VII
So, leaving the Tudor buildings of their different dates, we pass to the complete contrast of the new Fountain Court. The second court had after Elizabeth's day been called by that name, but when the fountain was removed from it, and Wren's new building rose on the site of the old Cloister Green Court, the title was transferred.
It is late in the day to enter the lists in defence of Wren. Critics must be content to differ. Some may think that these buildings have "an air of pretentious meanness," while others raise perpetual protest against any architecture but Gothic as unnatural in "these realms." But Wren's work, as we see it at Hampton Court, seems to many almost the perfection of colour in the contrast of white and red, and as the most comfortable, and at the same time stately and dignified, style of domestic architecture for an age which demands both dignity and comfort. The design of the Fountain Court as seen from within consists of four storeys resting on broad classical arches supported by square piers. The first feature that attracts notice, here and in the outside facing parks and gardens, is the exactness of the proportions. The three rows of windows exactly correspond, and cover the space marked out for them by decoration on the centre of the arches. The columns fall exactly below the space which is unrelieved by light.
