Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/43

NORMAN HALLS AND HOUSES 23 INTRODUCTION means of a moveable bridge, or separated as required. There were square flanking towers at the corners of the enceinte, and at intervals along the curtains. These had usually wooden floors and stairs. The ditches are large and deep, and the counterscarp is protected by a palisade, as at Arques. The gateways are not important, and there does not appear to have been any outer barbican protecting them. The enclosing walls, like the keeps, had no machicolated parapets, but it is probable that they were armed in some cases with projecting wooden hoards or breteches, such as we shall see were so prominently used in the succeeding styles. These keeps must certainly not have been very comfortable or luxu- rious places of residence, and as the Norman nobles became more settled in their possessions, they gradually began to build themselves more comfortable dwellings in the inner courtyard, reserving the keep as a place of last retreat in case of siege. The principal building in the inner court was the hall, with its appendages. The hall was a large building of stone or wood. It was either on the ground floor, or placed above a half-sunk story. In some of the larger examples the roof was supported either with one row of stone or wooden pillars down the centre,* or with two rows of pillars, dividing the building into a central nave and side aisles like a church. Of this class we have still a fine example at Oakham, in Rutlandshire. (See Parker.) There was also erected in the court a solar or lord's room, generally over a cellar. The kitchen seems to have been originally a temporary wooden erection left open above. The buttery, pantry, etc., were also in use, but their position is not quite distinct ; they were, however, probably near the entrance to the hall. It should be kept in mind that these were all detached erections, and that the offices, lodgings for soldiers, guests, etc. were usually temporary wooden structures, put up as they were required, and as speedily removed. In the outer court were situated a chapel for the garrison, barracks for the men, stables and sheds for horses and cattle, etc. The halls were sometimes defended with thick walls, crenelated pai'apets, and buttresses with projecting bartizans. In towns the houses were almost universally of wood, and thatched, and only one story high. In London this was the case previous to the great fire in Stephen's reign, when regulations were made as to building party walls of stone. Some houses, however, still exist built with stone, and two stories in height, such as the Jew's house at Lincoln, a house at Southampton, etc. In these cases the living- rooms were on the first floor, the ground floor being probably used for stores. Fireplaces are usual, and the flues seem to have been (as at Lincoln) in the side walls, not the gables. The iron-work of this period is of the florid description usual throughout the middle ages. One striking peculiarity is that the external ashlar work of good buildings