168 The Bishop's Palace at Salisbury. 



" Domestic Architecture in England from the Conquest to the end 

 of the Thirteenth Century" (Parkers, Oxford, 1851, p. 2 foil.) :— 



" Ordinary manor houses, and even domestic edifices of greater pretensions, 

 as the Royal palaces, were generally built during the twelfth century [and 

 this, he tells us, was true also of *the thirteenth— lb. p. 59, &e ] on one 

 uniform plan, comprising a hall with a chamber or chambers adjacent. The 

 hall was generally situated on the ground floor, but sometimes over a lower 

 story which was half in the ground ; it presented an elevation equal or superior 

 to that of the buildings annexed to it ; it was the only large apartment in 

 the entire edifice, and was adapted in its original design, to accommodate the 

 owner and his numerous followers and servants ; they not only took their 

 meals in the hall, but also slept in it on the floor, a custom the prevalence 

 of which is shown by numerous passages in early authors, particularly in the 

 works of the romance writers." 



He then goes on to quote Alexander Necham or Nequam's des- 

 cription of the various parts of a house as containing the hall, the 

 private or bedchamber, the kitchen, the larder, the sewery (answering 

 nearly to our pantry), and the cellar. " The private, or bedroom, 

 annexed to the hall — there being frequently only one (p. 5) — was 

 situated on the second story, and was called from an early period 

 the " solar " or ' c sollere." This room was used as a reception room 

 "by the master of the house, as well as a bedroom. Mr. Turner tells 

 us that, as late as 1287 (p. 5, note i.) King " Edward the First and 

 Queen Eleanor were sitting on their bed-side, attended by the ladies 

 of the Court, when they narrowly escaped death by lightning/'' If 

 this were the case in a royal palace, a bishop might well be content 

 with one chamber for bedroom and sitting-room in the beginning 

 of the thirteenth century. Under the " camera," or " solar/'was the 

 cellar. The kitchen was a separate, sometimes a detached building, 

 and sometimes open to the air. The larder or buttery and sewery 

 were perhaps usually in the thirteenth century appended to the end 

 of the hall where it was entered, as in our college halls now. There 

 was, we know from an old plan of the house at least a hundred years 

 old, a pantry on the north side of the undercroft or vaulted hall 

 which I mentioned as being recently restored. This may have been 

 on the site of the old pantry and similar offices, such as the sewery, 

 in which the linen and table furniture were kept. The kitchen was 



