THERE are, alas! but few now remaining of the timber buildings of the sixteenth century that are either so important in size or so well-preserved as this beautiful old Lancashire house.
They were built at a time when the country had settled down into a peaceable state; when houses need no longer be walled and loopholed against the probable raids of enemies; when their windows might be of ample size and might look abroad without fear. Many of them, however, were still moated, for a moat was of use not only for defence but as a convenient fish-pond, and as a bar to the depredations of wolves, foxes and rabbits.
The advance of civilisation also brought with it a greater desire for home comforts, and the genius of the country, unspoilt, unfettered, undiluted by that mass of half-digested knowledge of many styles that has led astray so many of the builders of modern days, by a natural instinct cast these dwellings into forms that we now seek out and study in the effort to regain our lost innocence, and that in many cases we are glad to adopt anew as models of what is most desirable for comfort and for the happy enjoyment of our homes.
Still, in these days we cannot build such houses anew without a suspicion of strain or affectation. When they were reared, oak was the building material most readily to be obtained, and carpenters’ work, already well developed in the construction of roofs, now given free scope in outer walls as well, seemed to revel in the new liberty, and oak-framed houses grew up into beautiful form and ornament in such a way as has never been surpassed in this country.
SPEKE HALL
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
MR. GEORGE S. ELGOOD
It was satisfying and beautiful because every bit of ornamental detail grew out of the necessary structure. The plainer framing of cottage and farmhouse became enriched in the manor-house into a wealth of moulding and carving and other kinds of decoration. External panel ornament gained a rich quality by the repetition of symmetrical form, while the overhanging of the successive stories and the indentations between projecting wings and porches threw the various faces of the building into interesting masses of light and shade. Then, in delightful and restful contrast to the “busy” wall-spaces, are the roofs, with their long quiet lines of ridge and their covering of tile or stone, painted by the ages with the loveliest tinting of moss and lichen.
Within, these fine old wooden houses show the good English oak as worthily treated as without. For the whole structure is of wood from end to end, built as soundly and strongly as were the old wooden ships. The inner walls, where they were not panelled with oak, were hung with tapestry. Ceilings of the best rooms were wrought with plaster ornament; lesser rooms showed the beams and often the thick joists that fitted into them and upheld the floor above. Where, as was usual, there was a long gallery in the topmost floor, its ceiling would show a tracery of oak with plaster filling, partly following the line of the roof. The whole structure, blossoming out in its more important parts into beautiful decorative enrichment, showed the worker’s delight in his craft, and his mastery of mind and hand in conceiving and carrying out the possibilities offered by what was then the most usual building material of the country.
Such another house as Speke is Moreton Old Hall in Cheshire, but the latter is still more richly decorated, with carved strings, some of which were painted, and wood and plaster panels of great elaboration, and lead-quarried windows of large size and beautiful design.
The destruction of large numbers of these timber buildings in the eighteenth century can never be sufficiently deplored. There was a time when the fashion for buildings of classical form was spreading over England, when they were considered barbarous relics of a bygone age, and when the delightful gardens that had grown up around them were alike condemned and in many cases destroyed.
There is not a large garden at Speke, but just enough of simple groups of flowers to grace the beautiful timber front. The picture shows that the gardening is just right for the place; not asserting itself overmuch but doing its own part with a restful, quiet charm that has a right relation to the lovely old dwelling.
