234 A Plea for the Further Investigation of 



the sides of the court, the bay windows occurred again, the windows 

 and balustrade being the same as in the front, except that the 

 windows ran up to the balustrade. The roof was a leaded flat. 



On the opposite side of the court was a sort of cloister, common 

 in Elizabethan houses, with a doorway in the centre leading to the 

 hall, on the left, and a terrace above the cloister. A passage, in the 

 corner, next the hall, led to the Great Chamber, the Presence Chamber, 

 and a gallery which returned and formed another square court. 



To revert again to the elevation of the front, the chimneys are 

 remarkable. They have rather a columnar appearance, but ornament, 

 on the shafts, of a late Gothic character, with the exception of one 

 which is left plain, and that looks to me very much as if Thorpe 

 was not simply drawing existing work, but designing, in the matter. 

 These chimneys were actually executed, as they appear in a later 

 view, which shows the front in an altered and dilapidated state. 



The conclusion that I come to is this : — that there is no reason 

 why the whole of this court may not have been Thorpe's own design 

 and as late as 1560, or later. 



If so, the question may be asked : — where was the work executed 

 for the Protector Somerset? I would venture to suggest, as a 

 possible explanation, that Somerset's work may have consisted, as 

 in other cases, not so much in actual re-building as in the conversion 

 of existing buildings, and that, this failing to satisfy the taste of 

 those who succeeded him, the outer court was entirely re-faced, not 

 improbably by Thorpe. Stow does, however, no doubt, say that 

 the Protector, in 1549, pulled the old buildings down and made level 

 ground. At any rate, he must have left his own buildings incomplete. 

 Somerset House became the residence of Anne of Denmark, the 

 Queen of James the First, and Strype says : — " This House was 

 much repaired and beautified and improved by new buildings and 

 enlargements by this Queen." 



This may, perhaps, be the work in question. If we supposed it 

 to be executed very shortly after the accession of James, it would 

 not be beyond Thorpe's range. Kip's engraving, to which I have 

 several times referred, is a bird's-eye view, from the river side, and 

 shows the two courts clearly and also the additions by Inigo 



