English Manor-Houses of the Early Renaissance 
AVEBURY MANOR, WILTSHIRE 
chimney stacks at the ends, the dignified simplicity 
of the three gabled front and the proportion and 
spacing of the mullioned windows are its greatest 
architectural merits. The little Renaissance gate¬ 
way, giving entrance to the forecourt, is a charm¬ 
ing feature of the surroundings. The high, vine- 
capped walls which shut the house in, give it an 
air of melancholy seclusion which is intensified hy 
the gnarled old trees that stand guard around. 
Seen in the late autumn, when yellow leaves are 
slowly falling across the dark green of the ivy, the 
old house seems to he brood¬ 
ing on its past, on the genera¬ 
tions that have lived and died 
within its walls. As it is cus¬ 
tomary to think that the typi¬ 
cal old English house owes 
Its picturesqueness mostly to 
its heing low and rambling 
in form, it is worth while to 
notice thatWaimel Hall, which 
is as purely English as possi¬ 
ble, is almost four stones high. 
Another house of unusual 
height, hut a very different 
one from the preceding, is 
Eountains Hall in Yorkshire, 
rhis is a Jacobean house, built 
of the silver gray stone taken 
from the grand old abbey, the 
ruins of which stand a little 
way farther down the beauti¬ 
ful valley. Fhe forecourt, with 
its ruined walls and gateway, 
is laid out with stone-flagged 
walks, bordered hy high 
Half timber houses were often 
plastered entirely over as is seen in 
a quaint old house at Market Drav- 
ton called Broughton Hall. Plas¬ 
tered houses are to he found (|uite 
often in country towns and this type 
of construction continued to he used 
well into the eighteenth century long 
after the “black and white” style 
had died out. Many of the oldest 
and best preserved houses in O.xford 
are of this type, a testimony to the 
protecting value of the plaster. 
There is no more attractive exam¬ 
ple of the plastered house than old 
Avebury Manor in Wiltshire. The 
irregular roof line, the gables, the 
white barred windows and the con¬ 
trast of the white walls, with the 
rich green of the vines and sur¬ 
rounding trees combine to make a 
picture of rare beauty. The low 
wing on the right is of timber construction, and is 
evidently the older part of the house. The higher 
part on the left is of stone, covered with a thin coat 
of plaster to make it conform with the other. This 
treatment of masonry or brick walls may not be 
altogether right, but in some old houses it certainly 
produces a very pleasing effect. 
This is the case in Waimel Hall, another west- 
country manor-house, but it is not its stuccoed walls 
that are responsible for its distinctive charm. "1 he 
solid rectangular mass of the house, with the great 
WAIMEL HALL 
197 
