Larger structures
were erected by men of great estates, during the reigns of Henry VI.
and Edward IV.; but very few can be traced higher; and such has been
the effect of time, still more through the advance or decline of
families, and the progress of architectural improvement, than the
natural decay of these buildings, that I should conceive it difficult
to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman, and not
belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments of which
are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances at least must be
extremely few. Single rooms, windows, doorways, &c. of an earlier
date, may perhaps not unfrequently be found; but such instances are
always to be verified by their intrinsic evidence, not by the
tradition of the place.[6]
[5] Hist. of Whalley. In Strutt's view of Manners, we have an
inventory of furniture in the house of Mr. Richard Fermor,
ancestor of the Earl of Pomfret, at Easton in
Northamptonshire, and another in that of Sir Adrian
Foskewe. Both these houses appear to have been of the
dimensions and arrangement mentioned. And even in houses
of a more ample extent, the bi-section of the ground-plot
by an entrance-passage, was, I believe, universal, and is
a proof of antiquity. Haddon Hall and Penshurst still
display this ancient arrangement, which has been altered
in some old houses.
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