Studio: international art (8.1896)

The Revival of English Domestic Architecture

yet another illustrated here—Ball-room of a Country
House (page 205)—we find a feature that is at once
practical and picturesque. There is always some-
thing romantic in a balcony, whether because of
Juliet, or that English memories of minstrels'
galleries, watching chambers, and other forms of
the indoors balcony still retain a peculiar charm;
there is no doubt that even in its most simple forms
there is a certain pleasure as you stand upon it in
watching people below, or from beneath as you
carry on conversation with those aloft.

Before leaving the interior of these halls we must
not overlook another treatment of the hearth,
namely, the great hooded chimney-piece seen in
North Mymms and Buchan Hill, a style which is
perhaps less English than Mr. George's alternative
treatment, but not without precedent in our own
land, if more common in foreign chateaux.

To give a complete list of the more important
houses is not possible here. Yet some of them
must be referred to individually. Motcombe (Lord
Stalbridge) is not less interesting for its plan than
its delightfully harmonious facade. In the plan
you find a block containing all the reception-rooms
and private apartments almost completely detached
from the offices, which surround a kitchen court.
The Morning Room, Motcombe, with its panelled
wall and coffered ceiling, and the hall with its
stately chimney-piece and open-raftered flat roof,
are among the most delightful of Mr. George's in-
teriors. The exterior of Buchan Hill, Sussex,
already referred to, is a trifle more fantastic than
most of Mr. George's work, Elizabethan though it
be. A slightly French accent seems to have been
imparted to it, but in all probability the actual
house is far more simple than is its appearance in
the black-and-white drawing reproduced in the
Building News (July 7, 1887).

Studleigh Court, Devon, is a long and compara-
tively low building on an L-shaped plan. The
hall, which is open to the roof, the full height of
the building, has a fine bay window, and others
which are set at some height from the ground.
The absence of a tower, and the presence of the
half-timbered gables, assist in giving a domestic
rather than palatial character to the fine building.

Woolpits, Surrey (Sir Henry Doulton), is very
unlike the rest of Messrs. George & Peto's work.
It is a large house, with a tower capped by a
pyramidal spire ; severe in its masses and detail, it
yet lacks some of the repose we associate with far
more ornate Renaissance designs by the same firm.
The chimney-shafts, with interlaced arcading,
almost Norman, and the treatment of the drip-

courses above the arches of the piazza at the left-
hand side of the hall, all show features rarely
present in these architects' designs. Dunley Hill,
Dorking (Admiral Maxse), might also fail to be
attributed to Messrs. George & Peto at first glance ;
but the library of one story, which equals the
height of the rest of the two-storied structure, and
certain minor details betray the authorship after

HALL CHIMNEY AT BUCHAN HILL, SUSSEX

MESSRS. E. GEORGE AND PETO, ARCHITECTS

209