DOI Heft:
No. 72 (March 1899)
DOI Artikel:Leonard, George Hare: A nineteenth-century house, [1]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19231#0108
A Nineteenth-Century House
PALACE GATE HOUSE : TOP LANDING OF STAIRCASE
The Portland stone of which it is built is still
rather audaciously white, but this will soon be
remedied by the kindly dirt of another London
winter. If the eye rests for a moment on the
great blunt iron bars that face the street, it will be
seen that the house is protected by no ordinary
railing. The very scraper worked in iron and
brass, " not too bright and good" for daily use,
Proclaims itself at once as having been designed
on the spot according to the prevailing law, as it
carefully follows the line of the wall and steps.
The house is entered by a vaulted porch, lighted
by a copper lantern, which by night shows the
great unpanelled oaken door, with the strong bars
running across it, and gleams upon the delicate
brazen furniture of the bell and the letter-box of
grey beaten iron. The casual passer-by who has
eyes to see owes a good deal to Mr. Nelson
Dawson.
Within, a small panelled vestibule leads into the
hall, beyond which lies the dining-room. If I were
a " picturesque" writer I should have to describe
lt as " baronial," with its high panelled dado, and
canted waggon roof panelled and supported on
arched ribs, hanging over the plain walls of Port-
land stone which are not here neatly smoothed Dy
the too careful mason, whose one dread seems
generally to be that his work should be taken for
what it really is—a plain stone wall. But it is not
really a " baronial " hall—only a very stately, com-
fortable, modern, Englishman's dining-room.
The fixtures form the only decoration—the great
broad sconces that hold the electric lights, and
the old armour massed upon the walls, and the
heraldry in low relief above the fire. The dining-
room is in fact meant to be a room for dining.
At the dinner hour, when the curtains are drawn
across the bay, with the lights glowing on the walls,
and the plain and massive table is covered with its
white cloth and good things, one sees it is a place
where men should dine at the close of day. After
dinner I should like best to turn out all the lights
and trust to the uncertain illumination of the fire
burning behind the wonderfully-woven wire screen
and making play with the shadows in the beams of
the overarching roof. Then I should like to draw
up one of the great pigskin-covered chairs to the
hearthstone, and complain of the rule which does
not justify an interference with another's fire
until acquaintance has been ripening for seven
97
PALACE GATE HOUSE : TOP LANDING OF STAIRCASE
The Portland stone of which it is built is still
rather audaciously white, but this will soon be
remedied by the kindly dirt of another London
winter. If the eye rests for a moment on the
great blunt iron bars that face the street, it will be
seen that the house is protected by no ordinary
railing. The very scraper worked in iron and
brass, " not too bright and good" for daily use,
Proclaims itself at once as having been designed
on the spot according to the prevailing law, as it
carefully follows the line of the wall and steps.
The house is entered by a vaulted porch, lighted
by a copper lantern, which by night shows the
great unpanelled oaken door, with the strong bars
running across it, and gleams upon the delicate
brazen furniture of the bell and the letter-box of
grey beaten iron. The casual passer-by who has
eyes to see owes a good deal to Mr. Nelson
Dawson.
Within, a small panelled vestibule leads into the
hall, beyond which lies the dining-room. If I were
a " picturesque" writer I should have to describe
lt as " baronial," with its high panelled dado, and
canted waggon roof panelled and supported on
arched ribs, hanging over the plain walls of Port-
land stone which are not here neatly smoothed Dy
the too careful mason, whose one dread seems
generally to be that his work should be taken for
what it really is—a plain stone wall. But it is not
really a " baronial " hall—only a very stately, com-
fortable, modern, Englishman's dining-room.
The fixtures form the only decoration—the great
broad sconces that hold the electric lights, and
the old armour massed upon the walls, and the
heraldry in low relief above the fire. The dining-
room is in fact meant to be a room for dining.
At the dinner hour, when the curtains are drawn
across the bay, with the lights glowing on the walls,
and the plain and massive table is covered with its
white cloth and good things, one sees it is a place
where men should dine at the close of day. After
dinner I should like best to turn out all the lights
and trust to the uncertain illumination of the fire
burning behind the wonderfully-woven wire screen
and making play with the shadows in the beams of
the overarching roof. Then I should like to draw
up one of the great pigskin-covered chairs to the
hearthstone, and complain of the rule which does
not justify an interference with another's fire
until acquaintance has been ripening for seven
97