TUDOR HOUSES IN DORSET. 59 



He made 120,000 bricks and tiles, burnt chalk into lime, 

 quarried and carted stone "digging stone att Waverlye (Abbey) 

 out of the rubbish." Total cost , 1 660. (A rchccologia xxxvi). 



For humbler dwellings cob, consisting of a mash of clay, 

 chalk and straw, was used. When slowly built up its thick 

 walls of two feet, together with small windows and thick 

 thatch, rendered the cottage warm and cosy in winter and cool 

 in summer. The fireplace was roomy, with a roughly-trimmed 

 tree above the opening. The capacious chimney was used for 

 smoking hams; and a bread oven was constructed on one side. 

 The buttresses and chimneys were of stone. 



EXTERIOR. 



The older houses, although planned with certain attention to 

 symmetry, were very irregular in grouping, the roof being of 

 different heights, with lofty towers, turrets, gables and chim- 

 neys. The parapets were also corbelled out and battlemented. 

 The later houses were much more regular and formal, with 

 ballustraded roofs, terraces and arcades. 



Down to the end of the fifteenth century the windows were 

 usually cusped, then became curved and finally square headed. 

 They were divided by mullions down to about 1530, the rooms 

 being low and the windows small, with only one row of lights. 

 This type, of which Purse Caunclle is a perfect specimen, was 

 very prevalent in Dorset. (S. iv, 289). 



The great hall was usually lighted opposite the dais by a 

 bay window, an isolated commanding feature not occurring 

 elsewhere, springing from near the ground, and carried up in 

 the form of a turret, as at Athelhampton. 



The other windows of the hall were kept up quite ten feet 

 from the ground. Oriels, a variety of the bay, were sometimes 

 used on an upper floor, corbelled out, of which very pleasing 

 examples are at Sherborne, Cerne and Clifton Maubank. Drip 

 stones were often present ; and the old string-courses were now 

 exchanged for the heavy classic cornice, and pilasters introduced. 



Chimneys were most ornamental, twisted panelled or banded, 

 but became simpler in Elizabethan houses. A good twisted 



