RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 325 



SO massive as in the castellated style, but evidently intended 

 for ornament only. This line of parapets is often varied by 

 the ornamented gablet of a dormar window, rising out of 

 the roof here and there, and adding to the quaintness of the 

 whole. We must not forget, above all, the highly enriched 

 chimney shaft, which in the English examples is made of 

 fancifully moulded bricks, and is carried up in clusters some 

 distance above the roof. How much more pleasing for a 

 dwelling must be the outline of such a building, than that of 

 a simple square roof whose summit is one unbroken straight 

 line ! 



The enclosed entrance porch, approached by three or four 

 stone steps, with a seat or two for servants waiting, is a dis- 

 tinctive mark of all the old English houses. This projected, 

 in most cases, from the main body of the edifice, and opened 

 directly into the hall. The latter apartment was not mere- 

 ly, (as in most of our modern houses,) an entry, narrow and 

 long, running directly through the house, but had a peculiar 



the windows decorated with mullions and tracery. The Arcaded piazza, e, and 

 wide terrace with stone parapet, afford shelter and shade, as well as an agreea- 

 ble promenade. The drawing-room is a spacious apartment, occupying the 

 whole of the south wing, and has a rich ceiling, groin-arched, with fan tracery, 

 or diverging ribs, springing from and supported by columnar shafts. The ceil- 

 ings of all the apartments in this story are highly elegant in decoration. That 

 in the dining-room is concavo-convex in shape, with diverging ribs and ramified 

 tracery springing from corbels in the angles ; the centre being occupied by a 

 pendant. In the saloon the ribbed ceiling forms two inclined planes, and in the 

 office the ribs, intersecting on a horizontal surface form, pannelled lacunars. All 

 these forms of ceiling are indicated by the dotted lines on the plan. 



The floor of the second story has a much larger area than that of the first, — 

 as the rooms in the former project over the open portals in the latter. The spa- 

 cious library, over the western portal, lighted by a lofty window, is the finest 

 apartment of this story, with its carved foliated timber roof rising in the centre to 

 the height of 25 feet. The dimensions of this room are 37 by 18 feet, including 

 the organ gallery. There are eight sleeping apartments in this story, and sev- 

 eral bed-rooms in the attic. The kitchen, etc. etc. are placed in the basement 

 story. The whole building is constructed in the most careful manner of the 

 Mount Pleasant Marble. 



