TUDOR HOUSES IX DORSET. 61 



bridge; but in early Tudor days the moat was no longer 

 necessary, though the gatehouse was still often retained as an 

 ornamental feature. A light portcullis was also used, and 

 massive oak gates hung, to ensure privacy and exclude beggars. 



Most of our local examples have been pulled down, as at 

 Parnham and Athelhampton. At Wolfeton there is the 

 customary pair of towers with conical stone roofs of about 

 1590. At Cerne Abbas is a beautiful example with fine oriel 

 of two stories built in 1509; and at Forde there is a magnificent 

 one. At Sandforcl Orcas it is to one side of the house. 



At Pokeswell we see the evolution of the gatehouse, for here 

 it has become merely an ornamental entrance to the forecourt. 

 It is a charming little brick structure with a diminutive upper 

 chamber dated 1634, later than the house. In Elizabethan 

 times the porter's lodge opened into the' base court, and later 

 stood by itself, and was adorned with much heraldic work. 



TOWN HOUSES. 



In the towns architecture experienced but little change. 

 The streets or lanes were narrow, with only width for one cart. 

 The houses were mostly of stone below, with half timber 

 above, each floor projecting on corbels or brackets beyond the 

 lower one, until at the top people could almost shake hands 

 across. Most of the old houses have been re-fronted; and it is 

 only by examining the interior that we discover groined cellars 

 and Elizabethan fire-places and ceilings. The wills of city 

 merchants give the best details of their furniture and fittings. 



SANITATION. 



In plans of the end of the sixteenth century the isolation of 

 garde-robes, or grouping of them together in separate towers, 

 as at Corfe Castle, was no longer carried out. In such castles 

 the ducts passed down in the thickness of the walls, either into 

 the open air or the basement of a tower. 



Later the garde-robes were placed in large square projections, 

 on the face of the wall, on each floor. 



