88 



THE HOUSE AND ITS EQUIPMENT. 



Iig. A FREE-STANDING RAXGK. 



years will show that the same are quite readable, and 



that they were designed, or evolved, to suit the needs 



of the people of the times in which they were built. 



This can easily be verified by conjuring up an idea of 



any particular epoch, by what we know of it from 



history, and then taking a house of the same period 



and seeing how well it agrees with the life that must 



have been led in it ; and all this is quite possible to 



us if, instead of designing houses in a spirit of eclectic 



dilettantism, we endeavour instead to build them around 



our own definite requirements. We are at the moment 



an extraordinarily mechanical people ; think of the number 



of amateurs who have an excellent knowledge of the 



working of an internal-combustion engine and its detail 



of ignition. The matter interests them because the 



subject is one of efficiency ; our houses, then, must 



be efficient, and that in more ways than slavish imitation 



of bygone types of ornamentation on the exterior. The 



planning of the kitchen and its offices may be said to 



have proceeded on eminently rational lines until the 



1 alladian period of architecture. 



In Saxon and Norman times the first necessity 



of a house was that it should be easily defended, and 



we find that the cooking arrangements were primitive, 



and consisted of sheds without the fortified keep. The 



methods of cooking were probably elementary, and the 



large roasted joint could be depended to retain its heat, 



by reason of its size, during the passage from kitchen to 



hall. The most rational type of planning of the domestic 



offices we have ever had was that which followed on 



Xorman times, and had its inception in the granges, 



which the abbots built for their accommodation when travelling to view distant farms and 



estates. These buildings were an adaptation of the monastic type of plan grouped around a 



cloister. The monks took the parts which were necessary to form a home, so that we find these 



early granges had a central hall with screens at one end and a raised dais at the other ; at the dais end of 



the hall were the private rooms for the abbot ; at the screen end came the buttery and kitchen. The 



type remains with us in the guise of collegiate buildings, and it was universal down to the end of the 



sixteenth century. During this period the English gentleman lived almost entirely on his land, 



and unless he happened to be a great personage of political importance his visits abroad or 



to London were very few and far 

 between. The type of plan that 

 was evolved was admirably suited 

 to the requirements of the household, 

 and was wholly English in its con 

 ception and evolution. The houses, 

 were not adapted for ceremonial, 

 but rather for comfort. At the end 

 of the sixteenth century, however, 

 a great change set in, until we find 

 in the Palladian period that comfort 

 had been almost wholly given up for 

 ceremonial ; and whereas in the six 

 teenth century the kitchens were 

 always arranged so that meals could 

 be served into the hall quickly, in 

 the eighteenth century they were 

 placed in such a position that only 

 by a miracle could food reach the 

 dining-room before it was quite 

 cold, the kitchen being placed in 

 the basement, or far away in a wing 



120. A RANGE FOR LARGE HOUSES. 



