The schoolroom was centrally situ- bridge with fewer externally-recognisable medieval college build- ated on the ground floor, and boarders' accommodation was pro- ings. vided in the upper storeys.

After the Restoration of 1660 there was a great increase in the number of local schools built. Charles Read's little school at

14 Corby Glen (1673) is one of the finest examples of small-scale classical architecture in the region. An inscription over the door Gallery 1.1 School in Cambridgeshire records: "Charles Read in his generosity founded this school in 1673". Conceived as a village grammar school in the 17th cen- tury, it served as a local primary school until the 1960s, and has now been converted into a local arts centre, reading room and library by Lord Ancaster. This symmetrical building, of one sto- rey plus dormers, is completely in the Renaissance tradition. A hipped roof displays ball finials at both ends of the ridge, and the main chimney-stack is placed centrally. Cross windows light the ground floor, and mullioned windows the dormers. The en- trance porch has a rusticated quoins, as has the body of the building, and there is a broken triangular pediment over the doorway - with two oval windows above. Under the terms of Charles Read's foundation, the master was to instruct the chil- dren of the parish in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and in Chippenham School, Cambridgeshire. Latin when required. There was additional provision for the Photograph taken by the author, September 1981 maintenance of four poor scholars, who were to be the ‘sons of widows of poor ministers or decayed gentlemen’. Any surplus money was to be applied to the repair of the school building.

Chippenham School, built in 1714, was the gift to the commu- The plan is a simple rectangle, but the front facade is proud and nity of Lord Orford. After rebuilding his mansion and laying-out classical, with parapet, pilasters (unequally spaced), and a new park, which had involved the clearance of the old village, capped by urns. Light entered the building through tall slender Orford built a new village of estate cottages. The school is a windows with semi-circular heads. lofty single-storey building of nine bays, under a hipped roof. The last three bays at the right-hand side housed the master, whilst the rest of the building accommodated the schoolroom.

15 At Burrough Green the original symmetrical stone schoolroom of 1878. In his will of 1669 Sir John Nelthorpe directed his ex- of 1714 is only three bays wide and one storey high. Over the ecutors to build "a fair school-house and dwelling-house upon central entrance (its doorway now blocked) are figures of a char- his closes, called the Town-end closes, at Brigg". This bequest ity girl and a charity boy in semi-circular-headed-niches. To ei- included land to endow the school, and to provide for the mainte- ther side are round-headed windows, and the gabled building nance of a master and an usher. Children of the inhabitants of has rusticated quoins. The contemporary master's house, a Brigg, Wrawby, Messingham, North Kelsey, Legsby, Ulceby, lower building of one and a half storeys, adjoins the school at Fullsby, West Ashby, Scalby, Broughton, and Castlethorpe were one end, whilst at the other is a low late-18th century school- to be taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as well as writing and room. Beyond the latter is a brick extension, added as a arithmetic. For all children, learning was to be free. Poor boys 1914-18 war memorial. from Legsby and Fullsby - as many as the endowment would provide for - were to be given free instruction in reading, writing The school at Denton (Lincs.) was built near the parish church, and arithmetic. William Catlyn of Hull contracted to build the and the inscription over the door charged all who entered: schoolroom in 1674, a single-storey brick building of 7 bays, "Learn to know God and Thyself, 1720". Above is the Welby with Ionic pilasters and a pediment emphasising its central en- coat of arms. Built of local ironstone, it is in effect a house of trance. five bays and two and a half storeys, with a hipped roof and dor- mer windows. Downstairs are cross-windows, with mullioned At Burgh-le-Marsh (Lincs.) Jane Palmer's foundation of a gram- windows upstairs. William Welby, the local squire, when he mar school in 1726 was endowed with 28 acres of rich marsh- died in 1709, left an annual payment of £12 a year for the land. But for over a century the school was housed in existing schooling of poor children in Denton. By itself, this would not property, and a purpose built school was erected by the charity have been sufficient to found a school, which probably accounts only in 1840. Matthew Humberstone, who died in 1709, left for delays until 1720. £1,000 to rebuild Humberstone (Lincs.) church, £300 for his own monument, £500 to build a free grammar school and alms- Often early and mid-19th century charity led to the demolition of houses, plus £600 in endowment of these. The church was re- earlier schools, replacing them with more suitable modern ones. built quite soon after this date, but owing to considerable contro- Sometimes, however, the earlier school survived and new parts versy surrounding the will and the refusal of certain London com- were added as necessary. This happened at Brigg (Lincs.), panies to become trustees of the charity, under the terms of the where the original building of the grammar school has additions will, the school and almshouses were not built until the 1820s.

16 By this time Humberstone's legacy had accumulated, to make tiles. The entrance to the courtyard is via an arched passage- over £30,000. way though the two-storey governess's house, which is crowned by pyramid roofs. The almshouses at Audley End are Almshouses: planned around a double courtyard, divided by hall and chapel, as in so many colleges. The double courtyard plan was, of Almshouses were the most grandly planned and robustly built course, used also in the nearby mansion. cottages of their day, and a variety of types still exist. Grandest of all are the lavishly-planned rectangular courtyards, usually At Great Yarmouth (Norfolk) the Fisherman's Hospital of 1702 with cottages built around three sides with a blank wall and was founded by the Corporation for retired fishermen of this monumental entrance on the court side. Those at Long Melford port. It provided free houses for twenty fishermen over the age (Suffolk), 1573, Stamford (Lincs.), 1597, Audley End (Essex), of 60. The charity was endowed with land, and the yearly in- early 1600s, Castle Rising (Norfolk), 1614, and Great Yarmouth come was divided among the residents. The inscription on the (Norfolk), 1702, are of this type. All except Yarmouth were built slate plaque by the gateway quotes freely from the foundation by aristocratic landowners, in communities situated on their es- statutes, which governed life in the almshouses: tates, to provide retirement accommodation for trusted estate servants. "This Hospital was erected at the expense of the Corporation of Great Yarmouth Anno Domini 1702. At a Common Council on At Long Melford (Suffolk) Sir William Cordell (of Melford Hall) the 3rd July 1711 it was ordered : That no person be admitted built Trinity Hospital in 1573 for twelve aged men and two ser- under the age of 60 years. That fishermen only be admitted, vants. It is built of brick and is 7 bays wide, including the project- but if married their wives to accompany them. That if any fisher- ing wings at each end. It stands in a majestic position at the top man becomes a widower in the Hospital he shall not marry out of the green, to the south of the churchyard, and was restored of the said Hospital without the approbation of the Committee. in the 1840s. Trinity Hospital in Castle Rising (Norfolk) was That no person be allowed to lodge in any house other than founded in 1614 by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, for a such as are regularly admitted under any pretence whatsoever, governess and twelve poor spinsters or widows of Castle Ris- except as a Nurse for the Sick, and even that not without the ing, North Wootton, or Roydon. The inmates received weekly consent of the foreman, under penalty of losing the allowance money, fuel, and occasional clothing. The courtyard of single- for that week in which such lodger shall be taken in and contin- storey cottages here is of pale red brick, roofed with pale red ued to be so lodged. That the Committee make no weekly or

17 other payment to those who do not live and lodge in the said simple row of single-storey brick and pantile cottages, along the Hospital, unless some extraordinary reason for a short nonresi- west edge of the churchyard. The houses were modernised in dence should be allowed by the said Committee, and in case the 1960s, and now have modern doors and windows. At Tatter- any persons wilfully and without leave absent themselves for shall (Lincs.) a plain brick and pantile row of 10 single-storey seven days, such persons shall be suspended by the said Com- almshouses stands north of the huge fifteenth century church, mittee and discharged at the next meeting. That the outward dwarfed by this and the nearby castle. Whilst Lord Cromwell's gate of the Hospital be locked exactly at 9 of the clock every fifteenth century college of chantry priests disappeared at the night, and that the key of the said gate be kept by such dweller Reformation, the almshouses survived and were rebuilt in the in the Hospital as the Committee shall from time to time direct. early seventeenth century. That the benefactions and the above orders be painted and af- fixed at the Gables on each side of this Hospital Gate". At Denton (Lincs.) almshouses for six poor people had been founded in 1653 by William Welby, the local squire. A weekly The building is arranged around four sides of the courtyard, with payment was made to the almspeople, plus 20 cwts. of coal per a wide gap for the entrance- gate and railings. Red bricks are year. The foundation was endowed with a yearly rent-charge alternately laid with blue vitrified bricks, and the roof is of red flat out of the Welby estate at Denton. These almshouses survived tiles. The cottages are one bay wide and one and a half storeys almost unaltered until 1980, when their demolition caused con- high, and the windows to the street are shuttered. There is a siderable controversy. A unique Dutch-influenced double-pile profusion of Dutch gables and the building is crowned by a bold stone building of square plan, it was single-storey with very lofty classical cupola, with Neptune standing inside. This stands roofs. The cottage entrances were unusually arranged as fol- over the arched garden entrance from the courtyard, the en- lows: two along the front, two along the back, and one at each trance being set in a framework of pilasters and triangular pedi- end - a truly back-to-back arrangement. ment, in which there is a panel depicting a fishing vessel at sea. At Mildenhall (Suffolk) a single-storey brick row, with flat red Much more modest buildings were the single-storey rows of tiles on the roof, stands along the west side of the churchyard. almshouses at Ashby-cum-Fenby, Tattershall, Denton, and Here four cottages were built and endowed for the aged poor by Mildenhall. Likewise, the two-storey rows at Worlaby, Bardney, Sir Thomas Hanmer in 1722. The bricks are red, with dark red and Hemingby. At Ashby-cum-Fenby (Lincs.) Lady Frances for dressings around windows and doors. One of the oldest sur- Wray, endowed them with a yearly rent-charge of £30. It is a viving rows of two-storey almshouses is at Finchingfield (Es-

18 sex); it is timber-framed and jettied, and is situated along the staircases were lit by single-light upstairs windows. In the mid- north side of the churchyard, opposite the Red Lion. An arched dle of the terrace is a tablet recording the foundation of the alms- passage leads under the west end of the building into the houses by Sir John Jacob. At the end of the row is a small churchyard. These almshouses were, in fact, created after the chapel, which dates from the early 18th century. Reformation from a building of c1500, which had been the par- ish guildhall. Hancock's Hospital in Bardney (Lincs.) was built in 1712, under the will of Peter Hancock (d.1708). It was for seven poor men The two-storey row at Worlaby (Lincs.) is in red brick with stone and seven poor widows of Bardney. He charged Hall Farm with dressings, five bays wide, with a central common entrance. the weekly payment of one shilling to each of the almspeople, The pilasters along the facade rise up through the two storeys, plus a grey coat for each man and a stuff gown for each woman and the decoration of the building was clearly influenced by the every two years. The same farm was also charged with the re- Fen Artisan Mannerist style. Lord Belasyse's almshouses here pair of the almshouses, and an annual payment of £10 to the were founded in 1663 for four poor widows, and were endowed vicar for reading prayers to the alms people every Wednesday with an estate at Holme near Newark (Notts.). Each inmate and Friday morning. The building is an impressive two-storey was to receive a yearly payment of £3. 10s. 0d, with a blue terrace of thirteen bays, with its central three bays crowned by a gown and half a caldron of coals. The founder, John Belasyse, triangular pediment. The doorways are plain, the windows of second son of the 1st Viscount Fauconberg, had been created the cross-type, and a steeply hipped roof completes the design. Baron Belasyse of Worlaby in 1644. He later became First Lord of the Treasury under James II. His title became extinct when Perhaps the grandest of all the two-storey almshouses is Clop- his grandson died without issue. ton's Asylum in Bury St. Edmunds (Suffolk). This stands SE of the cathedral, facing south along the edge of the churchyard, Rather grander than most of these rows was the terrace of ten with a small garden in front of it. Erected in the mid-1740s, it is two-storey almshouses built in Gamlingay (Cambs.), on the a grandly-built range of bright red brick with red flat tiles on the south side of Church Street, in 1655. Built of brick and tile, roof, rather like a small country house, with eleven bays. The each cottage has a single room on both floors, and a small en- central three bays are pedimented and have rusticated quoins, closed yard to the rear. They are lit by six-light mullion-and- and along the eaves is a blank parapet. transom wooden windows on the ground floor, and three-light mullioned windows on the upper floor. The entrance halls and

19 The two end bays, at each end, project forward in wings, each windows and (on the ground floor) segmental pediments over two bays deep. There is one grand central entrance, with inter- them. nal individual entrances to the apartments. The whole was con- ceived rather like some grand college fellows' building of the Most parish poor-houses were probably inhospitable and inade- early 18th century. Now it is the residence of the cathedral pro- quate. Many were converted village houses, and most have vost. gone. Yet, it was an enormous step from such institutions to the "houses of industry" or workhouses. Parishes had been permit- The hospital for four poor widows, and the free school, at Hem- ted to build workshouses under the provisions of the 1722 act, ingby (Lincs.) were erected along the west side of the church- and in London such refuges became infamous. But in eastern yard by Mrs Jane Dymoke in 1727-36. It was a shared building, England there were no big workhouses until the 1760s. New which comprised four tenements, each with one roof of garden, large-scale workhouses, serving groups of parishes, arose in and a schoolroom, master's house (with garden) and apart- Suffolk in the 1760s and more in Suffolk in the 1780s. Rural la- ments for boarders. The school section was centrally placed. bourers often bitterly resisted the new workhouse regime. In The almswomen received a yearly allowance (paid weekly), sup- 1765 there were mob riots in Suffolk at Nacton and Bulcamp, plemented by a fuel allowance. Mrs Dymoke's endowment in- which had to be dispersed with soldiers. In subsequent hear- cluded "a yearly salary to a schoolmaster and mistress, for ings people told magistrates that they fought for their liberty, for teaching all the poor children of Hemingby to read, write, and the right for the poor to be maintained in their own parishes. spin and card wool". Six of the children were to be provided with clothing, and found apprenticeships. This large brick and The earliest of the new Suffolk workhouses to be built were be- pantiled building is eleven bays long and two storeys high. gun at Bulcamp, Shipmeadow and Tattingstone in 1765. In 1797 Eden wrote in "The State of the Poor" that: "The poor of On a bigger scale than most alsmhouses was Framlingham 46 incorporated parishes in the hundred of Blything, are main- poor-house, founded under the will of Sir Robert Hitcham and tained in a house of industry, which is situated in the eminence built in the bailey of Framlingham Castle. The south wing, with in the parish of Bulcamp. The expense of erection was its mullioned windows, dates from 1636; the north wing incorpo- £12,000; the house was opened for the reception of the poor in rates the solar of the medieval castle and part dates from the October, 1766". In 1797 there were 355 people in the work- 16th century. Recessed between these wings is the large two house, 255 of them children, and according to Eden the inmates and a half storey brick building of 1729 - nine bays with cross- were occupied "chiefly spinning for Norwich manufacture:

20 clothes and bedding, etc, for the house, are also made at home".

Shipmeadow is typical of these workhouses and those that fol- lowed. Isolated from the rest of the village, out in the fields, its dark low silhouette amongst the summer cornfields and East An- glian skies, is a powerful reminder of the fate that awaited the late 18th century poor. It has a symmetrical E-plan, 19 bays by 19 bays, a huge complex dwarfing a modern farm bungalow nearby. It is a whole world away from the intimacy of the tradi- tional village alsmhouses and even parish poor-houses. Those small-scale institutions could not cope with the wholesale pov- erty of industrial recession. The depressed state of much of the East Anglian woollen industry, at this time, created disproportion- ately more poverty than in some purely agricultural areas.

21 Chapter 2 CHURCHES AND CHAPELS

Church architecture was of particular interest to my father, who delivered lectures on the subject and led popular study visits to a vast variety of churches. As a child I would explore the churches and churchyards of Britain with a youthful inquisitiveness. As well as being ‘Jigsaws of Building History’ as my father would say, I have always been fascinated how churches and chapels are a physical record of social and economic change in communities. During the course of my own research I have compared and contrasted the churches and chapels of different rural communities, and discovered the varying impact landownership played on rural religion.

Photograph taken by Enid Holland, 1986 - 16th century monument to Sir William Pelham in Brocklesby Church, Lincolnshire. Note the inclusion of his wife and children, and that all figures are kneeling with the males facing the females. CHURCHES AND CHAPELS Metheringham stands almost alone in this region as an example of Elizabethan church-building. Eastern England witnessed a frenzy of church rebuilding in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Churches such as Walpole St Pe- Much more characteristic of the Elizabethan period are the ter, Sall, Cawston, and Salthouse (Norfolk), Kersey, Lavenham, many architectural monuments to local wealthy families, which and Long Melford (Suffolk), Dedham and Castle Hedingham (Es- were placed in a large number of churches. Such monuments sex), Terrington St Clemet, Burgh-le-Marsh, and Tattershall (Lin- often display a close familiarity with classical design. There is a colnshire), to name only some of the most spectacular, were all particularly splendid series at Snarford (Lincs.), where the St substantially rebuilt in this last phase of medieval church build- Pol family had a mansion, which is now marked only by earth- ing. All over the region are examples of what Thorold Rogers works in the field south of the isolated church. The earliest is called the vast and splendid churches in the Perpendicular that in the chancel to Sir Thomas St Pol (d.1582) and his wife; it style. The relationship between this church-building and local is a six-poster monument, with the St Pols reposing as if in a economic life, especially sheep-farming and cloth-making, was splendid bed, with their children kneeling on top of the canopy. so marked that it became legendary. From the wool-producing That to Sir George St Pol (d. 1613) and his wife is a big stand- parishes of the Wash marshland to the woollen cloth centres of ing wall monument in the north chapel. The effigies recline, rest- the Suffolk-Essex border, substantial personal and community ing on their elbows; over them is a flat arch resting on columns. fortunes left their mark on local churches. The composition is crowned by a heraldic achievement and obe- lisks, with the children kneeling at the base of the monument. However, such building came to an end with the Reformation in Lastly, also on the north wall of the north chapel, is an alabaster the 1530s and 1540s. For the rest of the 16th century, church tablet to Robert, Lord Rich, Earl of Warwick (d.1619), whose building was both sporadic and rare, a matter of chance more last wife was the widow of Sir George St Pol. In the centre of than anything else. For example, Metheringham (Lincs.) church the tablet is a medallion, in which is an almost-frontal bust of was so badly damaged by fire in late Elizabethan times that it Rich, whilst his wife (who outlived him) appears behind in pro- had to be partially rebuilt. Its nave of 1599 has arcades with file. Sir George St Pol was a lawyer and secretary to the Duke Tuscan columns and capitals, rather than Gothic. The wooden of Suffolk. For his part in quelling the Pilgrimage of Grace, Suf- south door is dated 1602. Apart from minor alterations else- folk acquired (by both gift and purchase) much ex-monastic where e.g. the chancel east window at Glentworth (Lincs.) - land in Lincolnshire. The Duke of Suffolk rewarded St Pol with some of this land for his services, which enabled the latter to be-

23 come landed. Such was the basis of the family fortune, and this the many. In Long Melford (Suffolk) there is Sir William Codell's helps to explain such expensive monuments in this small Lin- (d.1580) six poster alabaster monument with recumbent effigy. colnshire church. The builder of Long Melford Hall, he was Speaker of the House of Commons and Master of the Rolls. His is the grandest monu- At St Martin's Church in Stamford the Cecil monuments bedeck ment in the church, but he shares space with the 15th century the family chapel at the east end. The grandest is a six-poster Clopton's of cloth-making fame and wealth. At Hengrave (Suf- alabaster monument to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who died folk) Thomas Darcy's (d.1614) alabaster wall monument shows in 1598. His grandfather and father had risen to minor office un- a large figure kneeling at a prayer desk. He shares the north der the early Tudors, but it was William who made the family chapel of 1540 with Kyston and Bourchier tombs of the 16th cen- really secure. As a lawyer in service to Henry VIII, Edward VI tury. and Protector Somerset, he managed to steer a safe course through Mary's brief reign, keeping in touch with the Princess In North Walsham (Norfolk) there is Sir William Paston's Elizabeth by managing her estates. His diligence and devotion (d.1608) great standing wall monument, with his reclining effigy, as Elizabeth's principle secretary and chief minister, from the be- which cost the princely sum of £200. In Spilsby (Lincs.) the ginning of her reign in 1558, brought him not only the Lord huge monument to Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, former Treasurership but a peerage as well. His long life of service Duchess of Suffolk (d.1580) and her second husband Richard drew to a close in 1598, nine years after the death of Lady Salis- Bertie (d. 1582) covers the west wall of the chapel. It mixes bury. Robert Cecil, Williams's second son and also a lawyer, Ionic columns with Latin and English Bible passages, and succeeded his father as the Queen's secretary in 1596, engi- stands as silent witness to the former greatness of this old fam- neered the speedy and smooth succession of James I in 1603, ily, whose sumptuous early Tudor house vanished long ago. and was eventually rewarded with the Earldom of Salisbury for Other Lincolnshire examples worth seeking out include: Sir Ed- his services to the Crown. He died in 1612, by which time his ward Ayscough (d.1612) at Stallingborough, and Sir Adrian enemies were gathering strength at court, and he was buried in Scrope (d.1623) at South Cockerington. the parish church at Hatfield (Herts.), where his impressive monument still stands. The monuments of the Heneage family, enclosing and sheep- farming squires on the wolds at Hainton (Lincs), lie in the little Elizabethan and early Stuart family monuments abound in the parish church there. As well as their medieval ancestors, there churches of eastern England. A few examples must stand for are several from the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and

24 James I: John Heneage (d.1530), John (d.1559), Sir George (d. local effects of his drainage works. Certainly, by the 1760s the 1595), and Sir William (d.1610), together with their wives. Dur- river was shown to be silting-up again. ing the late 16th and 17th centuries almost all of Hainton's open wield arable land was converted piecemeal into sheep-pasture. The church at Leighton Bromswold (Hunts.) was in ruins at the It was, indeed, a process of conversion which was completed end of Elizabeth's reign; the nave was without a roof, and the only c1750. These Heneage monuments help to chart the south aisle was demolished. The Rev. George Herbert, the changing fashions for such things. That of the first John and his poet-vicar, was here from 1626 until his death in 1633; he de- wife face each other across a prayer desk. Sir George's recum- molished the north aisle, repaired and re-roofed the nave. The bent effigy is placed on a free standing alabaster tomb-chest, Duke of Lennox, lord of the manor, paid for the building of the whilst Sir William's again has kneeling figures across a prayer show-piece west tower in ashlar, completed in 1634. Hardly desk, with children below. The inclusion of a relief of the Fall any Gothic features were designed into this tower, except per- and the Resurrection on this last monument is unusual. The haps the crenellation. The buttresses end in obelisks crowned monuments in Hainton church serve as silent reminders of the with ball finials, instead of pinnacles. The windows and bell- agricultural and social enterprise of the Lincolnshire gentry fam- openings have semi-circular heads, and the west door has a ily. semi-circular head on pilasters. The rest of the building, of coursed rubble, is less classical, and the windows are Gothic. At South Carlton (Lincs.) is Nicholas Stone's monument of 1625 The plan of Leighton Bromswold church thus became west to Sir John and Lady Monson, whose white recumbent effigies tower, nave, north and south transepts, and chancel. Elaborate repose on a free-standing six-poster, with kneeling children be- lead fall-pipes are dated 1634. Inside the church is contempo- low. Sir John's father, Robert (c. 1525-83), was MP for Lincoln rary woodwork, including pulpit and reader's desk, communion 1563-66. Sir John II, his son, was active in the drainage of the rail, stalls and benches, lectern, litany desk, and screen. Taken Ancholme Valley, where the river was silting-up in Elizabeth's together, the architecture and the furnishings make this one of reign. Sir John Monson undertook the Ancholme drainage in the best early 17th century churches in the country. 1638-40, on behalf of the Crown, in return for 5,827 acres of drained land. Much damage occurred in the Civil War, by ne- Walpole St Peter (Norfolk) is a superb Perpendicular church glect and intent, and Monson lost his lands. These he regained (though its west tower is decorated), with fine early 17th century in 1660, though considerable disputation followed regarding the woodwork. A screen runs across the west end of the building, separating the seats in the nave and aisles from the clear floor-

25 space at the west end. Its doorway is surmounted by a triangu- and nave aisles; the blocked nave arcades have Gothic Survival lar pediment. The nave and aisles are full of carved box pews, windows of this time. just as they were in the early Stuart period, and at the west end of the south aisle stands the huge oak common table from the Other early 17th century church-building schemes in the region chancel. All this furniture dates from c1630. included three in Cambridgeshire: the tower at Godmanchester in 1623, the tower at Cottenham in 1617, and the chancel at A complete small church of this period is to be seen beside the Clare in 1617-19. deserted village site at Goltho (Lincs.). A small, brick structure of 1620, it has Gothic Survival windows - including a small During the Commonwealth period little church-building was blocked one above the west door, the church's only entrance. seen in the region, doubtless owing to other major preoccupa- The bellcote was rebuilt in the mid-19th century, just as the tions of many inhabitants. However, at Brightwell (Suffolk) chancel had been remodelled in the early 18th century. Inside c1656 Thomas Essington, the local squire, had alterations is an early Georgian classical reredos and communion rail; the made to the parish church. The west end was rebuilt; a brick chancel arch is a plain semi-circular arch, with neither responds bell-turret with battlements and obelisk-pinnacles crowned the nor capitals. At the east end of the nave is a very plain three- west gable, and its east wall rested internally on two huge white decker pulpit, and the congregation sat in plain box pews. A Tuscan columns and a small semi-circular arch. long deserted village site and a vanished hall have contributed to Goltho's decline to a redundant church with a sadly derelict At Guyhirn (Cambs.) money was left for a new church in 1651, interior. though it was 1660 before the building was completed. Now su- perseded by a church of 1878 half-a-mile away, this little build- The parish church at Thorney (Cambs.) has a much more com- ing in brick and stone has a simple four-light mullioned win- plicated history. It is a Benedictine abbey church, much of it dat- dows, and a Gothic bellcote. Significantly, Guyhirn is situated in ing from the 12th century, placed on the market at the Dissolu- the area where drainage work was being undertaken from the tion of the Monasteries, and purchased (along with abbey 1630s to the 1650s, and where population increase made a lands) by the Duke of Bedford. With Bedford's fen drainage pro- new church a worthwhile proposition. ject in the early 17th century the population of the locality began to increase, and the old abbey church was restored and refur- With the Restoration and its stability new building projects were bished in 1638 as a parish church. It was shorn of its east end soon put in hand in a number of parishes. At Euston (Suffolk)

26 St Genevieve's church was rebuilt in 1676, at the expense of classical vernacular tradition still stands, isolated in a much- Lord Arlington, whose country mansion here had been com- shrunken village. pleted in the 1660s. Though the church does include some me- dieval walling and the medieval tower, the overwhelming impres- Norfolk has few major churches from between the Reformation sion is of late 17th century classical taste. As Pevsner wrote, in and the Industrial Revolution, which is entirely understandable his Buildings of Suffolk, the church was "designed by an unre- in a county with so many medieval churches. One of these ma- corded architect in full knowledge of Wren's City churches and jor churches is North Runcton in the west of the county. It was finished with help of craftsmen as good as his". Pulpit, screen, designed by the accomplished Henry Bell of King's Lynn, and and reredos were exquisitely carved, plastered and painted, built in 1702-3. The plan is the traditional one of west tower, and the interior is much lighter than many village churches. nave, and chancel, but the idiom is classical. The west tower is With its north and south transepts, the plan is broadly cruciform, crowned by a cupola with small spire, and the rest of the ren- though without a central tower. Nave and chancel are of equal dered brick building is decorated with urns, triangular pedi- length; massive piers separate the nave from its aisles, which ments, rusticated quoins, oval windows, Tuscan pillars, and win- fill-in the NW and SW angles of the cross-plan. The south aisle dows with semi-circular heads. The unrendered chancel is con- ceiling has floral plaster-work decoration, below which is the temporary with the rest of the building, though it was restored in benefactor's monument. Circular windows in the clerestory light Victorian times. The east window has moulded brick pilasters the nave, and chancel, transepts and nave have cross-vaulted and a semi-circular pediment. plaster ceilings. North Runcton is a village church, but the other Norfolk example The Brownlows of Belton House, near Grantham (Lincs.), had a from this period is the large town church of St George in Great subsidiary house at Great Humby (Lincs.), where they built a Yarmouth. Designed by John Price of Wandsworth and built in new church in 1682. It is a small rectangular chapel-of-ease, 1714-16, this brick church with stone dressings has an unusual only three bays long, built of stone, with a wooden bellcote over plan. It is rectangle, with rounded corners, and a semi-circular the west end. There is no structural division between nave and projection at either end for chancel and west porch. Over the chancel, and light enters through two three-light windows on the latter rises a low tower with balustrade, crowned by a cupola. south side, as well as the larger east window. The Brownlow The windows have semi-circular heads and the doorways trian- mansion here has vanished, but the little church in the pre- gular pediments. Pilasters rising the full height of the building were built around the outside of the church. Around three sides

27 of the interior ran great galleries. This large church was a cal community with a parochial library, housed in a new building chapel-of-ease to the medieval parish church. The plan of the to the east of the chancel of the parish church. Unfortunately, church and the arrangement of the galleries closely followed St this building was demolished in 1859 and replaced with another, Clememnt Dane's in London, whilst the steeple derived from St elsewhere in the churchyard. Dr Coleman died in 1739 and his James' Garlickhithe in the same city. At the west end, the ar- monument, with semi-recumbent effigy, lies inside the church. rangement of doorway, window, and pediment show Price follow- There is also church furniture of the 17th and early 18th centu- ing Vanbrugh, as do the big pilasters around the outside of the ries, paid for by the Colman family, who lived in Brent Eleigh building. Hall.

Another town church project of the late 17th century was the Lin- Nearly all of the following examples of early Georgian village coln Cathedral Library. The 14th century Library on the north churches come from Lincolnshire, a country with many fine ex- side of the cloister was accidentally burned down in the early amples from which to choose. Stainfield church was built in 17th century. Dean Michael Honywood decided not only to give 1718 (date over south door) by the Tyrwhitt family, as a chapel- his own personal collection of books to the Cathedral, but to pay of-ease in Apley parish. There is a small west tower, capped by for a new building as well. Wren was engaged as architect, and a sloping lead roof, and the nave and chancel comprise a sym- managed to turn the Lincoln cloister into one of England's most metrical brick building of three bays, with stone dressings. The interesting and unusual. He provided a first-floor library, over centrally-placed south door is provincial Baroque, and inside is the cloister walkway, supported on a colonnade of Ionic col- a little contemporary woodwork, including a plain pulpit and the umns and semi-circular arches. The relatively-plain interior is lit original reredos (now at the west end) with Ionic pilasters and a by cross-windows, and bookshelves line the two long walls, with segmental pediment. Now there is no village here, only a late low ones below the windows. This building, completed in 1674, Victorian hall and some farm buildings nearby. The small church is just like a college library of the same period. Wren's right- looks southwards across empty parkland, with ridge and furrow hand men here were the master mason Tompson and the and earthworks marking the probable site of a small village. Sir builder Evison. Robert Tyrwhitts obtained the site of a small Benedictine nun- nery here at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and built a large Consideration of church libraries takes us to the very different mansion around a courtyard. The Tyrwhitts lived in this house rural context of Brent Eleigh in Suffolk. Here Dr Edward Col- until it was totally destroyed by fire in 1855. man, a Fellow of Trinity College at Cambridge, endowed the lo-

28 Stainfield has an air of departed glory about its little interior, but cel; it portrays his bust and a mourning female, with a classical Langton-by-Partney (Lincs.) church is magnificent both inside surround. and out. It is a simple rectangular brick building, quietly classi- cal overall, with its roof projecting markedly all round. There are St James' Church at Moulton Chapel (Lincs.) is one of the most semi-circular headed windows down the north and south sides, unusual village churches in the region. Built in 1722, to the de- and above these are blank rectangular recesses. The symmetri- signs of William Sands of Spalding, it has an octagonal plan. cal west front, its plain doorway with triangular pediment, has This building came thirty years before Norwich's Octagon blank recesses in lieu of windows at this galleried end of the Chapel, which inspired several other Nonconformist chapels - church. Built in the 1720s, it's octagonal brick bell-turret, over though it never became a popular Anglican form of building. the west end, was added only in 1825. The interior still has all The octagonal nave of Stoney Middleton church in Derbyshire is of its contemporary classical woodwork, and the original layout also over thirty years later, dating from 1759. is preserved. Box pews face the centre aisle, and the ornate three-decker pulpit is placed half-way down the south aisle, also Lincolnshire's main rural churches of the 1730s are Scremby facing the centre aisle. The west gallery is carried on Ionic pil- (1733) and South Thoresby (1735-38). They are both brick lars. churches, with stone dressings, and both have the traditional plan of west tower, nave and chancel. They both have arched When Matthew Humberston, a London merchant from Lincoln- windows and bell-openings, doorways with Gibbs' style sur- shire, died in 1709, his will provided for the rebuilding of Hum- rounds and triangular pediments, Venetian east windows, and berston church (Lincs.), as well as the provision of a school and flat ceilings. Scremby has a west doorway, whilst that at South almshouses. The medieval stone west tower was kept, but the Thoresby is in the tower's south wall. In Scremby church there rest of the church was rebuilt in brick in 1720. Nave and chan- is a west gallery, and at gallery-level at the west end of both cel stand as one rectangle, with no structural division between north and south walls are small circular windows. Among the the two. The building is lit by three tall semi-circular headed win- interior furnishings, Scremby's pulpit has fluted angle pilasters. dows along both north and south sides; a round window on ei- At South Thoresby the pulpit and reading-desk appear to come ther side corresponds with the position of the west gallery in- from a simple three-decker pulpit of the same date as the side. Matthew Humberston's large monument - for which £300 church. As these two churches are contemporary with each was earmarked in his will - stands on the south wall of the chan- other, have similar features, and are situated only some eight

29 miles apart, it is not impossible that they were both designed by church of 1749 at Wimpole (Cambs.) had so many of its fea- the same, unknown architect. tures altered or destroyed in 1887, that it is no longer a good ex- ample of a mid-18th century church. Virtually the only original All Saints' Church in Gainsborough (Lincs.) has a superb classi- fitting now left inside is the reredos. However, even Wimpole cal nave and chancel of 1736-48, adjoining the 15th century Per- still possess an 18th century bell-turret at the west end and a Ve- pendicular west tower, all in stone. This tower remains from netian window at the east end. It is also a splendid example of Gainsborough's prosperity as a wool-trading town in the later a church isolated in a park landscape, with its nearby mansion, Middle Ages. Francis Smith of Warwick may have designed this the village having been pulled down and rebuilt outside the 18th century church, which is a derivative of Holy Trinity in park. Leeds, St Martin's-in-the-Fields in London, and All Saints' in Derby. It is a splendid building, with a host of classical features, Lincolnshire's most elegant mid-18th century village church was such as full-height pilasters, balustrade, rusticated windows with built in 1753 at Cherry Willingham. It was erected at the ex- semi-circular heads on the upper level and basket arches be- pense of Thomas Becker, a Lincoln lawyer, who resided in this low, and rusticated doorways. The east end is apsidal and the village east of Lincoln; he died in 1757 and his monument is in east window Venetian. Wooded galleries and box pews adorn the church. Built of fine ashlar, with a parapet all round and rus- the inside of the church. An ornate early Georgian brass chan- ticated quoins, the church is of simple rectangular plan with a delier survives, as does the late Georgian organ case, but the small apse projecting at the east end. The door in the west wall pulpit is a mid-Victorian replacement. The rebuilding of Gains- is framed by Tuscan columns and a triangular pediment, whilst borough Church in the mid-18th century was financed by a spe- the west gable ends in a big triangular pediment and is crowned cial tax on coals landed at the town staithe on the River Trent. by an octagonal cupola with ogee cap. All the windows have semi-circular heads, and those in the apse are placed to each Stallingborough Church (Lincs.) was completely rebuilt in 1745- side because of the contemporary reredos inside. 46, in brick with stone dressings. Its plan is typical 18th century, with west tower, west entrance, and nave and chancel in one. Also built in 1753 was Hannah church, out in the marshland be- The building has rusticated quoins and semi-circular headed tween Alford and Mablethorpe. If Cherry Willingham represents windows throughout. The hall of the Ayscough family stands urban architectural sophistication introduced into a village land- nearby, and earthworks in a field south of the church mark for- scape, Hannah Church is the vernacular opposite. It is simple, mer house-sites in this shrunken village. Henry Flitcroft's brick rural Georgian at its best. Built of local greenstone, it is a sim-

30 ple two-bay rectangle with its entrance at the west end, now however, was completely rebuilt in 1771-75, to the design of through a somewhat later porch. A plain bellcote crowns the Thomas and William Lumby, and emerged as one of Lincoln- west end of the pantiled roof. The only concession to classi- shire's earliest completely Gothick churches. It stands north- cism was the semi-circular headed windows of the north and east of the Elizabethan mansion, isolated from the rest of the south sides, the Venetian window in the east wall, and the blank small estate village. semi-circular recess high in the west gable. Inside are the origi- nal box pews, the communion rail, and the marble font. Religious Nonconformity took early and deep root in many com- munities of eastern England, and some of them - both rural and Sometimes a small community could not afford or did not wish urban - still have fine 17th and 18th century chapels mirroring to completely rebuild its medieval church, but built a fashionable this tradition. The Congregational chapel at Walpole (Suffolk) new tower instead. At Bratoft and Glentham, both in Lincoln- has a complicated structural history, for it was built as a timber- shire, new towers were added to old churches, in 1747 and framed house in 1607, converted into a chapel in 1647, and 1756 respectively. Bratoft's tower is a brick addition to a stone practically doubled in size before the end of the 17th century. Perpendicular church in the marshland. It has semi-circular There are pews and galleries round three sides of the rectangu- headed windows, and the buttresses end in short obelisks in lar plan, whilst the forth side has the pulpit (with tester) and read- place of pinnacles. It is almost the last weak gasp of Fen Arti- ing desk. Tall wooden posts support the roof. Walpole is note- san Mannerism, before this vernacular style was completely worthy as the second oldest Congregational chapel in the coun- overwhelmed by the full onslaught of late 18th century classi- try, the oldest being in Wiltshire. cism and Gothic revival. Glentham has a stone tower, which perfectly matches the scale of the medieval church. It is Large numbers of Nonconformist chapels were built in the more crowned by simple battlements, has neither pinnacles nor obe- tolerant climate of the closing decade of the 17th century. Be- lisks, and the bell-stage has large semi-circular headed open- tween the 1689 Toleration Act and the end of the century over ings. 2,400 of them took shape in England. A number of these early purpose-built chapels survive in East Anglia and Lincolnshire. By the 1760s and 1770s the newly-fashionable form for village churches was Gothick. Fillingham (Lincs.) was remodelled in The "Old Meeting" in Colegate, Norwich, is a prosperous town the 1760s with this style as its inspiration, though many of its chapel built in 1693. Of brick with a tiled roof, it had the earliest medieval features are relatively untouched. Doddington (Lincs.) hung-sash windows to be seen in Norwich, and was built in a

31 part of the city north of the River Wensum, which Celia Fiennes had been given for use as a meeting house by Thomas Robin- saw to be growing, prosperous, and largely brick-built in the son in 1701. This stone building now has a pantiled roof, in- 1690s. Decorated with flat brick pilasters and Corinthian capi- stead of its original thatch. The white interior has only simple tals outside, it has fine woodwork inside - especially the gallery wooden furniture: a gallery across one end, and plain benches front and stairs. The gallery runs round three sides, and the pul- offering only minimal support. Outside there was stabling for pit is on the long side opposite the entrance, a usual arrange- horses, a common necessity with country meeting houses. ment. Even in Lincoln the Quaker meeting house of 1689 could pass for a cottage. The Unitarian Chapel in Friar Street, Ipswich, was built as a Presbyterian Chapel, by Joseph Clarke, carpenter, in 1699- The red brick Unitarian chapel of 1711-12 at Bury St Edmunds 1700. It has a rectangular plan, and is of five bays and two sto- (Suffolk) is smaller than the Ipswich chapel. The three-bay front reys, with a hipped, red-tiled roof. The structure of the building has large round-arched windows, whilst the doorway has pilas- is timber-framed and plastered over. The doorways have trian- ters and a pediment. As usual, galleries were built round three gular pediments. And cross-windows predominate on the short sides, with the pulpit on the fourth side facing the entrance. sides and front, but over the doorways the windows are oval. Framlingham (Suffolk) Unitarian chapel was built in 1717 of red On the pulpit side are arched windows, with oval ones above and blue bricks. A plain and elegant building of two storeys, it them. The interior is elegant: a richly-carved pulpit on a tulip had inside a gallery which is now boxed-in to form a ground- base, with curved stairs and twisted balusters. Round three floor lobby. sides runs the gallery. In the centre of the building two very tall wooded Tuscan columns help to support a flat ceiling. Daniel The Octagon Chapel in Colegate, Norwich, was built for a Defoe admired this chapel and said it was " as large and as fine wealthy and influential Unitarian congregation in 1754-56, at a a building of that kind as most on this side of England, and the time when Dr Taylor was minister there. It was designed by Tho- inside the best finished of any I have seen, London not ex- mas Ivory and built at a cost of some £5,000. Octagonal chap- cepted." (Tour) els proved more expensive to build than the traditional rectangu- lar varieties. Rusticated gate-piers welcome one from the street The Quakers shunned all outward display, and so the Quaker into the chapel yard, where the brick chapel stands majestically. meeting house at Brant Broughton (Lincs.), as elsewhere, is as The entrance portico has Ionic columns and a big triangular plain as a cottage. It was, in fact, converted from a barn, which pediment, with a round-arched doorway beyond. At first-floor

32 level are tall round-arched windows, whilst the roof is enlivened dows. The small single-storey, early 19th century Methodist by eight dormer windows with round openings and segmental chapel at Thornham (Norfolk) is built of flint, with a brick front pediments. Inside the chapel are eight giant Corinthian col- crowned by a parapet with a triangular pediment. This hides umns - tree trunks, in fact - supporting the roof. In 1757 John the hipped roof of red tiles, but only if viewed directly from the Wesley visited the Norwich Octagon Chapel, and wrote: "I was front. Examples of the galleried two-storey chapels, still very shown Dr Taylor's new meeting house, perhaps the most ele- plain in their design, in Lincolnshire are: Burnham Wesleyan gant one in Europe...... the inside is finished in the highest Chapel (1848), Burnham Methodist Chapel (1872), Craiselound taste...... The communion table is fine mahogany; the very Zion Chapel (1870), Owston Ferry Methodist Chapel (1837), latches on the pew doors are polished brass.". After this, and Westwoodside Wesleyan Chapel (1864). Whilst their dates Wesley advocated the building of octagonal Methodist chapels, place such buildings in the Victorian era, their architecture is though relatively few were ever built. Most that were have been more in tune with late Georgian building of the early 1800s. pulled down, though two good examples remain at Yarmouth The Wesleyans in towns were often richer congregations and (NR Yorks.), built in 1763, and Heptonstall (WR Yorks.), built in usually built fine and elegant large chapels in the early 19th cen- 1774. tury. One of the best examples of these in eastern England is that at Louth (Lincs.), built in 1835. A huge six-bay brick build- Early Methodist societies began by holding meetings in mem- ing in Eastgate, it has two levels of round-arched windows (re- bers' houses-cottage meetings - and such arrangements usually flecting the internal layout with galleries) with classical swags be- continued for some time. Their plain and simple early chapels, tween the levels, and two plain doorways. It remains a really im- especially in the countryside, were closely related to cottage posing sight in this little Lincolnshire town, over 150 years after and farmhouse architecture. After John Wesley's death in 1791 its creation came the fragmentation of the movement into different group- ings, which led to the building of more chapels. Small and plain Finally, three widely-spaced Baptist chapels illustrate something chapels were usual in most rural areas well into the 19th cen- of the diversity to be found among the buildings of yet another tury, and in eastern England they were invariably built of brick. Nonconformist Church. At Maltby-Le-Marsh (Lincs.) the Baptist A small, single-storey Methodist chapel of 1839 stands by the Meeting House is a two-storey brick building, with hipped and roadside just west of Sandtoft (Lincs.). Built of brick, with a pantiled roof, three bays along the front, with plain doorway and hipped roof covered with pantiles, its facade has a central door- hung-sash windows. It is a mainstream rural Georgian building, way (now with a later porch) flanked by two round-arched win- which is very similar to many small farmhouses throughout the

33 area. It was built in 1776, at the expense of David Dent, a mem- ber of the congregation, and contains much contemporary furni- ture. At Boston (Lincs.) the brick Baptist Chapel was built in the town's High Street in 1837, with a front five bays long, and with window glazing-bars still showing signs of the 'Gothick' influ- ence. Such Gothick influence is also to be seen in Boston's Uni- tarian Chapel of 1819, in Spain Lane, where the round-arched windows on the front have Gothick glazing-bars, as does the fanlight above the entrance. In the village of Great Wilbraham (Cambs.) is a yellow brick Baptist Chapel dated 1833. It is a tall buiding, with three bays along the side and a frontage of three narrower bays. The bays are marked by tall blank recessed arches, in which are set round-arched windows and the en- trance doorway. Towards the rear of the building, the third bay is the chapel-keeper's two-storey cottage, with plain doorway and two hung-sash windows instead of chapel windows. The cottage is adjoined by a flint lean-to extension.

34 Chapter 3 COUNTRY MANSIONS

As I write this introduction to a chapter on Country Mansions, many people have been captivated by the Downton Abbey dramatisation. When my father was writing this chapter, the nation was similarly gripped by the latest serialisation - Brideshead Revisited. Whether it be via the medium of television/film or tourism, there is a definite fascination with the dynamics of social relations in the countryside, and the magnificent houses and landscaped grounds they were played out in. This has particularly relevance to my own research, where I re-evaluate the role of landowners and landownership in rural life.

Photograph taken by Sarah Holland, 2011 - Blickling Hall, Norfolk COUNTRY MANSIONS gunpowder, men's hearts, lack of surety of rescue." Security was of vital concern to a lord in these times, and Lord Crom- Eastern England abounds with examples of fortified manor well's brick tower-house at Tattershall (Lincs.) had the private houses built during the troubled years of the 15th century. From quarters (first floor upwards) isolated from the rest of the castle Sir John Fastolf's Caister Castle (1431-2) and Lord Cromwell's by a narrow and easily defended staircase. Tattershall Castle (1434-44), via Baconsthorpe Castle (begun c1450), to Lord Burgh's Gainsborough Old Hall (rebuilt after de- Those houses built in the late 15th century represent the forti- struction by the Lancastrian rebels in 1470) and Sir William fied manor house in its final glorious flowering before the Tudor Bedingfield's Oxborough Hall (begun in 1482), they stand as era. Oxborough Hall (Norfolk) and Gainsborough Old Hall monuments to wealth, prestige, and a desire for family security (Lincs.) are excellent examples of the type. At Oxborough the in an age of social and political uncertainty. They form an inter- great brick house still stands within its moat, and the private esting prelude to the later country house building in the region. apartments and other rooms are still approached through the Most of them could effectively repel unorganised small groups, huge gate-tower. Across the courtyard, opposite this gate- such as marauding groups of disbanded mercenaries and other house, was the hall range, which was demolished and replaced wandering social malcontents, but would have found organised in the late 18th century. The passage of Victorian and later soldiers more of a problem to deal with. When the Duke of Nor- years has seen the making of more outside windows than there folk's soldiers besieged Caister Castle in Norfolk, Margaret Pas- would have been in the 15th century. Overall, however, Oxbor- ton wrote to her son, John Paston II, on 12 September 1469, in ough presents a remarkably convincing and otherwise largely the following terms: unaltered example of its type. At Gainsborough the moat has long since been filled-in and the south (entrance) range demol- "that with their great multitude of guns, with other shoot and ord- ished. But the timber-framed north range still stands, with it's nance, there shall no man dare appear in the place. They shall magnificent great hall, where Richard III was entertained in hold them so busy with their great people that it shall not lie in 1484. The hall is overlooked by a gallery, which is adjoined by their power within to hold it again them, without God help them a solar at the east (dias) end. Doors lead from the opposite end or (they) have hasty succour from you." (Paston Letters) of the hall to the huge kitchen and other service rooms at the west. All that is missing is the screen, which once protected the Some two weeks later, Caister was surrendered, in the words of hall's occupants from draughts at this service end. The lord's John Paston III, in the Paston Letters again, "for lack of victual, table was lit by the superb stone bay window on the outside

36 face of the hall. No one has ever satisfactorily explained the Corridors on the first and second floors gave access to the need for the doorway at the base of this window, unless it of- rooms, whilst those rooms on the ground floor had a door lead- fered a quick exit to the moat, if the need arose. Rarely do the ing into the courtyard. The date of this west wing is likely to be service rooms survive so completely as at Gainsborough. The c1500-30, rather than later. When William Hickman, a London magnificent brick kitchen still has its great open fireplaces at merchant, bought the house in 1596, he modified the east wing, each end side and it's brick ovens. In the corners are six little by rebuilding its east wall and south gable in brick, and by con- rooms, three offices on the ground floor, probably for the clerk verting it from two to three storeys at the south end. of the kitchen, the cook, and the assistant cook. The three sleeping chambers above them were originally reached by lad- Even ecclesiastics felt the need for strong houses, as witnessed ders. At the east end of the kitchen is the servery with its serv- by the enormous tower-house built by the Bishops of Lincoln ing hatch, and from here a brick spiral staircase leads to low (Rotherham and Russell) at Buckden Palace (Hunts.) in the rooms over the service rooms, the housekeeper's room and the 1470s and 1480s. Likewise, some of the Cambridge colleges maids' dormitory. These were provided with a garderobe in the had their strong gate-towers to close off their scholarly precincts housekeeper's room. from the town at night. These included Christ's College Gate- way after 1505, St John's Gatehouse c1511-20, and Trinity Col- The next stage in the modification of Gainsborough Old Hall lege's Great Gate 1528-29. All three were royal foundations, was the building of the timber-framed east wing, with its suite of the first two by Lady Margaret Beaufort (Duchess of Richmond family rooms and the impressive great State Chamber on the and mother of Henry VII), and the third by Henry VIII. first floor. Contemporary with this was the projecting oak stair- case and linking gallery adjoining the south side of the north The true country house - unfortified and built for the pleasure of wing. All this can probably be dated to c1500, as can the three- living comfortably in beautiful surroundings - emerged in the Tu- storey brick tower added at the north-east of the complex. This dor period. Gradually, with the establishment of strong central tower provided three more rooms, each complete with fireplace government by Henry VII and Henry VIII, landowners were able and garderobe. The brick west wing comprises a series of lodg- to relax from the self-protection which earlier centuries had im- ings on three floors; here twelve separate rooms all had their posed, and to build defenceless houses. Yet, this was a long fireplace and garderobe. process and some early Tudor houses show links with the past. The Tudor peace contrasted with the conflict which character- ised the mid-15th century, and ushered in an era of prosperity in

37 which large numbers of aristocratic and gentry families built new Sir Ralph Shelton built his manor house in Great Snoring (Nor- houses. They were joined in this unprecedented activity by mer- folk) c1525-30, and aspects of the decoration were probably in- chants and lawyers who had invested newly-won fortunes in fluenced by contemporary East Barsham. Only part of the origi- landed property, and who were anxious to mark their new pros- nal building remains, but this is notable for its friezes of perity with the status symbol of a grand new house. moulded brickwork on the turreted gable-end. That above the ground-floor is entirely Gothic, whilst that over the first floor in- Brick enjoyed a renaissance as a suitable material for building corporates Italian Renaissance motifs. At the Dissolutions of mansions in eastern England in the 15th and early 16th centu- the Monasteries Sir Christopher Jenny acquired a grange of Nor- ries. We have already discussed some of the prime examples wich Cathedral Priory at Great Cressingham (Norfolk), and his of the effectiveness of this material architectural display during son built a new house here c1545. Even though partly demol- the 15th century, at Caister, Gainsborough, Oxborough, and Tat- ished, the house is an exuberant display of brickwork and terra- tershall. The popularity of brick for big houses grew in the reign cotta - one of its latest uses. The craftsmen who worked here of Henry VIII. mingled both the traditional English late Gothic with the new Renaissance motifs from Italy - contrasting with the wholly- The distant view of East Barsham Hall (Norfolk) from the brow English decoration at East Barsham twenty years earlier. of the hill to the south is unforgettable. It was built for Sir Henry Fermor in the 1520s, with an embattled facade in moulded brick Layer Marney Tower (Essex) was intended to be the showpiece and terracotta. The horizontal friezes and panelled battlements of a large courtyard house as grand as Hampton Court. But, af- are in terracotta. No Renaissance features appear in the deco- ter building the gatehouse, Henry 1st Lord Marney, Treasurer to ration, and most of them are purely late Gothic - as is the gate- Henry VIII, died in 1523. Then in 1525 his son also died, and house just in front of the house. Both are decorated with the the line became extinct. The house was never finished, but the Royal Arms of Henry VIII in moulded brickwork, as a mark of loy- 39-roomed Tower survived as a country house in its own right. alty to the king. The fine condition of East Barsham Hall owes This early Tudor gatehouse reaches a fantastic height of dis- much to its restoration after 1919 for the mustard-making Col- play, and the large number of windows reveal this house as mans of Norwich, but Fermor's great sheep flocks made its peaceful rather than fortified. Slight Italian Renaissance influ- building possible. ence appeared in the classical forms of the battlements, decora- tion around the windows, and the use of fashionable Italian terra-

38 cotta - here a pale biscuit colour, looking like stone. Yet the ing wings. The latter are distinguished by turrets at their inner chimneys are unmistakably English Tudor. front corners. This is a mid-Tudor country house, with cusped lights in its mullioned and transomed windows. Unfortunately, Another East Anglian brick gatehouse of the period is Kirtling there is no Elizabethan work inside the house, owing to a great Tower (Cambs.), built in 1530 by Edward North, a lawyer and fire in the 1820s. All is still surrounded by a moat, and at the Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations. It was part of a large rear of the house part of the earlier timber-framed building sur- quadrangular mansion, surrounded by a moat, but one wing vives. was demolished in 1752 and most of the rest in 1801. Peaceful intentions are evidenced by the large two-storeyed oriel window, Nearby is Melford Hall, its gateway standing by the village squeezed in tightly between the turrets. Classical leaf ornament green of Long Melford. A house here belonged to Bury St Ed- adorns the upper window surround and the sills and mouldings munds Abbey before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This of the underside of the oriel. was bought some time after 1545 by Sir William Cordell, Speaker of the House of Commons and Master of the Rolls, At Hengrave Hall (Suffolk) the gatehouse was incorporated into who was living here by 1554. He built the present Melford Hall the facade of the house, rather than given separate treatment. at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. It is now a house symmet- Two turrets and a great oriel window distinguish it from the rest rically planned around three sides of a courtyard facing the gar- of the facade. Hengrave was built in 1538 for Sir Thomas Kit- den, but John Thorpe's plan shows the courtyard closed on the son, a London Merchant, who had been Sheriff of London in fourth side. Little Elizabethan work survives inside the house, 1533, to whom the Duke of Buckingham had sold the manor. owing to Georgian alterations. There had been Cloptons at Kentwell (Suffolk) since the 14th century, and the family's fortunes were closely intertwined with Between 1556 and 1587 William Cecil, Elizabeth's Secretary of the fortunes of the woollen cloth industry. It played a principle State, had Burghley House built on the site of a family manor part in the rebuilding of nearby Long Melford Church in the late house just outside Stamford, on the borders of Lincolnshire and 15th century, where several Clopton monuments are to be Northamptonshire. Cecil had an interest in architecture and found: Sir William (d1446), John (d1497) and Francis (d1558). was familiar with continental writings on the subject. The grand The present Kentwell Hall, built for Sir Thomas Clopton, was re- west front of Burghley House was completed in 1577, and its tur- ferred to as "the new mansion house" in a will of 1563. It is a reted skyline dominates both the park and the surrounding land- large brick building, comprising a centre-piece with two project- scape. It remains a fitting monument to a man, who played

39 such an important part in the government of Elizabethan Eng- Lyminge, who twelve years before had designed Hatfield House land. (Herts.) for the Cecils. When Lyminge died, Blickling parish reg- ister described him as "architect and builder of Blickling Hall.". One of the most interesting Elizabethan houses in the region is The entrance was in the centre of the facade, a device intro- Doddington Hall (Lincs.). Thomas Taylor, a lawyer and Regis- duced by Indigo Jones but not yet commonly used. The main trar to the Bishop of Lincoln, bought an estate here in 1593. By floor of the house was the first floor - hence the deeper windows 1600 his new house was finished and remain to the day. This there. The house's Dutch gables (dated 1624) are among the symmetrical three-storey brick house of simple square outline earliest in England. In Georgian times the house was remod- was certainly influenced by Robert Smythson's work and was elled; the north front (originally open) was filled-in between 1767 probably designed by someone familiar with his style. No inte- and 1779, and the west front was rebuilt at the same time. In- rior decoration remains from Elizabethan times; it is mostly that side, the hall, staircase, and drawing room were reshaped. of the 1760s executed for Lord Delaval. But the unaltered exte- rior is an unexpected delight for the traveller in the flat west Lin- Midway between the rare work of Indigo Jones and the provin- colnshire countryside towards Nottinghamshire. It is a fitting cial style of his day was East Raynham Hall (Norfolk), designed monument to the rich and successful lawyer, who amassed an by William Edge for Sir Roger Townshed in 1622. Townshed estate of 9,000 acres here and elsewhere. and Edge travelled to the Netherlands in 1620, and absorbed some of its architectural ideas. The house proudly displays its Even in its partially-demolished state, Audley End (Essex) is new-fashioned Dutch gables. Some think Indigo Jones may one of the most impressive of Jacobean country houses. It was have had sight of the drawings and possibly some influence on begun c1603 and finished 1616, designed by Bernard Janssen the design of Rayham. However, it is clear that the present cen- for the Earl of Suffolk. Of immense size, the house was ar- tral entrance to the house is a modification of the 1670s or ranged around two courtyards, of which only the inner one sur- 1680s, as a drawing of 1672 shows that it did not then exist in vives. The lively variety of its design singles out Audley End the present form. The Jones style and influence was particu- from most of its Elizabethan predecessors. larly a Court style, and found little echo in East Anglia and Lin- colnshire until after the Restoration of 1660. His vanished Sir Henry Hobart, Lord Chief Justice under James I, bought the house for James I at Newmarket (Suffolk), for which no draw- manor of Blickling (Norfolk) in 1616, and began building a new ings exist, doubtless amazed most of the area's inhabitants, house immediately. Finished in 1627, its designer was Robert when built in 1615-16.

40 Compared with Blickling, Felbrigg Hall (Norfolk) was of modest Earl of Bedford, another Puritan and Parliamentarian, who had size and design, and nowhere near as advanced. The earliest 75 troops of horse under his command at the Battle of Edgehill surviving portion of the house was built c1620 for Thomas in October 1642. Thorney Abbey House was built in imitation of Wyndham, of a Norwich family of prosperous lawyers in Eliza- Thorpe Hall. beth's reign. Its interior features were reworked c1830, so that much original decoration has gone. The balustrade of the These three houses were built within the same locality, for cli- house portrays in cut-out grotesque letter: "GLORIA DEO IN EX- ents who were closely bound together by religious, political, and CELSIS". This motto originated in 16th century France, and military ties. The houses were in the same style, and the archi- only three other English houses of the period have it. tect of one may have been the architect for them all, though John Lovin of Peterborough was the contracting mason for Thor- In the 1650s and early 1660s three remarkably similar country ney Abbey House. houses were built in a twenty miles stretch of countryside be- tween Peterborough and Wisbech. The first was Thorpe Hall, Whereas in the early 1600s the classical style had relatively few north of Peterborough, built in 1653-56 for Lord Chief Justice Ol- adherents in England, after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 iver St John, and its architect was Peter Mills of London. Seven this became the normal style for country-house building. Bel- bays long and 2 1/2 storeys high, it originally had a hipped roof ton, north of Grantham in Lincolnshire, was one such house. It with lantern and balustraded platform. Of square plan, its other was built of Ancaster limestone for Sir John Brownlow, whose stylistic features included cross-windows, with mullioned win- father Richard Brownlow (a lawyer and an official of the Court of dows as dormers, quoins, and rich (though heavy) plasterwork Common Pleas in London) had bought the Belton estate in inside. Wisbech Castle, on the site of the town’s medieval cas- 1620. Begun in 1685 and designed by the London master ma- tle, followed in 1655-57 and was built for John Thurloe, Secre- son William Stanton, working with Samuel Marsh of Ancaster, it tary of State, who had earlier been secretary to Chief Justice St has been called "perhaps the most satisfying among the later John. Wisbech was a near-copy of Thorpe Hall, without the nar- 17th century houses in England" and "a house of fulfilment, row top storey. It was seven bays long and had two main sto- rather than innovation" (Pevsner). It is a double-pile house, with reys (lit by cross-windows), with a semi-basement below and suites of rooms back-to-back, and projecting end bays. There mullioned dormers in the roof. It was again topped by a lantern are two main storeys, plus the basement and the attic storey lit and balustraded platform. At Thorney Abbey in 1660 a small by dormer windows. The formal south front contrasts with the house was added to the Elizabethan house there, by the 5th more elaborate garden front facing north. Much interior decora-

41 tion of the period survives, for example in the Red Drawing wards, for the 4th Earl of Manchester, and the new building pro- Room, the Saloon, the Chapel, and the bedrooms. Foliage gressed quickly and was largely finished by 1710. The interior wood-carving by Edward Carpenter can be seen in the Saloon grandeur of Vanbrugh-Hawksmoor work can best be seen in the and Chapel, together with foliage, fruit, and game plasterwork Parade Room, a lofty and spacious great hall, and in the Princi- by Edward Goudge. ple Staircase, which rises from a corridor in the north-east cor- ner of the house, with a majestic wrought-iron handrail and Other smaller Lincolnshire country houses of the period are at arched entrance to the landing. In the Parade Room, on the Thornton Curtis and Gunby. Thornton Hall was a small country Staircase, and in the Chapel are paintings by Giovanni Antonio residence built for Sir Rowland Wynne of Nostell Priory (York- Pellegrini. shire) in 1695-1700. It is an elegant brick box, seven bays long and two and a half storeys high, dressed with stone, and built At Grimsthorpe Castle (Lincs.), owned by the Duke of Ancaster, on an estate which he acquired in 1695. In a similar style is Vanbrugh again found himself dealing with a house and a site Gunby Hall, built in 1700 for Sir William Massingberd, and its de- stretching back to the Middle Ages. Once again, his interests signer was probably a local master-builder rather than a noted and inclinations came together with the site and its history. His architect. His pleasing creation in brick, with stone dressings, most complete transformation of the old house was accom- blends well into the lowland landscape between Spilsby and plished on the north front, with its forecourt and end pavilions, Skegness. A sympathetic addition of 1873 adjoins the building between 1722 and 1727. Here Vanbrugh's work replaced a to the north. north front built only in 1685. Its final touches may be due to Hawksmoor, as Vanbrugh died in 1726 and the end product con- Kimbolton Castle (Hunts.) is a complicated mansion of the 17th tains decorative elements not in the original design. Despite and early 18th centuries. The four ranges of building around Vanbrugh's intention to rebuild the whole castle, the transforma- the courtyard were inherited from a house of c1617-20. William tion remained incomplete. Grimsthorpe Castle still incorporates Coleman carried out a limited remodelling c1690, including the fragments of the house, which Charles Brandon, Duke of Suf- elegant courtyard facades in brick dressed with limestone. The folk, had built in time for Henry VIII's visit in 1541. John Leland present library was the hall in Coleman's house and it's prede- called this new part the "new building of the second court". It cessor. Coleman's facades contrast with the more monumental had, in fact, been built onto the castle built by Gilbert de Gant in and austere work by Vanburgh and Hawksmoor to the exterior the late 13th century. The medieval plan of four ranges around of the castle. Their rebuilding was carried out from 1707 on- a rectangular courtyard, with four great towers at the corners,

42 has influenced the house ever since, and can still be recognised hunters, hospitality, noise, dirt, and business", whereas the first today. Into the medieval east and west ranges the Duke of Suf- floor was for "taste, expense, state, and parade". folk inserted new state rooms in the early 16th century. The south front is now the best place to view the 16th century work After returning from his Grand Tour of 1712-18, Thomas Coke, at Grimsthorpe. Last of all, in the history of this house, were the 1st Earl of Leicester, planned to rebuild his mansion at Holk- alterations made from 1811 onwards, when Vanbrugh's unfin- ham. The house was designed by William Kent and executed ished west front was demolished. This latest work did more to by Matthew Brettingham; plans were drawn by 1731 and work camouflage the earlier castle than ever Vanbrugh's rebuilding started in 1734. It was based on Palladio's Italian villas, espe- had done. The interior of the castle reflects its complicated his- cially the Villa Meledo. From a distance the light grey bricks tory. Vanbrugh's contribution is represented by the Great Hall, used in the house's construction give an impression of stone. A rising through two storeys, which takes up most of the north magnificent piano nobile rises above the rusticated basement. front. It is regarded as one of Vanbrugh's finest creations. Inside there is the genius of Stone Hall, which has a staircase to Other interior work of his time comprises the east Entrance Hall the piano nobile, rising through an apse, with polished slabs of and the State Dining Room. pink Derbyshire alabaster. The Cokes of Holkham, together with the Townshends of nearby Raynham, were building up their Houghton and Holkham stand within a few miles of each other estates in north Norfolk in the late 17th and 18th centuries, and in north Norfolk; they complement each other and play a slightly this house stands as monument to their success in managing different part in the early 18th century history of the country their lands. house. Colen Campbell designed Houghton for Sir Robert Wal- pole, chief minister of George I and George II. Local execution Wimpole House (Cambs.) was remodelled for Charles Yorke, of the design was in the hands of Thomas Ripley, a protégé of 1st Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor, mostly between 1742 Walpole's, and the house was beautifully built of Yorkshire lime- and 1745. His architect was Henry Flitcroft, and the brick exte- stone. Campbell intended the four corner turrets to be pedi- rior is consistently of this time. Previously, Wimpole had be- mented, but James Gibbs changed them into stone domes. longed to Edward Harley, who became Earl of Oxford; he had They thus give a German flavour to the house, and we know married Henrietta, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, who in- that Gibbs owned a copy of Decker's Fürstlicher Bauemeister. herited the estate. The interior has work of three main periods: John, Lord Hervey, found the base of the house dedicated "to 1719-21 for the Harleys by James Gibbs (eg the Library), the 1740s for the 1st Earl of Hardwicke by Henry Flitcroft (eg the

43 Gallery and the Lord Chancellor's Bedroom), and c1793 for the precedents. The setting was completed when the house was 3rd Earl of Hardwicke by Sir John Soane (eg the Yellow Draw- surrounded with a Capability Brown landscape park in 1781-82. ing Room and the Book Room south of the Library). In addition, Taylor oversaw the completion of the house exterior, whereupon some alterations were made in the 1840s. James Wyatt was commissioned to design the interior in the Adam style, which he completed in 1784. The Vannecks had Fillingham Castle (Lincs.) is a Gothick castle built for Sir Cecil been resident in England since c1720. The family's absorption Wray c1760, probably to the designs of John Carr, and origi- into the English aristocracy came in 1796, when Sir Joshua Van- nally intended as a summer residence. Placed on the limestone neck (Sir Gerard's brother) was created Lord Huntingfield. ridge just below Ermine Street, north of Lincoln, the house is raised on a podium. It had a rectangular plan, four bays by three bays, with circular towers at angles and crenelated para- pets. The offices were placed in a long courtyard on the north side, as with Carr's Grimstone Garth (Yorkshire). Although Fillingham's entrance hall was fan-vaulted, and some Gothick work appeared in the upstairs rooms, the rest of the house inte- rior was classical. The landscape around also received a smat- tering of Gothick features: the chancel and tower of the church in the village below, together with new lodges, cottages, and archways at the edge of the park.

Despite the passion for Gothick, which some landowners and architects felt, the more popular style for mid-Georgian country houses was classical. Sir Robert Taylor's Heveningham Hall (Suffolk) was designed c1778 for Sir George Vanneck, a pros- perous Dutch merchant, whose father had bought this estate in 1752. This grandest Georgian mansion in Suffolk, built of brick and stuccoed, is 25 bays long. Its centre, of two and a half sto- reys, has a heavy attic storey, derived from Imperial Roman

44 Chapter 4 SMALLER HOUSES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Many of the examples in this chapter are smaller houses in Norfolk and Lincolnshire, both counties which I remember exploring as a child on family holidays. I still marvel at the rich tapestry of building styles and materials employed in smaller houses in the countryside. As part of my doctoral research I have compared and contrasted rural housing, revealing that decorative facades did not always equate to the quality of accommodation for rural inhabitants.

Photograph taken by the author, July 1971 - c1700 house in the estate village of Woodbastwick Norfolk SMALLER HOUSES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE were par excellence the timber-framed counties of this region, with Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire tailing behind. In Lin- The smaller houses of the 16th to 18th centuries still bulk large colnshire and Norfolk, fine examples lie much more thinly upon in many villages of this region. This is, in large measure, due to the ground. It is worth remembering, however, that Maurice Bar- the widespread use of more permanent materials and building ley's scrutiny of Lincolnshire glebe terriers long ago showed that methods from the reign of Elizabeth I onwards. These houses timber-framing was once more common in some parts than sur- stand witness to the widespread rebuilding and housing revolu- viving examples might suggest. His map in The English Farm- tion of these years. Their styles and building materials reflect house and Cottage (1961, p.82) shows that in the 16th and 17th local and regional building patterns, whilst their number of centuries Lincolnshire timber-framed houses were to be found rooms and chimneys indicate both the growing wealth of the mainly on the Wolds, in the coastal Marshland, and in the Fens. middling section of the rural community and people's increased All these regions also had a fair number of houses with mud desire for privacy and warmth. It is, furthermore, no accident walls on a boulder footing. These mud-and-stud houses in that so many large chimneys are such a conspicuous feature of Wolds villages, like Thimbley and Somersby, usually prove to many houses of this period, since it is known to weather histori- have a slender timber-frame concealed beneath the mud-and- ans as the Little Ice Age. stud, and sometimes the latter is covered with a waterproof plas- ter rendering. The mud-and-stud cottages with thatched roofs Timber: in Thimbley show something of the appearance of such villages before successive rebuildings made this type of construction The great age of timber building in East Anglian villages was the such a rare survival. Also to be seen in Thimbley is a brick farm- 15th and early 16th centuries, in the same phase of cloth- house of the 1720s, a symbol of the new order in rural building industry prosperity which produced a fine series of stone-built hereabouts. A mud-and-stud house at Somersby had parlour, Perpendicular parish churches, especially in Suffolk and north- house, and buttery on the ground floor, with a chamber over the ern Essex. Suffolk villages like Lavenham, Long Melford, house and buttery. Clearly such building methods were not con- Stoke-by-Nayland, and Kersey still have timber-framed houses fined to the lowliest of rural buildings. of this era. This timber-framed tradition also embraced the other eastern counties, and examples can still be seen in Cam- There are many late 16th and early 17th century timber-framed bridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. How- houses in the parishes of West Cambridgeshire, though they ever, Suffolk and Essex, with their great reserves of woodland, are generally plastered on the outside. Whilst one may suspect

46 what lies below such walls from their external appearance, our bly owing to scarcity as well as impatience), which resulted in knowledge of them was greatly enhanced by the publication of house-frames warping. One such house stands just above the R.C.H.M.'s West Cambridgeshire volume in 1968. Examples green at Finchingfield (Essex), and was probably built c1550. A had been found in such villages as: Barton, Comberton, Crox- house (now divided into cottages) opposite the church in Swaff- ton, Elseworth, Gamlingay, Orwell, and Toft. Other examples in ham Bulbeck (Cambs.) shows evidence both of such warping Bourn, Elsworth, Great Eversden, and Haslingfield had all or and the use of fairly slender timbers. part of their timber-frame exposed. These, among many others, are all illustrated in the above volume. The tradition in East Anglia in the late 16th and 17th centuries was to render timber-frames over with plaster, and the develop- The thatched Glebe Cottage in Hemingford Gray (Hunts.) is ment of this practice probably owed something to the increasing dated 1583, and this hall and cross-wing house is built of quite use of less-substantial timbers. This all-over rendering also ef- substantial timbers, with jettied construction in the cross-wing. fectively waterproofed the interior and made it warmer. The Furthermore, there seems to have been plenty of oak timber small manor house at Wistow (Hunts.) is thus rendered with available for the building of a large house near the church in plaster, with a slender timber-frame beneath. Its datestone of Eltisley (Cambs.); dated 1612, it was built to an L-plan, with a 1662 on the axial chimney-stack refers to the improvement of staircase projection in the angle. The large brick chimney-stack the house, when the chimney-stack and an extra ground floor is on the outside of the kitchen. At Bocking (Essex) a substan- room (with chamber over) were added in brick. A timber-framed tial cottage was built on the edge of a green in Elizabethan farmhouse at Ellington (Hunts.), standing gable-end to the road, times. It is jettied at one end, and provided two-up and two- is plastered and colour-washed, and its timbers are exposed to down accommodation. outside view only in gable-ends. It's half-hipped roof is still thatched, though all the windows are later alterations. Another During the late 16th and early 17th centuries the great timbered farmhouse at Spaldwick (Hunts.), also gable-end to the road, tradition of eastern England was, however, drawing to a close. has its timber-frame concealed beneath a plaster rendering, Shortages of mature oak timber - resulting from woodland ex- and was built to a linear three-unit plan. Its roof is of modern ploitation and changed management - and the more widespread flat tiles. A thatched farmhouse and barn of the 17th century, in availability and favourable price of bricks, brought it to an end. the village street at Hemingford Abbots (Hunts.), show the Most of the later timbered buildings used wood more sparingly, scanty timber construction typical of this late phase of timber- and there was even a willingness to use green timber (presuma- framed building.

47 The growing desire for comfort, privacy, and warmth in the late ing from gable-end stacks) are of brick, but the upper floor is 16th and early 17th centuries often led to an earlier timber- timber-framed. Classical features were here introduced in the framed house (with central open hall) being refashioned to pro- form of pediments over the entrance arch and over mullioned vide upstairs accommodation over the hall. Grundle House in windows, with obelisk-finials on porch and gable-ends. Timber Stanton (Suffolk) reveals this process of chamber conversion, to and brick were similarly combined in the late 16th century at Di- name only one example among many. From the mid-16th cen- ary Farm, Talconeston (Norfolk), where the stepped end gables tury onwards, however, new houses were more often built with (including chimney-stacks) and end parts of the front and rear a ground-floor hall and chambers over. Set in its own grounds, walls were in brick, whilst the bulk of the house was timber- apart from other houses in the village of Swaffham Bulbeck framed. (Cambs.), Burgh Hall dates from the mid-16th century and has a central hall, chambered over, with jettied cross-wings. An- Sometimes plaster rendering was given a highly decorative fin- other improvement was an increase in the number of rooms ish by impressing or incising a repeating pattern into the wet sur- brought about by adding a new wing, and this is well demon- face, a technique known as pargetting. It is especially character- strated by a timber house at Great Wilbraham (Cambs.). Here istic of northern Essex, though examples occur in Suffolk and a later medieval timber-framed house, jettied on one side, had a Norfolk too. A good example can be seen in Wivenhoe (Essex), late 16th century wing (with brick gable and chimney-stack) where the upper part of the street-frontage is covered with an added at right angles to the jettied side. exuberant foliage pattern, whilst an end wall displays a repeat- ing pattern of square panels. The panels of pargetting on Colne- Some of the later timber-framed buildings in East Anglia com- ford House, Earl's Colne (Essex), are dated 1685 and comprise bine the use of timber and brick. At Great Waltham (southern rich foliage and geometrical patterns. Essex) the timber-framed Manor House, near the church, is dated 1560, and the end gables and chimney-stacks are all built Brick: of brick. Both timber and brick here date from the total rebuild- ing of 1560, and the use of brick in and around the chimney- It was in the 1520s and 1530s that the use of brick began to stacks made good sense in an age plagued by house fires. spread to the building of some smaller houses, owing to its Fleming's Hall, Bedingfield (Suffolk) is a linear-plan house built great popularity in big houses of the time. From this era dates c1586 for a branch of the Bedingfield family of Oxborough Hall the remodelling of the former vicarage in Methwold (Norfolk). A (Norfolk). The ground floor, porch, and clustered chimneys (ris- brick end wall of three storeys was added to a 15th century jet-

48 tied timber-framed building. It's exotic details of stepped gable, windows. Pilasters and string courses adorn the facade, and late Gothic windows with drip-mouldings, and patterned external the highly-decorative chimney stacks proclaim the large number chimney-stack, must have marked it out as something unusual of heated rooms. and special in this bleak Fen-edge village in early Tudor times. Such sophisticated techniques were never common in most A remarkable late Elizabethan house stands isolated and dere- smaller houses of the reign at this time. lict in the parish of Wiggenhall St. Germans, in the Marshland of north-west Norfolk. It is called Fitton Hall, and indeed its size is By the Elizabethan period brick was becoming more usual as impressive for the area, but it was really a prosperous large the material for well-to-do village houses in communities with farm. The plan is cruciform and what is often a small entrance clay nearby. Alconbury (Hunts.) Manor House, built to an H- lobby is here elevated into a full wing, with a chamber over the plan, is entirely of brick, with two main storeys and attics above. entrance hall. One arm of the cross is longer, owing to an addi- Its tall chimney-stacks probably always emphasised the social tion probably made about one hundred years after the comple- position and wealth of its occupants, and that at the kitchen-end tion of the original house. Pilasters adorn the corners of the of the house is a huge external stack. The house is almost a main range, and were also placed either side of an original door- symmetrical design, but the front door is to one side of the hall way, where now there is only a window. and not centrally placed. Such a house design had evolved from the common late medieval plan, with central hall (cham- A product of the same phase of lowland prosperity is Beaupre bered over by Elizabethan times) and cross-wings at either end Hall Farm at Outwell (Norfolk). Its facade was modernised in comprising kitchen, pantry and buttery to one side, and parlour the late 18th century, but the original tall stepped gables were to the other (all with chambers over). Such manor houses often retained. There are blocked mullioned windows, with drip- had little decoration, and were large practical working farm- moulds, in the gables, and (in the tradition of Fen Artisan Man- houses. nerism) the apex of the roadside gable has a large triangular pediment over a small, three-light mullioned window. The long Toseland Hall (Hunts.), though still built as the centre of a work- rear wing is an 18th century addition. ing home farm, is much more sophisticated design from the end of the Elizabethan period. Built of brick, its facade is entirely As we move into the mid- and late-17th century new forms and symmetrical, with canted two-storey bays either side of a central fashions appear, mingling with old ones and finally replacing projecting entrance. Limestone was used for the doorways and them. Marlingford Old Hall (Norfolk) appears to stand at the

49 crossroads in this respect. It carries the date 1679 prominently circular recessed pediment over the front door. This house had on the front gables in iron numbers, whilst a few features are the common three-unit linear plan encountered in many small clearly Georgian and later. It's square plan, double pile, and houses of the 17th century. Another house with curved gables cross-windows are the new style of the mid-to-late 17th century, can be seen at Old Clee (Lincs.), where Old Hall Farm has a T- whilst the Flemish stepped gables are more in accord with the plan and three curved gables, as well as a porch in similar style. fashion of the early 17th century. It is possible that the stepped These gables are enlivened with false round windows. Of simi- gables took their inspirations from an earlier house on the site, lar plan and also with three curved gables is a house at Brough- for the date 1608 is also recorded. ton (Hunts.). The more normal linear plan, with curved gables at either end, can be seen in Norfolk at Burnham Overy Staithe, The plan of the Manor House at Warboys (Hunts.) is similar to at Hevingham (Pound Farmhouse, 1675), at Cley-next-the-sea, that of Marlingford Old Hall. Here the main facade is completed and at Hindolveston (Church Farm, 1722). with twin curved gables, and external chimney-stacks are a pre- dominant feature of the end elevations. There are only four win- Church Farm, Hindolveston (Norfolk), illustrates very well the dows and a doorway in the front facade; the windows are all composite brick house of more than one period. Of hall and Georgian replacements in the original positions, and hung-sash cross-wing type, its southern cross-wing has a stepped gable instead of cross-type. The amount of wall space to windows is and triangular pediments over upright windows; the latter (now ill-proportioned, as in many smaller houses of the late 17th and sashed) would have been cross-windows. All this is consistent 18th centuries. with a date of c1650 or slightly earlier. The northern cross-wing (the kitchen end with its large chimney stack) has a pair of Curved gables are one of the commonest architectural features curved gables consistent with a date of c1700 or shortly after- of 17th century eastern England. They are found along the east- wards. The date plaque of 1722 may refer only to this new ern seaboard of Lincolnshire, in western Lincolnshire along the kitchen wing. The central section of the house has been much Trent Valley, in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon- altered, but its core may be older than either of the two ends. shire, and Essex. In Suffolk alone, Norman Scarfe counted The west front of the house, with its two-storey porch, was the some 50 houses and farm buildings with curved gables erected main front. between 1621 and 1700. A fine example (recently altered) stands on the Trentside at Kelfield, Owston Ferry (Lincs.); it is Fen Artisan Mannerism had its finest effects in the second half dated 1679, and the date plaque was placed in a large semi- of the 17th century. Walcot Old Hall, near Allborough (Lincs.) is

50 a double-pile house, with it's main entrance in a two-storey houses of the period but with its own large Dutch-gabled barn porch with triangular pediment at the apex. The doorway and nearby. the six-light mullion-and-transom windows on the ground floor echo the porch, with their own triangular pediments. The Old The Limes at Coltishall (Norfolk), built in 1722, shows how suc- Hall at Hagworthingham (Lincs.) has a more traditional three- cessfully classical proportions were sometimes adapted for and unit linear plan, but its decorative brickwork has the marks of absorbed into the larger village houses. Two bays at either end the same ancestry: rusticated quoins and string-courses, false project forward slightly, and are surmounted by their own hipped windows, and triangular pediments. One of the finest Fen Arti- gables, so that the central three bays appear slightly recessed. san Mannerist porches in eastern England can be seen in Ker- The broad central doorway is flanked by pilasters and crowned sey (Suffolk). It was added in the mid-17th century to a 15th by a well-proportioned semi-circular pediment. Coltishall has century timber-framed house, which stands by the ford in the vil- several houses of just before and just after 1700, a time when it lage street. It displays brick pilasters, a semi-circular-headed was a small river port and head of navigation on the River Bure, doorway with a triangular pediment over, a six-light mullion-and- so that its prosperous economy would stimulate its penetration transom window with triangular pediment above, all crowned by by classical and urban fashions of building. A much simpler a curved gable. Brick chimney-stacks were added to this house house, opposite the church, has a linear plan, with rear outshot, at the same time as the porch. but it is symmetrical and its dormer windows have triangular pediments to either side and a segmental one in the centre. By Ivy House in Spaldwick (Hunts.) is dated 1688, and with its this time, such houses were being built over a very wide area, hipped roof and symmetrical facade has passed beyond the owing to the influence of builders' pattern books. A similar one playful Fen Artisan Mannerism. It has absorbed classical de- stands by the churchyard at West Ashby (Lincs.). tails in a rather more sophisticated way. The pilasters rise through two storeys, except on the central bay (with pedimented The early 18th century vicarage at Brant Broughton (Lincs.) is door), and the window-to-wall relationship is more balanced another sophisticated village house, isolated in its own grounds. than in many vernacular houses of that time. The isolated This two-storey house of five bays has a hipped roof, slightly- Flash Pitts Farm, east of Blickling Hall (Norfolk) is a large projecting central bay (pedimented), and rusticated quoins. It is house, which dates from c1690-1700 and demonstrates a com- a classical country house in minature, a type not uncommon plete conversion to classical form. With its hipped roof and among early 18th century parsonage houses. The Old Rectory slightly projecting end bays, it contrasts not only with many farm- at Westborough (Lincs.) lies north of the church, and was built

51 of brick in 1729. It has a five-bay front of two storeys, plus attic lated parapet. Behind this theatrical show, however, it remained chambers, with projecting wings to the rear. The rooms are more conventional. very lofty in the East Midlands style, a reflection of the ease with which coal reached villages within striking distance of the navi- It was in the early 18th century that brick-built cottages first be- gable River Trent. Adjoining this early 18th century brick house, came common. Previously, most cottages (other than alms- is the remnant of an earlier rectory, a rubble stone building of houses) had been built of impermanent materials, and most per- the 1590s. The change in scale is a salutary comment on the ished long ago. The estate village of New Houghton (Norfolk), social and topographical changes of nearly a century and a half. begun in 1729, comprises examples of the new brick cottages of those days. It was, indeed, in the closely-controlled, A house at Finchingfield (Essex), on the hill sloping down to the landlord-dominated villages that the type first emerged, and green from the east, is a hybrid-type, with double-pile plan, New Houghton is probably the earliest surviving example of a three-unit facade, and classical features (parapet, pedimented completely resited and rebuilt village of this period. The village doorcase, and hung-sash windows). Such houses were some- was moved after the rebuilding of the great house and the mak- times rebuildings or remodellings of earlier structures, which ing of a new park around it. The site of the old village was near thus preserved their asymmetrical three-unit layout. the church in the park, and Sir Robert Walpole had his new vil- lage built at the gates of Houghton Hall. Pairs of two-storey The years around 1700 also saw many smaller brick houses fin- brick cottages line the single street, which leads to the wrought- ished with visually-attractive and entirely-practical tumbled ga- iron gates of the park. At the end of the street, furthest from the bles, all the way from Lincolnshire to East Anglia. There is a gates and at right-angles to the road, are a few single-storey cot- fine example in Woodbastwick (Norfolk), where the roof is still tages for the older estate servants without families to house. thatched. Such thatched roofs were to be seen on most brick For each cottage there was a garden for the cultivation of vege- houses before the use of pantiles became widespread from the tables. early 18th century onwards. The landscape of Chippenham (Cambs.) was completely re- More unusual than most smaller houses of the region is, per- shaped for Lord Orford in the 1690s and early 1700s, when a haps, Manor Farm (alias The Grange), at Somersby (Lincs.). new park was laid out around Chippenham Hall, involving the Designed by Robert Alfray in Vanbrugh's "little castle" style in destruction of the village. However, the village (as it now 1722, it has turrets at either end of the front facade and a castel- stands) comprised brick and tile cottages, mostly in single-

52 storey pairs set in huge gardens, dating from a complete rebuild- The countryside of the Lincoln Edge (between Lincoln and Gran- ing of the village for John Tharp c1800, after his rebuilding of tham) and of the limestone Heath to the south and east of Gran- the hall and reshaping of the park in the 1790s. tham provides numerous examples of Elizabethan to Georgian stone houses. Generally, they are not among the smallest 18th century brick cottages in villages not controlled by a single houses in their respective villages, having been the houses of landowner usually have a less spacious layout than those in the prosperous yeomen farmers. estate villages. A row of 1739 at Commercial End, Swaffham Bulbeck (Cambs.) has front doors opening straight onto the vil- The ancestry of the substantial stone houses of the late 16th lage street, and the cottages had only one main room down- and 17th centuries can be traced back to the early Tudor period. stairs. Commercial End grew up during the early 18th century, In Oasby (Lincs.) the Manor House incorporates a late 15th cen- at the head of the navigation on Swaffham Bulbeck Lode, which tury part, with a fine oriel window on the first floor. In the years flowed into the River Cam. Another interesting early 18th cen- shortly after 1500 Anthony Ellys, a Grantham wool merchant tury cottage row is Long Row at Boxworth (Cambs.), comprising and member of the Calais Staple, settled in Great Ponton six brick and thatch cottages. Dating from c1730, the row has a (Lincs.). He built a small ashlar house and embellished the par- steep tumbled gable, eyebrow dormers in the thatch, and false ish church with a new tower. The church tower obviously ab- windows in the gable-end, semi-circular-headed above and sorbed the lion's share of his building funds, and the house has square-headed below. a small, linear three-unit plan, rising to two storeys, with stepped gables. This type of house plan persisted for most of Stone: the period under review, and the bulk of examples come from the 17th century. The kitchen-end of Anthony Elly's house has The villages of East Anglia were beyond the reach of good build- a rare contemporary chimney, and the opposite end originally ing stone, as far as the construction of smaller houses was con- had a two-storey bay window, which was later removed and the cerned. Consequently, most of the stone-built houses men- gap filled with rubble masonry. The outshot on the north side tioned here are from Lincolnshire. Even within this county, large appears to be of the same age as the rest of the house. tracts are without stone houses of the period - the Isle of Ax- holme, the Trent valley and the Humber estuary, the coastal On the windswept hilltop at Bassingthorpe (Lincs.), immediately Marshland, the Wolds, and the Fens. This leaves only the ooli- south of the medieval parish church, stands the impressively- tic limestone uplands, and there stone-built villages abound. lofty Elizabethan Manor House, shorn of its rear wing in Victo-

53 rian times when the present rear service-wing was built. With The large hill-top village of Barrowby (Lincs.) west of Grantham, its stepped gables, ball finials, and oriel window, it is a proud has several houses of c1600. The Rectory is dated 1588, and monument to a fortune based on sheep-farming and wool- three farmhouses are of similar date. They are lofty, two storey trading by Thomas Coney and his father. Rabbits hidden in the houses, with mullioned windows, built with their gable-ends to stonework provided a visual pun on the family surname. The the street. Clearly this was a prosperous farming community in isolated position of both church and manor house emphasise the reign of Elizabeth I. that here, as elsewhere, exploitation of the wool crop had led to the depopulation of the village. Coney's father, a merchant of Stone houses beyond the stone belt illustrate the use of this ma- the Calais Staple, died in 1545, and in 1568 Thomas (b.1529) terial in topographical different regions in Elizabethan times. At built the new manor house, in which he lived until his death in Thorney (Cambs.) a house of hall and cross-wings plan lies 1611. south of the churchyard. Thorney parish church was the nave of the abbey church before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Thomas Coney's estate book for 1564-96 survives, and through and the site of this house is on or near the west range of the inventories of livestock and furniture gives a good picture of the cloister. As this Fenland location is far from good building Elizabethan house and the wealth upon which it was based. In stone, the house was undoubtably built of stone derived from 1564, just before the building of the house, he had 847 sheep, the ruins of Thorney Abbey. Its plan and lofty gables suggest a 136 cattle, and 17 horses; his sheep flock was probably one of date of c1600, though all the windows (hung-sash) and chim- the largest of its day in the area. An inventory of furniture made neys (yellow brick) were renewed much later. The use of in 1577 mentions a hall, a dining parlour, a low parlour, Mr locally-available material is shown in Sharrington Hall (Norfolk), Welby's parlour (and his adjoining bedroom), as well as five prin- a large flint built (with interspersed brick) Elizabethan farm- cipal bedroom and two garrets - one of them the maids' garret. house of E-plan. A stair turret projects on the front elevation, A courtyard to the rear housed the usual domestic offices - kitch- and the house is lit with six-light mullion-and-transom windows. ens, larders, brewhouse, buttery, cellar, milkhouse, and stables Manor Farm at Papworth St. Agnes (Cambs.) is partly an Eliza- - as well as further servants' accommodation (eg hinds' and bethan stone house. Its eastern half was built in 1585 for the sheperds' chambers), and a nursery. Furnishings included the Mallory family and comprises hall and parlour, but this house usual range of oak furniture, curtains, tapestry hangings, and a was probably left incomplete. The parlour and bedroom over number of family and royal portraits. are lit by a two-storey canted bay window, and elsewhere there are big ten-light mullion-and-transom windows. Inside this part

54 of the house are fine moulded plaster ceilings and friezes. The A farmhouse on the edge of the green at Frieston is very similar later parts of the house, making its plan roughly square, are in to that at Leasingham, and of similar date. Built of rubble iron- brick and date from c1650 and c1700 respectively. stone, with limestone dressings, it has the typical three-unit lin- ear plan. Windows are mullioned throughout, the gables topped Smaller stone houses earlier than the 17th century are a rare by ball finials, and the roof (originally thatched) is covered in survival in any villages in the region. The houses in Oasby, pantiles. The roof chamber was well lit, both by a mullioned win- Great Ponton, and (much earlier still) Boothby Pagnell, stand dow high in the gable and a dormer window (its stonework con- out because of their rarity. Even Elizabethan stone houses are tinuous with the wall below) roughly half-way along the roof. not particularly common, and Bassingthorpe, Thorney, and Shar- rington again stand as relatively rare examples. But the scale Manor Farm at Braceby was built in 1653, along the side of the of the rural rebuilding in the 17th century means that large num- green, and has the usual three-unit plan, but it is longer than bers of 17th century houses survive in many villages, and the most with correspondingly bigger units. This is why it has three bulk of these seem to date from the second half of the century chimney-stacks, two gable-end ones and the other axial. In this rather than the first. case the building material is limestone rubble, with ashlar dress- ings, again a pantiled roof has replaced the original thatch. Most of these mid-to-late 17th century houses have linear, three-unit plans, and examples can be seen in Leasingham, Fri- Kelby has two houses of c1660, both with three-unit linear plans eston, Braceby, Kelby, Haydor, and Stroxton, all in Lincolnshire. of hall, parlour and kitchen, both of two storeys with a roof cham- The Ancient House in Leasingham is dated 1655, is built of lime- ber, one at the end of the village by the pond and the other stone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has a pantiled roof. along the village street. In both the materials are limestone and Built parallel to the street, the front facade is asymmetrical, pantiles. The house by the pond has three-light mullioned win- though it closely approaches symmetry. It has the usual mul- dows, except those over the front door and high in the gable, lioned windows, and a twin-axial chimney stack. An unusual fea- which are two-light. The chimney-stacks are no longer in their ture is the high stone dormer window, with its own gable, on original form, one having been entirely rebuilt in brick and the which the date plaque was placed. Effectively, this dormer pro- other re-topped in brick. The house along the village street has vided the roof chamber with its own bay window, and perhaps it been much more extensively altered than the other; its windows was built to offset the space lost opposite with the intrusion of and door are all modern, as is the chimney-stack. It does the chimney-stack into the roof space. clearly differ from its neighbour, and from those examples al-

55 ready discussed, in having a projecting, two-storey, gabled stair brick and flint are combined in a regular chequerboard patter, turret - now remodelled as the entrance porch. and the gable was finished with tumbled brickwork.

A projecting stair turret was also a features of the "Priory" at A rather later example of a linear-plan house, which could be as Haydor, also built c1660-70. The plan here is two-unit, with an late as c1700, is at Stroxton (Lincs.). Built of coursed limestone axial chimney-stack; the extension is later. The mullioned win- rubble with ashlar dressings, its facade is symmetrical. Most of dows were a mixture of two, three, and four-light, whilst that in the mullioned windows survive, though some were converted the stair turret projection is a single-light window. Presently into Georgian hung-sashes. It has gable-end chimney-stacks, roofed with Victorian flat red tiles, we must imagine an earlier with a big one at the kitchen-end. The deep plan of the house roof covering of thatch, perhaps followed by pantiles. betrays its later date.

Lack of good building stone accounts for the paucity of stone vil- Arguably derivatives of the commoner linear plan, are those lage houses in Norfolk, but buildings of inferior stone do survive houses with an L- or T- plan, and examples of these are to be here and there. One such instance is a farmhouse dated 1663 seen in Helpston (Cambs.) and Caythorpe (Lincs.) respectively. at West Rudham. Built of clunch, with brick dressings and end Helpston House near Stamford is dated 1660, and its plan is gables of flint cobbles, it was much altered in the early 19th cen- really a variation of the linear type, in that the kitchen at one end tury. However, enough evidence survives to reconstruct the is deeper than the other rooms, thus making the overall plan L- original appearance of this building (derelict in 1981). It was of shaped. Built of coursed limestone rubble and roofed with Colly- one storey, with chambers in the roof; before its 19th century al- weston slates, this one-and-a-half storey house has mullioned teration an outshot had been added to the rear, with a cellar be- windows throughout. A gabled dormer window lights the cham- low. During the 19th century this farmhouse became a public ber over the hall, whilst the best parlour and the chamber over it house, and its heightening was probably connected with this have a storeyed bay window. This bay window is clearly de- change. Elsewhere in Norfolk, especially on the coast, there rived from those in nearby Stamford. To the right of this is a are many smaller houses built of flint cobbles. One such early 19th century addition of coach-house with chambers over. 18th century cottage stands in Salthouse, at the northern edge of the village near the saltmarshes. One and a half storeys high Home Farm at Caythorpe (Lincs.) stands just west of the church- and roofed with pantiles, it has a very distinctive gable-end. In it yard, and was built in the mid-17th century, to a symmetrical T- plan with three Dutch gables. Mostly built of ironstone, it has

56 limestone dressings including the upper parts of the gables. Ax- served for the windows, doors, gable copings, and axial ial chimney-stacks provided the heating, and mullioned win- chimney-stacks, as well as the quoins. dows the light. The original roofing would be thatch, but the rear (kitchen) wing now has pantiles - whilst a Victorian owner The Priory at Brant Broughton (Lincs.), built in 1658, was a com- saw fit to replace with Welsh slates on the front range. pletely new departure for its region. Built of limestone rubble, mixed with ironstone and ashlar dressings, it was roofed with Another house in Caythorne, Ivy House, is dated 1684 and dis- pantiles. It had a host of novel features, not least its hipped roof plays a perversely old-fashioned plan for such a date. It is a and square plan. As is made clear by William Garnon's probate symmetrical version of the hall-and-cross-wing plan. Built of rub- inventory of 1672, the house comprised a hall and best parlour ble limestone, it has a pantiled roof and three-light mullioned at the front, with kitchen, staircase, and little parlour to the rear. windows (one replaced) throughout the front facade, including The central entrance leads straight into the hall, a larger room the roof chambers. One of the original axial chimney-stacks than the best parlour. Upstairs were a chamber over the best heats the kitchen-end and hall. Only individual taste can ex- parlour, the great chamber, the little chamber, and the kitchen plain the creation of this house in an area where many more chamber. In the garrets there there was a bedstead in 1672, modern were to be found by the late 17th century. but storage was clearly their main use, with wheels, cheeses, an iron beam, and a parcel of wool (valued at £25) listed there. The most novel small house plan of the late 17th century was The owner's interest in sheep-farming is further attested by the the square plan or double-pile house. Three widely differing ex- inclusion of 81 old sheep and 80 lambs, in the inventory, valued amples are to be found in the Lincolnshire villages of Allington, at £105 out of a total of £272. Individual chimney-stacks for the Brent Brouton, and Fulbeck. Allington Manor House was built in four units of the plan were built in the outside walls. In contrast the mid-17th century, on a site set back from the village street with the widespread use of mullioned windows at the this time, across a garden. Its huge Dutch gables, ending in scrolly vo- the house had cross-windows throughout. Front and rear lutes, would make it a conspicuous building in any village. The rooms were additionally lit by a single side window shared be- front half of the house contains the main rooms, in a perfectly tween two rooms, a rather awkward arrangement. The house symmetrical range, and the service rooms are in the rear part of was built for William Garnon, a gentleman farmer, in a side the house. This arrangement, between the two parallel ranges, street of the village, and placed back across a small front gar- shows clearly in the disposition of windows in the end walls. den. It must have been an object of surprise to most villagers, The house is mainly constructed of ironstone, with limestone re- both when built and for some years afterwards.

57 The Manor House standing at the south end of the village street The Manor House at Wellingore (Lincs.), on the Lincoln Edge, is in Folkingham (Lincs.) is a stone building of the Restoration a typical large farmhouse of the years around 1750. It stands years. Its features are a striking steep hipped roof, two light mul- with its axis parallel to the village green, built of neat limestone lioned windows, and a large three-storey pedimented porch. It blocks and roofed with pantiles. Its neat symmetrical facade is has the novel square plan of the time, and (apart from the ash- replete with hung-sash windows and a simple classical door- lar porch) was built of rubble limestone. Fulbeck House, in Ful- way. The roof chamber is lit by a single dormer window. During beck on the Lincoln Edge, was built to the same square plan in the second half of the 18th century and the early years of the the 1690s. It stands in its own small grounds, a short distance 19th century, many more such houses were built in the stone vil- west of Ermine Street, and is not physically joined to the rest of lages and in the fields around, as the next major phase of rural the village. Of a refined type to be found elsewhere, both in rebuilding gathered pace in the age of parliamentary enclosures town and country (eg Southwell, Notts., and Slade Hooton, S. and agricultural improvements. Yorks.), its origins are to be found in pattern books. The hipped roof, hung-sash windows, segmental pediment and doorhead, and the triangular pediments over the dormer windows, were all features still fairly novel to the builders of traditional village houses. Victorian re-roofing endowed the house with its Welsh slates in place of the original pantiles covering.

During the course of the 18th century, the smaller stone house (like that of brick) became standardised over a wide area. Dis- tinctive regional differences declined, as builders and clients placed more reliance on pattern books. Houses with symmetry, lower-pitched and wider-span roofs covered with pantiles, and lit by hung-sash windows, are the visible sign of this gradual process of change. Overall, the stone villages appear to have witnessed much less rebuilding in the first half of the 18th cen- tury than they did in the second half of the 17th century.

58 Chapter 5

BARNS, MILLS & DOVECOTES

There is an interesting irony that these functional buildings became the subject for artists and subsequently the destination for tourists, but of course the buildings themselves were usually well built and often decorative structures. Of course, they also represent the way in which agriculture and industrial processes impacted upon the countryside - a recurring theme in my own research.

Photographs taken by Enid Holland, c1988 - Flatford Mill, Norfolk. BARNS, MILLS AND DOVECOTES barn, with flint walls and brick dressings, and the roof structure has alternating hammer-beams and queen-post trusses. In Pas- In the arable farming areas, barns and corn mills were agricul- ton (Norfolk), home village of the famous Paston family, there is tural powerhouses, which underpinned much other rural build- another of these great 16th century barns, built in 1581 for Sir ing activity. After churches and houses, they are still often William Paston. This 18-bay barn was built of flint, with brick among the most spectacular buildings of an era, reflecting both dressings, and its timbered roof (with alternating hammer- large capital investment in their erection and the wealth and opti- beams and queen-posts) was thatched. mism of corn-growing farmers at particular times. The huge timber-framed barn at Burgh Hall, Swaffham Bulbeck Barns: (Cambs.) was built c1600, and now dwarfs the modern sheds adjacent to it. Clothed in weatherboarding, its half-hipped roof Some of the tithe and estate barns built in Norfolk during the is covered with corrugated-iron sheetings, whereas originally it 16th and 17th centuries equal in scale some earlier monastic would have been thatched. Modern agricultural changes ren- barns and later agricultural revolution barns. The early Tudor dered this barn semi-derelict, and the roof was partly covered estate barn at Hales Court (Norfolk) was built c1500 for Sir with corrugated-iron sheets, whilst ivy grew rampant on the ga- James Hobart, Attorney-General under Henry VII, as part of a bles. A small barn at Spaldwick (Hunts.) also has a scanty large moated manorial complex. Built of brick and of immense timber-frame; square panels are infilled with later brick, and in length (184 ft.), it incorporated stables and living accommoda- the place of the original thatched roof it has one of mottled early tion for the groom at the eastern end. Its great timber queen- 19th century pantiles. The Old Hall barn at East Tuddernham post roof was originally thatched, and the ends are crowned by (Norfolk) is another Jacobean one with a sparse timber-frame stepped gables. on brick footings-square panels on the end gables, and vertical posts in the long walls, together with brick infilling. In the isolated and shrunken coastal village of Waxham (Nor- folk), where the waves break on a deserted sandy beach Some of the most impressive Norfolk barns of the 17th century backed by dunes, the church stands partly ruinous from the rav- have stepped gables or Dutch gables, which dramatically an- ages of the Reformation. Nearby, the 16th century tithe barn nounce their presence in the flat rural landscape. Four with has fallen victim to 20th century decay, and its thatched roof is stepped gables stand widely distributed in the villages of Melton disappearing to reveal the roof timbers below. It is a 7-stead Constable, Colton, Dersingham, and Burnham Overy Staithe.

60 The Melton Constable barn is the most impressive and earliest spectacular stepped-gable barn, so by its size and presence is building in a crowded farmyard. Brick with a pantiled roof, it has Mulbarton among barns with curved gables. It stands alongside ventilation panels and owl holes in the gables. The Old Hall a huge village green, and is built of brick and roofed with pan- barn at Colton is also of brick and pantiles, and is a long 5- tiles. Only one gable is curved, the other is plain. Both Dersing- stead barn with a pair of great arched cart entrances. It has the ham and Mulbarton barns are impressive visual reflections of a date of the building (1666) in large numbers along its street period when corn production rose so high that corn laws were frontage, together with the initials of its owner. Of similar size is devised to permit its export to Europe in bumper harvest years. a brick-and-pantile barn just east of Burnham Overy Staithe, where the nearby farmhouse has curved gables. The 5-stead At Wansford (Hunts.), on the oolitic limestone belt, is a great tithe barn design at Dersingham is situated along the northern stone barn with hipped gable over. This barn, the Haycock Inn, edge of the churchyard. Partly built of carstone and clunch, its and some houses all date from the late 17th century, a prosper- gables are topped with brick, which is also used for the ventila- ous period in Wansford's history when the traffic was increasing tion slits. It has one of the most precise datestones in exis- on the Great North Road. tence: "30 July 1671", placed in a panel near the apex of the western stepped gable. Fairly typical of the middle years of the 18th century are barns at Burnham Deepdale and Hindringham in Norfolk. Built of Good examples of barns with Dutch or curved gables survive in coursed flint cobbles, they have brick dressings and pantiled the Norfolk villages of Kirby Bedon, Blickling, and Mulbarton, roofs. That at Burnham Deepdale combines materials to pro- among other places. The 3-stead barn at Manor Farm, Kirby duce a pleasant chequerboard effect. At Hindringham we can Bedon, has a projecting porch and is built of brick, with flint foot- see the effects of considerable warping of the roof timbers, ings and a pantiled roof. It is dated 1693, in wrought-iron num- probably owing to the use of green timber when it was built. bers. Nearby is a brick granary, also of brick and pantiles, with curved gables, and this is of a similar date. At Blickling there is a Dutch-gabled brick barn immediately west of Flash Pitts Farm, and in the village itself is a similarly-styled brick granary, with an owl hole in its gable and square ventilation panels. Both were perhaps influenced by the gables of the early 17th century Blick- ling Hall and its service ranges. Just as Dersingham is the most

61 Watermills; Gallery 5.1 Flint and Pantile Barn, Norfolk. The miller occupied a crucial role in rural society. In the Middle Ages the mill represented considerable capital investment, and belonged to the lord of the manor. At the time of Domesday Book (1086) there were 6,000 watermills in some 3,000 vil- lages. In the early Middle Ages few but the lord of the manor could afford to establish a mill, and because of his capital outlay he usually enforced his monopoly of corn-milling. In recognition Photograph taken by author - late 18th century flint of this outlay, he took 1/16th of a farmer's grain in return for and pantile barn at Hindringham, Norfolk. grinding the rest. As F W Maitland long ago wrote in his Domes- day Book and Beyond (1897): " often enough a surprisingly large part of the total value of a manor is ascribed to its mill, and we may argue that the lord has not invested capital in a costly Beyond these years lie the vast barns of the agricultural revolu- undertaking without making sure of a return". With weakened tion of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They reflect the manorial control, from the late 14th century onwards, mills were taking in on new land, the enclosure of old open field land, and increasingly either leased or sold off, and the miller became a the increasing productivity of arable farming at this time. To- much more independent figure in village life, performing the vital gether with other farm buildings, like cartsheds and granaries, job of converting grain into flour for making bread. Like Chau- they document the widespread capital investment of improving cer's Miller of Trumpington (Cambs.), they were in a position to landowners. The famous Great Barn at Holkham (Norfolk), on ensure that they lived well, by taking a share from everyone's the Earl of Leicester's estate, was built in 1791-92 and is a 5- grain. stead barn, completely symmetrical, with incorporated sheds, stables, and storehouses around the outside. Typical agricul- Watermills were common in eastern England, because of the tural revolution barns in Norfolk can be seen, for example, in abundance of suitable rivers and streams in the region. Most of South Creake and just west of Holt. The building materials are them stand on medieval sites, though the buildings are later. almost invariably flint or brick or a combination of the two. One of the best known is Flatford Mill, at East Bergholt (Suffolk) on the river Stour. John Constable's father milled here (as well

62 as at other sites in the Stour valley), and John himself worked at with weather-boarding. This mill was diversified into wind the mill for a year. He immortalised the cottage nearby, where power, with the addition of a brick tower windmill c1800, so that Willy Lott lived for 80 years, in one of his paintings. The earliest the miller could balance one power source against another and part of the mill is timber-framed and dates from the early 17th thus lose fewer working days to the vagaries of the weather. century. Brick was used in the extensions made to the mill and house during the 18th century. Dedham Mill, across the county boundary in Essex, was also captured in oils by John Consta- Gallery 5.2 Watermills in Norfolk ble, with the large diameter water-wheel standing at the gable- end of the mill. But the present Dedham Mill is a much larger Victorian building. Mills, rivers, and barges were a recurring theme in Constable's paintings of his native landscape.

Bourne Mill, near Colchester (Essex), is the earliest building in the region to have survived as a watermill. But it did not start life as a watermill; it was built in 1591 as a fishing lodge for Sir Thomas Lucas. A proud stone building, with fine curved gables decorated with obelisks, urns and ball finials, it stands by the lake in what was once an enchanted wooded valley. Having served its purpose as a fishing lodge, it was only later converted to a watermill. Photograph taken by author, September 1978 - Burnham Overy, Watermill North of Village on River Burn. Most surviving water mills are 18th century buildings, and even then most date from the second half of that century. The origi- nal part of a large brick watermill at Burnham Overy (Norfolk), on the river Burn, was built in the 1740s, but the part dated A fine 18th century weather-boarded timber mill, of three and 1828 represents an extension incorporating cart entrances, now half storeys on a brick base, stood at Horstead, across the river blocked. Another 18th century mill at Burnham Overy, on an- Bure from Coltishall in Norfolk. There is now nothing left above other stretch of the river Burn, is of brick with timber covered the brick ground floor, as it was burned down c1970. These

63 great timber mills of East Anglia posed a great fire risk, though corrugated iron. Today the building has been magnificently re- other examples survive - such as Braintree (Essex). The three stored: brightly-painted weather-boarding clothes the timber- and a half storey mill at Saxthorpe (Norfolk), on the river Bure, frame, and its mansard roof is covered with pantiles. Its wheel is part brick and part weather-boarded timber, with the brick (20ft. diameter and 5ft.10 ins. wide) was equipped to operate ei- miller's house adjoining in a lower range. ther undershot or breast, depending on the water-level in the pond. It drove four pairs of millstones. By the years around 1800, much bigger mills were being built to cope with increased agricultural productivity and demand. Typi- Windmills: cal of these big rural mills are the two at Lenwade and Buxton, both in Norfolk. The large brick mill at Lenwade, on the river In the cloister of Norwich Cathedral is a 14th century roof boss Wensum, is three storeys high and eight bays long and dwarfs depicting a post-windmill, with the miller standing at the top of the miller's house nearby. At Buxton, on the river Bure, the the wooden steps. It is, in fact, a variation of a perennial medie- huge multi-gabled, weather-boarded timber and brick mill, of val illustration, usually showing a man or woman approaching seven bays and four storeys, can be seen from afar and com- the mill with a sack of corn. Another such portrayal of a medie- pletely dominates its immediate environment. These big mills val post-mill is on the brass to Adam of Walsoken (d.1349) and required much more capital than the average, smaller mills, and his wife in St Margaret's Church in King's Lynn (Norfolk). Tim- were sometimes built by local consortiums in which the farmers ber post-mills were the earliest windmills to evolve, and they had a big stake. held sway over other types for centuries. This type of windmill is first documented in Yorkshire in 1185, and ten years later was A much rarer type of watermill is represented in the region - becoming so common that the Pope tried to tax them. There namely the tide-mill. These were known on the Venetian la- are no surviving medieval post-mills, but the form had not goons from the mid-11th century, and were designed for coastal changed significantly by the 17th and 18th centuries. One of areas where the fall of the streams was too sluggish for conven- the earliest surviving post-mills is at Bourn (Cambs.), cared for tional watermills. The tide-mill at Woodbridge (Suffolk), on the by the Cambridge Preservation Society since 1932. This river Deben, was first mentioned in 1170, though the present timber-framed windmill, now weather-boarded, was built in the timber-framed building dates from the 17th century. It worked first half of the 17th century, and was repaired in 1874 and until 1956, when the 22"- square oak shaft of the wheel broke; 1933. Unlike many post-mills, this one does not have a later by this time the timber-frame had been covered with sheets of brick round-house, and it worked without the later fantail - being

64 moved around manually with a great tail-beam. The timber sub- turned manually, to take advantage of any change in the direc- structure now rests on late 19th century brick piers. Other Cam- tion of the wind. The fan-tail was invented in England in 1745; bridgeshire post-mills survive at Great Chishill - similar to vanes mounted on a tail-pole drove a pair of road-wheels,and Bourn, but not as old - and Madingley, though this was moved thus automatically orientated the mill to the proper direction. to its present site from Ellington (Hunts.) in 1936. Many timber post-mills were demolished and replaced with The exquisitely-preserved post-mill at the edge of the green is tower-mills from the late 18th century onwards. These new Saxtead Green (Suffolk) is first recorded in documents in 1706. mills were much taller, and only the caps had to revolve to place It has since been raised more than once, and the wooden struc- the sails in an appropriate position to catch the prevailing direc- ture now has a three-storey brick round-house below. The mid- tion of the wind. The commonest surviving type of windmill in dle floor of the round-house contains two pairs of stones, and eastern England is now the brick tower mill. One at Stansted another two pairs are housed in the wooden part of the mill. Suf- Mountfitchet (Essex) was built in 1787, and another at Hadden- folk has other post-mills at Friston, Thorpeness (moved here in ham (Cambs.) dates from 1803. At Billingford (Norfolk) the 1924), Holton (very well preserved, with a brick round-house brick tower mill was built to replace a timber post-mill in 1860, and a fan-tail), and Drinkstone (dating from 1689). Norfolk's last whilst that at White Roding (Essex) dates from as late as 1877. post-mill at Garboldisham reached the second half of the 20th The latest one to be built in Lincolnshire was probably the six- century in an advanced state of decay, as did that at Friston in sailed Sibsey Trader Mill of 1877. In Norfolk examples, which Suffolk. The post-mill at Finchingfield (Essex) can be seen near have been converted into houses, can be seen at Cley-next- the top edge of the village green, standing on a mound. It is the-Sea and Burnham Overy. Most had four sails, but Sibsey owned and maintained by Essex County Council, but it is situ- and Heckington, in Lincolnshire, have six sails, and an eight- ated on private land. sailed mill survived at Wisbech (Cambs.) until the 1920s. A strik- ing characteristic of the tower mills of Lincolnshire and other A single-storey brick round-houses not only covered and pro- eastern counties was the ogee-shaped cap. tected the timber underframe of the mill, but gave additional stor- age space as well. They first appeared in the 18th century, and A timber-framed variant of the tower mill was the smock mill, became so widespread that it is rare to find a post-mill today where the frame was covered with horizontal weather- without such an addition. With the early post-mills, the whole boarding. Cooke's Mill at Stalham (Norfolk) was of this type, timber superstructure (carrying sails and machinery) had to be and had a life of just over 100 years - built c1798, and de-

65 stroyed by fire in 1903. At Buxhall (Suffolk) a post-mill was re- the farm, had become anachronism by the late 19th century and placed by smock-mill, and that in turn by a brick tower-mill built a rarity and museum piece by the middle of the 20th century. 1860. Penny Hill Mill at Holbeach (Lincs.) is a brick tower-mill, built in 1826 on the site of a smock-mill. Some post-mills in Drainage Mills: Cambridgeshire were replaced by smock-mills, and survivors of the latter include Willingham (1828), Histon, and West Wratting. The drainage mill or wind-pump was a special type of windmill, and this was especially common in the eastern counties. When The decline of rural corn-milling began in the late 19th century. gravity failed to clear water from fen and marsh, drainage wind- The large-scale import of hard foreign grain, combined with the mills were built to lift it into rivers and drainage channels. In technical improvements of steam power and steel rollers (from England they became common in the 18th century, though they the 1880s), served to concentrate milling in market towns and were known in Europe from the 15th century onwards. The ports. The new milling machinery produced fine white flour, early ones were wooden smock-mills, and power was transmit- which much satisfied the urban market. Typical of the large ted from the wind-shaft to a scoop-wheel on the outside. steam-powered town flour mills of late Victorian and Edwardian times is Grimsby's Victoria Flour Mill of 1906. A huge, towering The drainage of Wicken Fen (Cambs.) began in the 17th cen- building in the Flemish style, it stands near the waterfront tury, though the area was never completely drained and re- among the warehouses and docks of this small Humberside claimed. Today it is conserved as an area of beauty and special port. interest by the National Trust. There survives here a timber smock-mill, which was originally placed in nearby Adventurer's The small rural miller found his stones would not properly grind Fen in 1908, and later moved to Wicken Fen. Although late in the hard grain from America and Canada, and the decline of date, it is not radically different from some of those installed in English arable farming in the last quarter of the 19th century the Fens in the 18th century. The drainage mills of the Cam- meant he often lost his source of local grain. In 1850 there bridgeshire Fens have not survived as well as those in Norfolk. were 1,500 working windmills in East Anglia alone, but by 1945 only 100 working windmills survived in the whole of England. The Norfolk Broads are dotted with surviving drainage mills and Today there are about 60 windmills surviving with sails in East the remnants of others. An especially fine series, for their total Anglia, though not working. Thus, a feature of the rural land- effect in the landscape, lies along the river Bure for several scape, as familiar to our Georgian ancestors as the church and miles west of Great Yarmouth. They can be see to good effect

66 from the Norwich-Yarmouth road (A47). Other early 19th cen- The dovecote, with its pigeons, was a source of meat and of tury drainage mills in good condition are at Horsey, Thurne, and dung for fertilising the fields. It was also a manorial perquisite, Berney Arms, all in Norfolk. The latter is a huge tower-mill, over and often a source of annoyance to the rest of the community. 70 ft. high, built in 1865 and working until 1948. Most surviving dovecotes date from the 17th and 18th centu- ries, and most are of square, rectangular, or circular plan-form. The great early 19th century innovation in drainage was the Compared with other rural building types, dovecotes are now a steam-pump, and this signalled the demise of many wind- relatively rare survival. Many were simply fossil features of the pumps. The great age of steam-pump erection was c1830-50, agricultural landscape by the early 19th century, so it is hardly and those at Dirtness Bridge, near Sandtoft (Lincs.), and at Stre- surprising that so many have now vanished. tham (Cambs.) both date from this time. The large-capacity steam-pumps caused the decline of drainage windmills, be- At Toft (Cambs.) the timber-framed dovecote stands on a low, cause one was commonly able to do the work of ten windmills. brick base of square plan. The frame was originally plastered In spite of the widespread conversion to steam, some wind- over, though it is now weather-boarded. Its hipped roof is tiled, pumps worked as late as 1939 - only to be superseded by elec- and there are two gables for the entry and exit of pigeons. It tric pumps, or be themselves converted to turbine pumps, as at provided some 750 nesting-places, and some of the original Horsey. clay-bat nesting-boxes are in situ. A drawing of this dovecote can be seen in RCHM volume on West Cambridgeshire. At Dovecotes: Grantchester (Cambs.) the rectangular dovecote is a timber- famed building, standing on a tall brick base. The timber-frame Dovecotes were crucially important for the diet of the rural rich, is plastered, and thus not externally visible. The birds entered before the pioneer sheep and cattle breeders and improvers of and left by gables near the apex of the tiled, hipped-roof. A the late 18th century successfully ensured the development of lease of 1467 mentions the "Great Duff House", but this building animal breeds with plenty of meat on them. To earlier genera- dates only from the 18th century. Now it is converted into two tions, sheep and cattle had been more important as sources of houses. wool, hides, and milk. To them, fish, poultry, pigeons, and deer meant what lamb and beef mean to modern generations. Haslingfield (Cambs.) dovecote is a more substantial building than either of these two. Built of red brick, with a circular plan, this late 17th century building stands between the High Street

67 and the moat of Haslingfield Hall, and once its site was within the base court. The open wooden louvre on the roof enabled the birds to come and go. Inside are some 759 nesting-places and projecting tile ledges for the birds to alight. The building is once again illustrated in the RCHM's West Cambridgeshire vol- ume.

Another brick dovecote stands in the grounds of Felbrigg Hall (Norfolk), adjacent to the kitchen garden. It has an octagonal structure, with a timber cupola, and dates from the mid-18th cen- tury. There are still birds living in it.

68 Chapter 6 BUILDINGS IN TOWNS

The towns of Eastern England contain numerous spectacular buildings, which showcase the wealth and aspirations of the people who built them. Such buildings have always left a lasting impression upon me. As I now consider the inter-relationships between town and country for my research, these structures have an even greater presence somehow. They also have interesting stories to tell, conveying centuries of continuity and change in our towns.

Photograph taken by Enid Holland - Peterborough Market Hall BUILDINGS IN TOWNS: PUBLIC BUILDINGS, INNS AND HOUSES Often bigger than all these were the administrative centres: bor- oughs, county towns, and diocesan centres. Where towns were Many towns in Eastern England possess a rich architectural ruled by a borough or city council, there would usually be a heritage. During the Middle Ages most of them were predomi- town hall (sometimes called a guild hall), as in Lincoln, King”s nantly timber-framed, and in some timber building continued Lynn, Huntingdon, and Norwich. County towns, being the seat into the 17th century. Many eastern towns were transformed of county government, and other towns where the Quarter Ses- into the stone and brick built places of today in the late 17th and sions were held, often had a shire hall, such as survives in 18th centuries. All such towns had a role in marketing agricul- Woodbridge (Suffolk). County towns were also places of resort tural produce from their surrounding countryside, and in meet- for the county gentry, some of whom had houses there, which ing the needs of that countryside's inhabitants for specialised they occupied for part of the year. This pattern sometimes ex- goods and services. Bungay in Suffolk, Wymondham in Nor- tended to other major towns, and as Daniel Defoe said of King’s folk, and Louth in Lincolnshire are examples among many such Lynn it was “abbounding in very good company” and attracted market towns, which formed the broad base of the urban pyra- more gentry than either Norwich or Great Yarmouth. Diocesan mid. Then there were the thouroughfare towns, whose position centres were usually situated in county towns (eg Norwich and on a major routeway encouraged their development beyond Lincoln), though occasionally in independent centres such as what local marketing could have achieved by itself. Stamford Ely. Even today they are dominated by the great cathedral and Grantham, standing on the Great North Road through Lin- church, with its close and related houses, a dominance even colnshire, are prime examples of such towns, and the inns to be more pronounced in earlier centuries without tall modern build- found in such places are one of their distinguishing features. Of- ings. ten such thoroughfare towns grew at places where a major road crossed a navigable river, as the Great North Road crosses the Bigger than villages, towns had more diverse functions, and river Welland at Stamford. Indeed, sometimes river or coastal thus townscapes were more varied than even the most sophisti- trade was the vital stimulus to the development of an urban cen- cated village-scape. The types and diversity of town building tre, as at Wisbech (Cambs.) and Gainsborough (Lincs.). In also reflected this greater complexity. From the early Middle these towns the waterfront, with its merchants” houses, ware- Ages, market, fair, and governing rights - often defined by and houses, and distinctive topography, gives them their special enshrined in royal charters - had given towns certain legal character. rights, which were soon translated into physical reality: market

70 places and public buildings like town halls, shire halls, and guild halls. Examples of this physical apparatus of urban develop- Public Buildings: ment in the Middle Ages still abound in eastern England: two guild halls and two market places in King’s Lynn, a town hall in At Great Yarmouth the considerable age of its municipal institu- Great Yarmouth, a guild hall and a market place in Boston, to tions is still witnessed by a late 13th century town hall, the old- mention only a few examples. Furthermore, the number and di- est municipal building in England, now serving as a museum. versity of medieval parish churches in the towns testify to both Originally the lower floor was used as the borough gaol, whilst religious activity and economic vigour: St Margaret and St council meetings and corporation assemblies were held on the Nicholas in King’s Lynn and St Botolph in Boston, among the upper floor. Thaxted had been a manorial borough from at least most spectacular, together with a great number and variety of the mid-14th century and a fine survival is its late 15th century parish churches in towns like Norwich, Ipswich, and Lincoln. timber-framed guild hall. It was paid for by the Thaxted Guild of Cutlers, at a time when the little town was one of the most pros- Gallery 6.1 Guild Hall, Norfolk perous in Essex. Cutlery and cloth formed the basis of this pros- perity, and the ground floor of the building served as an open market house, whilst the two jettied storeys above housed the town hall and the cutler’s hall. Decorative plasterwork, which covered the timber-frame, was removed in 1910. The medieval guild halls of St George and Holy Trinity in King’s Lynn testify to the vigour and wealth of their parent bodies in the later Middle Ages. St George’s, built from 1406 onwards, was a first-floor hall with undercroft below, and since its restoration in 1951 it has been a theatre. The Trinity guild hall was built for the Guild of the Holy Trinity in 1421, and was again a first-floor hall with Photograph taken by author, September undercroft below. When its guild was dissolved in the late 1968 - Holy Trinity Guild Hall - Town Hall entrance, King’s Lynn, Nor- 1540s, it became the town hall of the borough, and in Elizabe- folk than times an extension was built to form a more imposing en- trance to the building.

71 During the Middle Ages Peterborough Abbey had been both prin- built shortly after 1529 by the newly-founded Corpus Christi cipal landlord and main governing body in Peterborough. The Guild. Its main hall was situated on the ground floor, and the en- town council emerged after the Reformation, to fill the power trance is a splendidly-decorated porch with carved angle-posts vacuum left by the demise of the abbey. A spacious chamber and friezes. for council meetings stands over the market house. As Celia Fiennes wrote: “there is a very spacious Market place, a good The Shire Hall in Woodbridge (Suffolk), a thoroughfare and mar- Cross and Town Hall on the top”. Such a handsome new stone ket town on the old Yarmouth-London road, is basically an Eliza- building stood out among much timber-framed building in this bethan building of red bricks with stone quoins. In 1575 the late 17th century town. money for its building was provided by Thomas Seckford, who also built the church’s north chancel aisle in 1587. Around 1700 Norwich Guildhall (town hall) had been built in 1407-13 by John the Shire Hall was partly rebuilt, and given elegant double stair- Marwe, but much of the present south front dates from 1861. cases and a lofty roof with Dutch gables. Originally the ground The council chamber collapsed in 1511, and a new one was floor was open, with a hall on the first floor, reached by open built at the east end; this was finished in 1535 and is the finest staircases at each end. This hall was used for the Quarter Ses- part of the present building. It stands on the north side of the sions court and town meetings. huge Market Place, and is now dwarfed by the colossal 1930s city hall on the west side. Aldeburgh’s timber-framed Moot Hall Market Places and Buildings: also dates from the early 16th century, when the town still func- tioned as a port and market. Originally the building was an In the 16th century more towns played a role in marketing than open market hall on the ground floor, with a chamber above. is the case today. Before the Black Death of the mid-14th cen- The sundial was added in 1650, and a thorough restoration of tury their number had been even greater. Among the market the building was carried out in 1855. This Moot Hall is now near places long ago deserted by their traders, after this great social the beach, though when built this was the centre of the town. and economic dislocation, are the grass-grown ones of Market An Elizabethan map of Aldeburgh shows a more extensive Stainton and Ewerby, both in Lincolnshire, and Burnham Market town, and half of its streets had been lost to the encroaching in Norfolk. A large number of market places no longer fulfil the sea by the 18th century. The site lies only 8 miles south of Dun- needs which determined their layout in the first place. A huge wich, which has almost completely vanished. At Lavenham (Suf- market place like that of Caistor (Lincs.) was tied up with the folk) the big timber-framed guildhall, in the Market Place, was pastoral economy of the Wolds villages and the large number of

72 animals brought to market. Some surviving markets occupy Tuesday Market was part and parcel of the third Bishop of Nor- only part of a large market place. At Wisbech (Cambs.), how- wich’s newly-extended town in the mid-12th century, with its ever, the temporary stalls still fill the market place on market new church of St Nicholas. days. Some East Anglian market places contain market buildings dat- The two huge market places of King’s Lynn (Saturday Market ing from the Elizabethan to Georgian centuries. The timber- and Tuesday Market) have been shown to date respectively framed market house built in Wymondham (Norfolk) in 1617 is from two periods in Lynn’s foundation and extension. The origi- one of the earliest in the region. Its ground floor provided the nal borough of Bishop’s Lynn in the late 11th century produced usual open covered area for sales of perishable commodities Saturday Market and St Margaret’s church, which despite its like eggs, butter, milk, and cheese; above was a chamber, grandeur was originally only a chapel-of-ease to Gaywood par- which once housed a school and had its own external staircase. ish church. This was a common arrangement in market houses, except that sometimes the chamber housed the council meetings, as at Pe- terborough (1671). The market house at Spilsby (Lincs.), built Gallery 6.2 Market Hall and Town in 1764, once provided a chamber over an arcaded ground Hall, Lincolnshire floor, but this building was converted into a garage in the mid- 20th century.

The single-storey market houses can be seen at Bungay (Suf- folk), Burwell (Lincs.), and Swaffham (Norfolk). Bungay’s classi- cal octagonal market cross of 1689 has Tuscan columns and arches, supporting a dome crowned with a lead figure of Justice (added in 1754). Burwell’s Butter Market was built of brick c1700, originally with open arches, in a market place which was a windening-out of the Louth-Spilsby road and is now only a Photograph taken by the author, Septem- broad grass verge. Swaffham’s classical Butter Cross was built ber 1969 - The Market and Town Hall in 1783, with a domed roof supported by circular stone columns. at Spilsby, Lincolnshire

73 Ceres sits on the apex of the dome, presiding over a market something of an architectural jumble, owing to its mixed history place far less busy with trade than once it was. and rebuilding after removal from the Whitefriars’ site near St Mark’s railway station (now demolished). In Conduit Lane, just In King’s Lynn one of the most impressive commercial buildings off the Market Place, in Grantham stands an Elizabethan stone is Henry Bell’s Custom House, which was built as a Merchants’ conduit-house. It was built in 1597 by Alderman Robert Bery for Exchange in 1683. The funds were supplied by a prominent lo- the townspeople. The Walsingham (Norfolk) conduit is brick- cal merchant and townsman, Sir John Turner, who felt the need built and also dates from the 16th century, though the origins of for a place where local and foreign merchants could meet to the installation may well be medieval and monastic - probably transact business. Its style was more influenced by buildings provided for pilgrims to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, across the North Sea in the Netherlands than by contemporary as well as for townspeople in this little community. English buildings. The ground floor was originally open to the street (having been converted to offices nearly a century ago), The impressive schemes to convey fresh water in Cambridge and over this was a large, well-lit chamber. c1600 are especially worthy of discussion, since they were on a large scale and the survival of evidence is good. The fountain Water Supplies: in the middle of Great Court at Trinity College was begun in 1601-2, whilst Dr Thomas Nevile was Master, and built of Rut- Before the improvements of the last hundred years or so, most land limestone. Some 6,000 bricks were used for the founda- people in towns and villages obtained their water from well or tions and vaults below the fountain, and the finished edifice was pump, river or stream. Yet in Elizabethan and early Stuart times completed with brass taps fitted to figures on the base panels. there were, here and there, wealthy and influential townspeople The roof is supported on Ionic columns and arches, whose span- concerned to provide water conduits in public places. Exam- drels have strapwork incorporating small shields of arms; the ples from Lincoln, Grantham, Little Walsingham, and Cambridge showy strapwork cresting has further shields of arms. The illustrate this phenomenon. seated beasts are lions, greyhounds, dragons, and griffins. The lower part of the central shaft was carved in the form of a Corin- In Lincoln a former monastic conduit was moved and rebuilt, thian column. The water supply for the Trinity Fountain was ob- then adapted to more general use, after the Dissolution of the tained from an aqueduct first laid in 1327 to take water from a Monasteries. Known as St Mary’s Conduit, it still stands at the source 300 yards west of the present Observatory to the south end of High Street, near St Mary-le-Wigford church. It is

74 Franciscan friary, which then stood on the site of Sidney Sussex College. Gallery 6.3 Water Supplies Hobson’s Conduit (alias Hobson’s River and Cambridge New River) has its origins in discussions of the 1570s, though it was described as new in 1610. In a scheme paid for jointly by the university and the town, water was taken from a source to the south of Cambridge to a conduit-head at the junction of Trump- ington Strret and Lensfield Road, and thence into the King’s Ditch at the junction of Trumpington Street and Pembroke Street. In 1614 water was piped from the conduit-head to a new fountain in Market Hill, and this fountain was removed to its present site at the conduit-head in 1856. This fountain of 1614 is a rare survival. In 1631 a third water supply was drawn from the conduit-head for Emmanuel College and Christ’s College. Thomas Hobson (d.1631), a carrier, and Samuel Potto (d.1632) left properties as endowments for the upkeep of these water- works, and the former’s name has traditionally become associ- ated with the work. The scheme incorporated, then, a fountain and culverts both above and below ground, fresh water was suc- cessfully distributed to several places in Cambridge. It was used for drinking, street cleansing, and drain scouring. Open runnels can still be seen in Trumpington Street, bridged at inter- vals. Photograph taken by author, September 1968 - Village pump in Market Place at Little Walsingham, Norfolk

75 Inns: vaulted undercroft, although the building above road-level was much altered and partly rebuilt in 1597, as well as in subse- Throughout the region, inns of all shapes and sizes and of vari- quent periods of prosperity. ous periods are to be found in the old market and thoroughfare towns. In the days when the speed of travel was governed by Examples of timber-framed inns can still be seen in Grantham the horse, large numbers of such inns were needed for weary (the Black Pig), Stamford (the Bull and Swan), and Saffron Wal- travellers at the end of a long day’s journey, as well as for re- den (the Sun). The Black Pig’s ground floor was later encased freshment during the day. They were also centres where mer- in stone, whilst the Bull and Swan was largely rebuilt in stone chants and other businessmen could meet and transact their af- (with fine storeyed bay windows) in the mid-17th century. The fairs. Such inns were distinguished from town and village ale- timber-frame of the large Sun Inn was plastered and extensively houses by the range of services they offered, including accom- decorated (pargetting) in the 17th century. A variety of birds (in- modation in a multitude of rooms, together with food and drink cluding thrushes, herons, and swans), flowers, and two giants and stabling for the horses. feature in this decoration, one of the best surviving examples of this craft in eastern England. The core of the Rose and Crown It was natural than many such inns were situated around the in Wisbech, standing at the edge of the Market Place, is also edges of market places and along busy roads. The heyday of timber-framed, and in 1601 a brick wing was added to the rear. some inns was in the prosperous coaching era of the 18th and This has a panel depicting a duck and a gun, probably indicat- 19th centuries, although many have earlier origins in days when ing a former name of the inn. The street frontage was encased travel on horse-back and on foot was more common. An impres- in grey brick in the early 19th century prosperity, but its interior sive survival from late medieval Lincolnshire is the Angel Inn in belies earlier origins. Grantham, where its mid-15th century stone facade lies along- side the Great North Road. Richard III stayed and signed Buck- From the mid-17th century onwards, the quickening pace of eco- ingham’s death warrant there. The medieval buildings which nomic and social activity reflected in the building of new inns. once lined the yard to the rear vanished long ago, and the pre- One of East Anglia’s most impressive inns is the brick-built sent brick buildings date from the 1770s. An even earlier inn White Hart at Scole (Norfolk). Built in 1656, by the side of the stood on this site, belonging first to the Knights Templars and af- Lynn-Swaffham-Yarmouth road, it stands as a monument to ru- terwards to the Knights Hospitallers. The medieval origins of ral expectations from increased traffic and travel at this time. the George Hotel in Stamford are witnessed by its 14th century Like many houses in the same style, its Dutch gables reflect

76 East Anglia’s trading links with lands across the North Sea. It is bridge took two days. By 1645 coaches connected London with a big inn for a village, and would have looked more at home in Stamford (85 miles) and Newark (125 miles). Ten years later one of the market towns. they were plying along the Great North Road as far as York (196 miles) and Newcastle (274 miles). However, the general The lack of sufficient good inns in King’s Lynn in the late 17th upswing after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 saw many century led Sir John Turner to build the King’s Head in Tuesday new developments, and by 1681 London had coaching connec- Market in 1683. If foreign merchants were to frequent his new tions with 88 towns. By 1705 the capital was thus connected to Exchange, they needed somewhere comfortable to stay. The 180 towns. In 1706, when a new coaching service was inaugu- size and style of this building by Henry Bell complemented the rated between the Black Swan in Holborn, London, and the large scale of Tuesday Market. The King’s Head at Beccles Black Swan in Coney Street, York, it offered a service to all (Suffolk) and a long-disused inn in Church Street, Gainsbor- towns in between on the Great North Road. From 1671 on- ough (Lincs.), are typical eastern work of c1700. Both are wards Cambridge-London could be travelled in a flying coach, large, brick-built inns, occupying important street frontages and with relays of six horses, completing the journey of just over 50 displaying characteristics of Fen Artisan Mannerism. The Swan miles in a day. at Harleston (Norfolk) is of the same era (c1700-10), but wholly different in style. It has a restrained facade, with sash windows Carriers’ carts achieved wider coverage at an earlier date. As being built over a wide area in the early 18th century. Increas- early as 1564 carriers’ services linked London with Norwich ingly the designs of all sorts of buildings were influenced by (115 miles) and Ipswich (79 miles) within our region, and to Can- standardised ideas, which were popularised through published terbury (61 miles) and Gloucester (104 miles) beyond. By 1643 pattern books. A more rustic expression of the style is to be the carriers’ carts ran between the capital and places in Essex, seen in the King’s Arms at Reepham (Norfolk), with its bold two- Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire, as well as storey bay window. Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Surrey. Already in 1637 weekly carriers’ services linked Col- In the first half of the 17th century coaching services were thinly chester and London along Stane Street, with stops at Cogge- spread and largely confined to the London area. In 1637, within shall, Braintree, and Dunmow. In the same year services from eastern England, regular services connected only towns like the north, along the Great North Road, linked London with Cambridge (54 miles), St Albans (21 miles), Hertford (24 miles), towns as far afield as Doncaster, York, Wakefield, Leeds, and and Hatfield (21 miles) with London, and the journey to Cam- Halifax.

77 It was in this period that inns like the Bell at Stilton (Hunts.) and was an open one to the south of the building, but some outbuild- the Haycock at Wansford (Hunts.) were built and flourished with ings have gone. Caxton Manor (formerly the George Inn) is a the increased traffic on the Great North Road. The architectural two-storey brick building (plus attics), built c1600, with a central relatives of the Bell Inn are to be found in the mid-17th century carriage-entry to a yard at the rear. This house was converted inns and houses of Stamford, 15 miles to the north. The oppor- into an inn during the late 18th century, when it was refronted tunities for inn-trading, beyond hospitality itself, are illustrated and the interior largely remodelled. The new Georgian east by the sale at Stilton’s Bell Inn of cheeses made in Melton Mow- front was symmetrical and of seven bays, with the three middle bray, which became famous as Stilton cheese. Daniel Defoe bays slightly recessed. However, the west side is almost en- commented thus “we pass’d Stilton, a town famous for cheese, tirely built of dark red brick of c1600. In the main ranges, on which is call’d our English Parmesan, and is brought to the table both floors, rooms were arranged along a passageway running with the mites, or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a the length of the west side. Crown House is a former inn of two spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the storeys, plus cellars and attics, of red brick and mostly dating cheese.” (Tour, vol.2, p110) from the late 17th century. The u-shaped plan, with its main range along the street, contained a carriage entry with an en- In 1663 an act of parliament established the North Road turn- closed yard behind. Both the main range and the south wing pike through Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdon- had galleries on their upper floors facing the yard. The north shire. This was the Old North Road via Royston. A toll-gate wing had a stable attached to its rear end. Apart from these was set up at Caxton (Cambs.), but it proved too easy to avoid inns, most other buildings in Caxton village date from the 17th by using an alternative route a little to the west, and the toll-gate and 18th centuries. was removed to Arrington (Cambs.) in 1668. Already in the early 17th century, Caxton had been described as “a post town and hath Innes for the receipt of travellers”. Postal matter to and from Cambridge was set down and taken up here, and was known as the “Caxton bag”. Among surviving buildings in the village are three former inns, all along the village street: Red Lion Farm, Caxton Manor, and Crown House. The Red Lion is a 17th century timber-framed and plastered building on a brick plinth, with brick in the gable-ends. The entry to the inn yard

78 Town Houses: Gallery 6.4 Merchants’ Houses " Timber:

The late 15th and early 16th centuries witnessed the last great rebuilding in timber in most towns in eastern England. Its prod- ucts still lie thick upon the ground in parts of East Anglia. In Lavenham (Suffolk) the early Tudor cloth boom endowed the town with its fine stone church and whole streets of timbered houses and shops. In Essex Thomas Paycooke’s house of c1500 lies along Stane Street (here called West Street) on the edge of Coggeshall, and encapsulates the prosperity of a family of early Tudor capitalist clothiers. Their interests reached be- yond Coggeshall to the surrounding villages and countryside, where their outworkers were employed. The richly-carved tim- ber house was built by John Paycocke (d1505) and given to Thomas (d1518) and Margaret on their wedding. From the linenfold panelling and richly-decorated interior to its external Photograph taken by Sarah Holland, 2008 - Grand display of wealth, the house illustrates the money to be made Merchant’s House at Lincoln from the Essex cloth industry in early Tudor times, and the pride of a newly-rich family in displaying some of it. Comfort, display and practically went hand in hand, for the great double doors (covered with linenfold panelling) led from the street to a yard with warehouses and other outbuildings.

In Lincoln there is a grand merchant’s house of 1575 on a cor- ner site in the Bail, rising to three storeys over its cellars. It now houses the local office of the English Tourist Board.

79 In King’s Lynn the Greenland Fishery building was built as a pri- Timber-frames in the East Anglian counties were not always left vate house in 1605 by John Atkin, a merchant who was twice completely exposed. Some were simply plastered over and col- mayor of Lynn. It is a large three-storeyed, jettied structure, ourwashed, to protect their timbers from the elements. In oth- with brick cellars; a central passageway led to a yard at the ers, the plaster rendering was decorated by the technique rear. Originally, the hall occupied the whole of the first floor. known as pargetting. Some good examples can be seen in Saf- During the 19th century the house became an inn frequented by fron Walden (Essex) and Ipswich (Suffolk). A house in Church those involved in Greenland trade. At Merton Hall, Cambridge- Street, Saffron Walden, has a panel with a dolphin, which was shire, a timber-framed rear (or north) wing was added to the me- formerly the inn sign of a building in the Market Place. Further dieval stone house in the 16th century, comprising a dining examples of this craft are to be seen in the High Street of this room and drawing room on the ground floor and new bedrooms town. Sparrowe’s House, in the Buttermarket in Ipswich, was above. This wing was further lengthened in the late 17th cen- built for a wealthy merchant in the 1670s. Its external plaster tury by building a timber and brick extension, with a study and decoration illustrates the merchant’s world of the Restoration further room on the ground floor and chambers upstairs. A era: Europe with its Gothic buildings, Asia with characteristi- shaped brick gable of Dutch influence completed this newly- cally domed structures, America with a man smoking tobacco in extended wing at its north end. In the small Suffolk market town a pipe, and Africa represented by a female figure carrying a of Mildenhall there are inconspicuous and plaster-rendered parasol and riding on a crocodile’s back. By the 1660s England timber-framed houses in the Market Place, some dating from had colonies in North America, and a string of trading stations the early 17th century. on the coast of India and the African Gold Coast, as well as its trade routes in Europe. In Fore Street, Ipswich, is an early 17th century merchant’s house, belonging to the Lord family, with warehouses behind on In the Market Place of Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) stands Cu- a plot as his store-buildings and counting-house, next to the pola House, built in the 1690s by Thomas Macro, a rich apothe- river which brought him his wealth. There were whole streets of cary. Crowned by a cupola, its symmetry, neatness and general such houses and related buildings in mercantile towns at one classical style tend to camouflage its timber-framed construc- time, but modern redevelopment has made such survivals some- tion. Celia Fiennes was clearly impressed by the appearance of times appear exceptional. This, of course, makes them all the this house in 1698: “this high house is an apothecarys, at least more important as elements in the historic landscape. 60 stepps up from the ground and gives a pleasing prospect of the whole town,...this house is the new mode of building, 4

80 roomes of a floore pretty sizeable and high, well furnish’d, a A late medieval timber-framed house across the head of the drawing roome and chamber full of China and a Damaske bed Barn Restaurant site in Stamford’s High Street, is enlivened by embroyder’d, 2 other roomes, Camlet and Mohaire beds, a a two-storey stone bay window in the Stamford style. It is dated pretty deale of plaite in his wives chamber, parlours below and a 1656 and shows how an older house could then, as now, be large shop.” Thomas Macro was described as “a very rich man” given a fashionable facelift by incorporating a new feature. The by Celia Fiennes, and his house was only five years old when jettied upper storey of the timber-framed building overhangs a she saw it. (Journeys, 1984 edn, p.139) public alleyway (linking main street and riverside), and so the stone bay window had to be assymmetrically placed within the Stone: wooden gable-end, so as to keep the alleyway clear. It demon- strates the ingenuity of local builders and owners in adapting to Stone was not the characteristic building material of most towns meet new needs. in eastern England, and only the towns of the stonebelt areas have a large proportion of stone buildings today. One of the fin- During the early 18th century a style of house-building devel- est stonebelt towns is, of course, Stamford, where there is oped in Stamford, which was influenced by the conventions of much enjoyable architecture of this era. From the middle of the grand architecture through the medium of published pattern 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, Stamford’s pros- books. Stamford’s prosperity as a thoroughfare town on the perity was burgeoning under the influence of its situation on the Great North Road, and as a market town at the juncture of var- Great North Road, as the amount of travelling and traffic greatly ied farming regions, made its inhabitants wealthy enough to increased. Many houses and inns were rebuilt then. A house in take advantage of the new style. Typical of this new trend in St Martin’s, the southernmost part of Stamford across the river Stamford building are the house on and near the Great North Welland, has huge bulging bay windows rising throughout the Road, not far from the bridge over the Welland. There is a height of the facade and above the eaves to become dormer group of them in St Mary’s Place to the north of the Welland, windows as well. 17th century builders knew many excesses and as one climbs southwards through St Martin’s, on the oppo- and these bays are typical of the building spirit of the time and site side of the river, other examples are to be seen. Rusticated of Stamford in particular. A symmetrical house facade in St Pe- quoins, window and door surrounds, string-courses, and hung- ter’s Square is a more restrained example of the art; now rebuilt sash windows are the combined hallmark of this style. Stam- adjacent to the bus station, as part of a shelter and public con- ford also acquired some notable public buildings in the 18th cen- venience, it was once a fashionable dwelling in the High Street. tury. The Assembly Rooms of 1725, the Theatre of 1768, and

81 the Town Hall of 1776 reflect the same addiction to a robust This type of house would need servants for its smooth running, mannerism among Stamford’s builders and their clients. By the their rooms at roof level lit by dormer windows hidden behind a 1770s, however, the Town Hall’s more restrained appearance parapet. This pattern of development, from the first tentative demonstrates that this local individualism in design was near its and decorative uses of brick to full-blown 18th century ele- end. gance, can be seen in many East Anglian towns from the re- gional capitals to the small market towns. However, no one Lincoln has its handful of stone Norman houses, but its later town can illustrate the full richness of this heritage of brick dwellings are predominantly timber-framed or brick. In Sleaford houses. (Lincs.), a town largely rebuilt in the late 18th and 19th centu- ries, there is an elaborate late Elizabethan stone house adjoin- In the yard at the rear of Clifton House in King’s Lynn, can be ing a lofty Georgian brick extension. The small scale of the seen the most spectacular urban brick building of the whole re- stone house, combined with its elaborate details, suggest it was gion. It is an Elizabethan tower-house, with heated rooms piled once larger and that the large Georgian wing replaced part of it. one on top of the other to a height of five storeys. Combining the functions of extra living-space and a counting-house, this Brick: tower gave its owner a spectacular view of the river and incom- ing ships. The front entrance of Clifton House has a good door- Brick townhouses of the 17th and 18th centuries comprise a ma- way of c1700, flanked with barley-sugar columns. This was al- jor element in eastern England. In the Cathedral Close at Nor- ready an old occupied site when such improvements were be- wich are examples of houses, which show the use of brick from ing made, and the vaulted stone undercroft dates from the early its early days around 1600 down to full acceptance and elegant 14th century. design during the 18th century. Two earlier flint-built houses had their gables remodelled and partly rebuilt in the early 17th century, and brick was used to add their finishing touches - one a Flemish stepped-gable, the other a curved Dutch gable. The Brewhouse (named from an earlier building on the site) is a handsome brick house of the 1680s, with a hipped roof. Near Erpingham Gate is a fashionable house of c1720; its steps rise to an elevated ground floor, and there is a basement below.

82 gether with an early 17th century merchant’s house, survives to- Gallery 6.5 Brick Town House, day, having been restored by the old Ministry of Works. Norfolk The early 17th century Church House in Wormgate, Boston (Lincs.), with its curved gable to the street, reflects trade links between this coast and the Netherlands. Other examples of town houses with Dutch gables can be seen in Aylsham (Nor- folk) and Bungay (Suffolk). Houses which were not completley rebuilt were often modernised at this time. The Knoll, Aylsham, a 17th century house standing with its gable to the road, was originally only one room wide. It was modernised in the early 18th century by having its width doubled. The new front, with corner pilasters, parapet, and recessed central bays, faces the garden. A late 17th century Dutch-gabled house stands parallel to Trinity Street (nos.11-13) in Bungay. The front was rebuilt with sash windows, central doorway (with triangular pediment and fanlight), and brick parapet in the late 18th century. Photograph by the author, September 1968 - Clifton House doorway showing By the opening decades of the 18th century large numbers of the barley-sugar columns, King’s Lynn, Norfolk symmetrical brick town houses were being built in eastern Eng- land. They reveal an almost complete rejection of Fen Artisan Mannerism and the triumph of Renaissance styles. Candler’s House, in Harleston (Norfolk), is a two-storey house with hipped Much of the character of Great Yarmouth (Norfolk) was de- roof and dormers, but despite having a long front of seven bays stroyed by German bombing in the early 1940s. Its early 17th it is only one room deep. St Peter’s House in Beccles (Suffolk), century rows were built to a herringbone plan running off the now a licensed restaurant, has an almost symmetrical classical main streets, possibly to confound the biting cold winds blowing front of mid-18th century date, and a triangular pediment in from the North Sea here. A small part of one such row, to- crowns the three central bays. But the door is not placed cen-

83 trally; it is one bay to the left, exchanging a place with what books, is the town house frontage of c1700-10 on the corner of would otherwise have been a window. This arrangement was the Market Place in Aylsham (Norfolk), now with the Victorian necessary because this is a 17th century house with a linear ground-floor shop-front of Clarke’s of Aylsham. Six bays wide three-unit plan, which was recased in the new style. By con- and three storeys high, its top storey is separated from the trast the house of c1700 in St Peter’s Street, Ipswich (Suffolk), lower two by an entablature. Sometimes brick houses of this at the junction with Cutler Street, whilst only one room deep, era were designed as pairs or other multiples, and one such was symmetrical with a host of “polite” architectural features. pair can be seen in the Bail in Lincoln. Other Lincoln brick These include: a doorway flanked with Tuscan columns and houses of the period maybe viewed in Eastgate. They stand at crowned with a triangular pediment, together with the eaves enli- that point in time when Lincoln builders and clients had turned vened by a heavy cornice. Springing from the same traditions away from the timber building traditions of the 16th and 17th is a house in Lord Street, Gainsborough (Lincs.), with symmetri- centuries, to explore the new possibilites of brick and pattern cal front, brick parapet, cornice, and a half-hipped gable. book architecture in the early years of the 18th century. Caius House in Wymondham (Norfolk) is a stately early Georgian The Master’s Lodge at Peterhouse, Cambridge, originated as a building, seven bays wide and two and a half storeys high. The large private house built in 1702 by Dr Charles Beaumont. central three bays are crowned by a triangular pediment with a When he died in 1727 the house was bequeathed to Peter- circular window. The top half-storey windows are housed within house for use as the Master’s Lodge. Set back from the street a tall brick parapet, above a cornice and entablature resting on across a garden, this brick and tile house, with stone dressings, four huge pilasters. Only rarely did market town building reach comprises three storeys and a basement. Its square ground- such distinction. floor plan incorporated hall and study parlour at the front, with dining room and kitchen at the rear. Clarence House in Thaxted Probably the best single place to contemplate the evolution of (Essex), built in 1718, has an elegant frontage, an excellent ex- the Georgian streetscape in a provincial eastern town is the ample of the early 18th century master builder’s art and his river port of Wisbech (Cambs.), for here in North Brink is com- ready translation of English classicism into smaller houses. The bined a variety of houses along the north side of the river Nene. central doorcase flanked by fluted pilasters and Corinthian capi- There is the individual delight to be had in the exploration of tals, must have been one of the minor showpieces of 18th cen- Peckover House (NT) of 1727, with its elegant exterior and fine tury Thaxted. Another example illustrating the fine heights of Rococo plastered interiors and pleasant garden to the rear. It display often achieved by local master builders using pattern speaks to us across two and a half centuries of the prosperous

84 lifestyle of one Wisbech merchant, Thomas Peckover. Other lofty double-pile house of c1700, it later became the boyhood houses along North Brink were mostly built in pairs, from the home of H J Mackinder, the early 20th century geographer and early 18th to the early 19th centuries, and most have the narrow explorer. frontages typical of any urban area where building land was scarce. A rare survival here is a warehouse of c1700, which in- A few miles downstream from Gainsborough is West Stockwith corporates a small merchant’s house within it. It dates from the (Notts.), situated where the river Idle flows into the Trent. Espe- time when its owner still wanted to live on the same site as his cially prosperous in the 17th and 18th centuries, this was the valuable goods, before the bulk of warehouses were rebuilt fur- place where trans-shipment for the Idle river trade took place. It ther down river and Georgian elegance took over in the reshap- was also an important centre for building ships for the river and ing of North Brink. coastal trades. Its most famous and propsperous ship-builder was William Huntington, who died in 1714 aged only 41 years. Well worth comparing with Peckover House is Fydell House by A true son of West Stockwith, he bequeathed his shipyard and the quayside in Boston (Lincs.), which was built for Henry Fydell his estate for the building of a church, a school, and a group of (a local merchant) in 1726 by William Sands of Spalding. Ele- ten almshouses. The little brick church of 1722 survives (with gant and charming though it is, there is an element of conserva- Huntington’s monument inside), and the adjoining piece of tism in its design, which would not have looked out of place a waste ground is where the two-storey almshouses and school decade or so earlier in some of the county towns. Self-made once stood. This, in other words, was the site of Stockwith’s families sometimes aspire to the admired elegance of their most important shipyard. The almshouses were for ten ships’ younger days when it came to house-building in their days of carpenters widows, which probably gives some indication of the comfortable prosperity. Along South Quay in Great Yarmouth size of Huntington’s workforce. Seen from across the river (Norfolk) stands the impressive house built c1720 by John An- Trent, West Stockwith’s architecture and setting look almost drews, famed as the richest herring merchant in Europe. Yar- Dutch, a characteristic shared with other riverside settlements in mouth’s prosperity was totally bound up with the herring fishery this region. An especially interesting feature of its topography is and curing of the fish, which was sold in a great September her- the series of paved alleyways running between the properties ring fair on the sands. It is striking how often one grand early on the east side of the street, providing an essential means of 18th century merchant’s house towers above the rest in these riverside access for those living on the west side of the street. eastern ports and river ports. It probably always was so. Again, One house was extended, at first-floor level, across the alley- in Gainsborough (Lincs.) Elswitha Hall faces the river Trent. A way, but the public right of way still had to exist at ground level

85 and hence was approached through an archway in the building. it was. Their decline as busy ports led to the survival of build- When the Chesterfield Canal was built in the 1770s its outlet ings of earlier times. There are places in eastern England into the Trent was also at West Stockwith, and the canal basin where the trade has long since been sapped away. Along the still provides moorings for pleasure craft. By the 1860s, how- Lincolnshire coast in Elizabethan times were numerous creeks ever, the railways had swept away all this waterborne trade and and havens, where ships called regularly. Such has been the activity, and it could be written that: “The inhabitants are chiefly process of commercial and environmental change that few trav- employed in agriculture, principally in growing potatoes.” (White, ellers would now envisage as ports such places as Croft, Salt- Nottinghamshire, 1864). fleet, Skegness, Somercote, and Wainfleet. Along the north coast of Norfolk are places which once hummed with com- Upstream on the river Idle, Bawtry was sited at the natural head merce, but which now see only fishermen, yachtsmen, and of navigation. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries pack- holiday-makers. Blakeney’s quayside trade survived up to the horses brought overland cargoes of cutlery and edge-tools from First World War, with coal ships calling regularly. But its antiq- Hallamshire, millstones from the Derbyshire moors, lead from uity stretches back into the Middle Ages, and the ruined two- Derbyshire, and oak timber from Sherwood Forest, all for ship- storey customs house stands on the quayside, providing a visi- ping down the river Idle. Incoming goods included London gro- ble link with the times when a Blakeney merchant travelled as ceries, Scandinavian timber, coal, and other miscellaneous far as Iceland in the 13th century. A few converted brick ware- goods. Physical traces of Bawtry’s river trade include the site of houses survive today, and there were more before the large the wharf between the church and the railway viaduct, together Blakeney Hotel was built near the harbour in the 1920s, to cater with a few houses of the period - especially the Dawson house for the growing holiday trade borne by motor cars. The trading of 1691 in the Market Place and a Dutch-gabled house of c1690 prosperity of Blakeney contributed much to the late medieval re- at the junction of Wharf Strret and Church Strret. There is also building of the parish church, a little further inland, with its lofty the west tower of the church, rebuilt (after a collapse of 1670) in west tower and diminutive navigational tower on the north side 1712-13 at the expense of Samuel Dawson, merchant. But the of the chancel. Cley’s trade is even less in evidence than Blake- bulk of the town was rebuilt in the era of prosperity injected by ney’s. Here and at nearby Wiveton in Elizabethan times the coaching and related services in the years c1780-1850. sea came further inland, and the present village churches were nearer to the waterfront. The silting-up of the navigable havens, The water-borne trade of such places has now either vanished, aided by agricultural reclamation of the salt-marshes in the 17th or is a much smaller part of their commercial activity than once and 18th centuries, led to the decline of such places as ports.

86 Today the shore-line is even further north. An Elizabethan map, At Thornham (Norfolk) the signs of former commerce are even together with the church, is the most tangible evidence of Wive- more elusive. The quay has all but slipped into oblivion, as its ton’s former glory, for today the place is largely deserted. At haven has silted-up to such an extent that only small fishing Cley the focus of settlement moved away from the medieval boats and pleasure craft now navigate here. The remains of the church towards the sea, in an attempt to overcome the prob- harbour can clearly be seen and one solitary warehouse stands lems of the silted-up haven. New houses and warehouses were sentinel. It is a fitting place to contemplate the departed glory of built along the then-existing coastline in the late 17th and early the little ports and harbours of East Anglia. 18th centuries, and these became the nucleus of the present vil- lage. Local flint cobbles and brick were widely used in this ma- jor rebuilding, together with a sophisticated brick house of c1700 or shortly afterwards, with parapet wall and hung-sash windows.

Norfolk was overwhelmingly a corn-growing region in the late 17th century, and corn went coastwise to London and overseas to Holland from King’s Lynn, and from little ports like Cley, Wive- ton, and Blakeney. Much East Anglian grassland was con- verted to arable between 1660 and 1700, and corn exports were stimulated by bounty payments after 1673 (five shillings a quarter for wheat, less for rye and barley), when home prices fell below reasonable levels. English corn exports valued at £4,000 to £5,000 in the 1660s had risen to £225,000 by 1700 and £775,000 by 1750. Important incoming goods in these little ports were coal and Dutch clover and turnip seeds, the latter to play an important part in local agricultural improvements. It was this corn-exporting boom which produced much of the architec- ture of Cley and its trading neighbours.

87 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Please note that this Bibliography was compiled by Derek Holland before his death, and therefore does not include later publications on the buildings of Eastern England.

GENERAL Boyton, L, The Elizabethan Militia (Athlone Press, London, 1967) Brice, M, Forts and Fortresses (Chancellor Press, London, 1999) Airs, M, Buildings of Britain: Tudor and Jacobean (Barrie & Jenkins, London, Clark, G, The Later Stuarts, 1660-1714 (OUP, Oxford, 2nd edn, 1956) 1982) Cole, G D H (ed), Daniel Defoe's Tour through England and Wales, 2 vols Airs, M, The Tudor and Jacobean Country House: A Building History (Sutton, (Dent, London, 1962) Stroud, 1993) Cruickshank, D, A Guide to the Georgian Buildings of Britain and Ireland Anon, The Works in Architecture of John Carr (York Georgian Society, York, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985) 1973) Cruickshank, D, Invasion: Defending Britain from Attack (Pan Macmillan, Lon- Ashley, M, England in the 17th Century (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1960) don, 2001) Bailey, B, Almshouses (Batsford, London, 1982) Davies, G The Early Stuarts, 1603-1660 (OUP, Oxford, 2nd edn, 1959) Baillie-Reynolds, P K, Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire (DE, HMSO, London, Downes, K English Baroque Architecture (Zwemmer, London, 1970) 1971) Downes, K Hawksmoor (Thames & Hudson, London, 1971) Barley, M W, The House and Home (Vista, London, 1963) Downes, K The Georgian Cities of Britain (Phaidon, Oxford, 1979) Barley, M W, Houses and History (Faber & Faber, London, 1986) Fedden, R, & Joekes, R, The National Trust Guide (J Cape, London, 1980) Barton, D, Discovering Nonconformist Chapels & Meeting Houses (Shire, Fedden, R & Kenworthy-Browne, The Country House Guide (J Cape, Lon- Princes Risborough, 1975) don, 1979) Beresford, M W, History on the Ground (Lutterworth Press, London, 1957) Girouard, M, Robert Smythson and the Architecture of the Elizabethan Age Bennett, M, The English Civil War (Smith & Ditchfield, Hereford, 1992) (Batsford, London, 1967) Bindoff, S T Tudor England (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1951) Girouard, M, Robert Smythson and the Elizabethan Country House (Yale UP, New Haven & London, 1983) Black, J B, The Reign of Elizabeth, 1558-1603 (OUP, Oxford, 2nd edn, 1959)

88 Glover, R, Britain at Bay: Defence Against Bonaparte, 1803-14 (Allen & Un- Steven-Watson, J, The Reign of George III (OUP, Oxford, 1965) win, London, 1973) Summerson, J, Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830 (Penguin, Harmondsworth, Howard, M The Early Tudor Country House (George Philip, London, 1987) 1953) Hussey, C, Georgian Country Houses 3 vols, (Country Life, London, 1947) Summerson, J, Indigo Jones (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1966) Knowles, D, & Hadcock, N, Medieval Religious Houses in England & Wales Thirsk, J, Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1500-1640 (CUP, Cam- (OUP, Cambridge, 1948) bridge, 1970) Macaulay, Lord, The Spanish Armada (poem) Thompson, M W, The Decline of the Castle (CUP, Cambridge, 1987) Mackie, J D, The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558 (OUP, Oxford, 1952) Toulmin-Smith, L (ed), The Itinerary of John Leland (5 vols, London, 1905) Martin, C, & Parker, G, The Spanish Armada (Macmillan, London, 1986) Whiffed, M, Stuart and Georgian Churches (Batsford, London, 1947) Morley, B M, Henry VIII and the Development of Coastal Defence (HMSO, Whinney, M, Wren (Thames & Hudson, London, 1971) London, 1976) Williams, B, The Whig Supremacy, 1714-1760 (OUP, Oxford, 2nd edn, 1962) Morrice, R, Buildings of Britain: Stuart and Baroque (Barrie & Jenkins, Lon- Woolrych, A H, Battles of the English Civil War (Pan, London, 1965) don, 1982) Morris, C (ed), The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 1682-1712 (Macdonald, Lon- don, 1984) Mowl, T, Elizabethan and Jacobean Style (Phaidon, London, 1993) O'Neil, B H StJ, Castles and Cannon (OUP, Oxford, 1960) Plumb, J H, England in the 18th Century (Penguin, Harmondsworth, (1957) Plumb, J H, The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675-1725 (Pen- guin, Harmondsworth, 1969) Randall, G, Church Furnishings and Decoration (Batsford, London, 1990) Ridley, J, Henry VIII (Constable, London, 1984) Rule, M, The Mary Rose (Windward, Leicester, 2nd edn, 1983) Saunders, A D, "Hampshire Coastal Defences since the Introduction of Artil- lery", in Archaeological Journal, vol. CXXIII, May 1967 (RAI, London, 1967) Seaborne, M, The English School, 1370-1870 (RKP, London, 1967) Starkey, D, The Reign of Henry VIII (Macmillan, London, 1985) Starkey, D, Rivals in Power: Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties (Macmillan, London, 1990)

89 EAST ANGLIA & EASTERN ENGLAND RCHM, North-East Cambridgeshire (HMSO, London, 1972) RCHM, North-West Cambridgeshire (HMSO,London, 1980) Innes, H, East Anglia (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1986) RCHM, Huntingdonshire (HMSO, London, 1948) Munby, L M (ed), East Anglian Studies (CUP, Cambridge, 1967) Salter, J, Madingley Hall, Cambridgeshire (University of Cambridge, Cam- Ordnance Survey & AA, East Anglia: Leisure Guide (OS & AA, Southampton, bridge, 1957) 1989) Scarfe, N, Cambridgeshire: A Shell Guide (Faber & Faber, London, 1983) Seymour, J, The Crompton Guide to East Anglia (Collins, London, 1970) Taylor, C, The Cambridgeshire Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton, London, Stell, C F, Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting Houses of Eastern England 1973) (EH, HMSO, London, 2002) ESSEX CAMBRIDGESHIRE & HUNTINGDONSHIRE Anon, Audley End (EH, HMSO, London, 1990) Bigland, P, The Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire Landscape (Hodder & Chamberlain, R, & Gray, R, Audley End, Essex (EH, HMSO, London 1990) Stoughton, London, 1979) Essex Record Office, Essex Homes (Essex County Council, Chelmsford, 1965) Burkett, P R, Kimbolton Castle (Kimbolton School, Kimbolton, n.d.) Essex Record Office, Georgian Essex (Essex County Council, Chelmsford, Cock, O, & Smith, E, Prospect of Cambridge (Batsford, London, 1965) 1963) Fedden, R, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (NT, Curwen Press, London, Jennett, S, Suffolk and Essex: A Travellers' Guide (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972) London, 1970) Jackson-Stops, G, Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire (NT, London, 1979) Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: Essex (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 2nd edn Little, B, The Colleges of Cambridge (Adams & Dart, Bath, 1973) 1965) Munby, L M, Madingley Hall, Cambridgeshire (University of Cambridge, Saunders, A D, Tilbury Fort, Essex (MW, H SO, London, 1960) Cambridge, 1977) RCHM, Essex (HMSO, London, 1921) Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire (Penguin, Harmondsworth, Scarfe, N, Essex: A Shell Guide (Faber & Faber, London, 1968) 2nd edn, 1970) Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: Bedfordshire & the County of Huntingdon and Peterborough (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1968) RCHM, City of Cambridgeshire (2 vols, HMSO, London, 1959) RCHM, West Cambridgeshire (HMSO, London, 1968)

90 LINCOLNSHIRE NORFOLK

Anon, Belton House (Belton, Grantham, nd) Anon, Holkham Hall, Norfolk (Jarrold, Norwich, 1969) Anon, A Short History of Grimsthorpe (Trustees of Grimsthorpe, nd) Anon, Houghton Hall, Norfolk (English Life Publications, Derby, 1976) Barley, M W, Lincolnshire and the Fens (Batsford, London, 1952) Davis, N (ed), The Paston Letters (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1963) Beckwith, I, The Book of Gainsborough (Barracuda, Buckingham, 1986) Dymond, D, The Norfolk Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1985) Cox, J C, & Hamilton-Thompson, A, Lincolnshire (Methuen, London, 1923) Ebbage, S Barns and Granaries in Norfolk (Boydell Press, Ipswich, 1976) Gunn, S J, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 1484-1545 (Blackwell, Oxford, Green, B, Norwich Castle: A Fortress for Nine Centuries (Jarrold, Norwich, nd) 1988) Jackson-Stops, G, Blickling Hall, Norfolk (NT-Curwen Press, London, 1978) Hill, J W F, Lincoln Castle (Lincoln, nd) Jennett, S, Norfolk: A Travellers' Guide (Darton, Longman & Todd, London, Hodgett, G A J, Tudor Lincolnshire (History of Lincolnshire Committee, Lin- 1966) coln, 1975) Ketton-Cremer, R W, Felbrigg: The Story of a Norfolk House (NT- Buydell Holmes, C, Seventeenth Century Lincolnshire (History of Lincolnshire Com- Press, Ipswich, 1976) mittee, Lincoln, 1980) Parker, V The Making of King's Lynn (Phillimore, Chichester, 1971) Kirby, M H, Normanby Hall (Scunthorpe Museum & Art Gallery, Scunthorpe, Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: North-East Norfolk and Norwich (Penguin, 1987) Harmondsworth, 1962) Lees-Milne, J, Gunby Hall, Lincolnshire (Country Life - National Trust, Lon- Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: North-West and South Norfolk (Penguin, don, 2nd edn 1958) Harmondsworth, 1962) Lloyd, M, Lincolnshire (Robert Hale, London, 1983) Plumb, J H, Men and Places (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1966) - essays on Musson, D A, & Christian, C, Gainsborough Old Hall (Friends of Gainsbor- "The Walpoles: Father and Son", "Sir Robert Walpole's Wine", and "Sir Rob- ough Old Hall, Gainsborough, 1974) ert Walpole's Food" Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (Penguin, Harmondsworth, Rigold, S E, Baconsthorpe Castle, Norfolk (MPBW, HMSO, London, 1966) 1964) Sutcliffe, J H F H, Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk (NT, London, 1979) Rogers, A, A History of Lincolnshire (Phillimore, Chichester, 1985) White, W, A History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Norfolk (White, Sheffield, Simpson, W D, The Building Accounts of Tattershall Castle, 1434-72 (Lincoln- 1845) shire Record Society, vol LV, 1960) PRO, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic: Henry VIII, XI, pp417 & Thompson, M W, Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire (NT, London, 1981) 465 (HMSO, London, 1919) Thorold, H, & Yates, J Lincolnshire: A Shell Guide (Faber & Faber, London, RCHM, Newark-on-Trent: The Civil War Siegeworks (HMSO, London, 1964) 1965)

91 White, W, A History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Nottinghamshire (White, Sheffield, 1846) Wood, A C, Nottinghamshire in the Civil War (Nottingham, 1937) Wood, A C, A History of Nottinghamshire (Nottingham, 1948) Wood, P J, Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire (City Museums, Nottingham, 1978)

SUFFOLK

Anon, Heveningham Hall, Suffolk (Daedalus Press, King's Lynn, 1977) Dymond, D, A History of Suffolk (Phillimore, Chichester, 1986) Essex Record Office, Essex Homes (Essex County Council, Chelmsford, 1965) Essex Record Office, Georgian Essex (Essex County Council, Chelmsford, 1963) Jennet, S, Suffolk and Essex: A Travellers' Guide (Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1970) MacMahon, J, "Room with a Past", in Period Living and Traditional Houses, April 1998 (Slaughden Martellc Tower) Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: Essex (2nd edn, Penguin, London, 1965) Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: Suffolk (2nd edn, Penguin, London, 1974) Scarfe, N, Essex: A Shell Guide (Faber & Faber, London, 1968) Scarfe, N, Suffolk: A Shell Guide (Faber & Faber, London, 1960) Scarfe, N, The Suffolk Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton , London, 1972)

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