NORBURY MANOR HOUSE AND THE FITZHERBERTS. 223 
Hall, and chief or state rooms above, still remain, though only 
used as stabling or store rooms. There is but very little 
domestic work left in England of so early a date. There are 
sufficient remains of the old buildings, and traces of the founda. 
tions to establish the fact, that Norbury Hall of Edward I.’s 
reign consisted of two large courts, the outer one being the 
larger, with the buildings round its three sides chiefly used for farm 
purposes, for stabling, and for the lodging of retainers. The main 
block of the present buildings (Plate XV.), of which we shall 
presently speak, formed the south side of this outer court, and 
through it was a communication into the inner or domestic court. 
On the east side of this inner court was the Great Hall, with the 
principal apartments over it, as shown on the ground plan, and of 
which the west elevation is also given from a photograph by Mr. 
Keene (Plate XVI.). This building is generally described as 
“the chapel,” a title to which it has not even a single preten- 
sion. It was originally divided (as it now remains) into two 
stories, the floor division corresponding with the outer moulding 
or string-course. The two blocked-up upper windows are ob- 
viously original. There are sufficient traces in the interior 
masonry to show that the lower story, or hall, had no doorway to 
its west front of any size, but was originally lighted on that side 
by three square-headed windows, equi-distant between the 
buttresses. The chief entrance was at that time at the south end 
of the Hall, and immediately above this was the entrance door- 
way to the staterooms. Both of these interesting door-ways are 
shown on Plate XVII. ‘The large chimney of the Hall was on 
the east side. The present west door-way of the Hall is of good 
Perpendicular design, and may, without doubt, be assigned to Sir 
Nicholas Fitzherbert, tenth lord of Norbury, who was so ex- 
tensive a re-builder of the church. He died in 1473. The arms 
on the shields over the door-way are too defaced to be in any way 
_ decyphered. Strange to say, the door, as we believe, is actually 
older than the door-way. The door has been moved here from 
~ some inner door-way ; no outer door would have been pierced 
a) i Ok 
