V THE COURTS, TERRACES, WALKS 97 



plain walls on either side. There were usually 

 pavilions of more or less importance in the 

 angles next the road. There is a comparatively 

 perfect instance of a simple fore court at Wootton 

 Lodge, in Staffordshire. The carriage -road 

 sweeps round a circular grass plot up to a grand 

 flight of twenty-five steps to the entrance door. 

 This arrangement of a plain circular or oval plot 

 of grass in the centre of the court, with a foun- 

 tain or statue in the middle, was very generally 

 used in the seventeenth century ; but Switzer, 

 writing in 171 8, says that the custom was being 

 abandoned, because it diminished the space avail- 

 able for coaches, and the courts were more often 

 paved with difl^erent coloured stones laid 

 chequerwise, or in circular or star -shaped 

 designs. In the smaller houses the fore court 

 was simply a square enclosure, with a paved path 

 from the gate to the front door. There is an 

 excellent instance in existence at Eyam Hall, in 

 Derbyshire. On the left is the road to the 

 offices, on the right the gardens. A small 

 terrace with a low wall raised eight steps above 

 the fore court runs in front of the house out to 

 a door in the right-hand wall, by which access 

 is given to the garden down a flight of five 

 semicircular steps. A good view of a small 

 fore court is given in Kennett's Parochial 

 Antiquities (1695) ^^^^ ^^ Saresden Hall, since 

 destroyed. The fore courts of these smaller 

 houses are not always easy to discover. As a 



