10 COUNTRY HOUSES OF CHARLES II.'S REIGN 



FlG. 4. Moyles Court, Hampshire. 



The exact date of this house has not been ascertained, but the style 

 is characteristic of the middle of the seventeenth century, a period 

 when no great amount of building was undertaken, owing to the dis- 

 turbed state of the country consequent upon the Civil War. The time 

 of Shakespeare is marked by a distinct style represented in hundreds 

 of houses, but no such wealth of illustration enriches the time of 

 Milton. 



With the return of Charles II. a more settled state of affairs 

 came about, and once more the stream of architecture flowed steadily 

 onwards. Such houses as Moyles Court, in Hampshire (Fig. 4), were 

 built in considerable numbers. There is nothing pretentious about 

 them ; they depend for their effect upon the regular spacing of the 

 windows, and upon the strong shadow cast by the eaves cornice. The 

 intermediate cornices of Broadfield have given way to a plain string. 

 The windows are, many of them, sashes ; but it would be rash to 

 assert definitely that originally they were all so, because sashes had 

 only recently been introduced. The chimney-stacks are large, and 



