The Historic Design Criteria of Stair Parts in the English and American Home from Charles I To George IV

Is England, more than in any other country, the affections of people in all ranks of life have clung round their homes; and learn something of how those homes in design of staircase stair parts have changed in dis­position and appearance with the changing times is an occupation not only fascinating in itself, but one which leads into regions of that personal interest which lends life and colour to the aictmees of the historian. So far as our present conception of a home is concerned, the time of Elizabeth may be held to have seen its birth; for, the English house has an ancestry which goes back to the Conquest, yet it was in Elizabeth's days that houses mere fast built almost- exclusively for pleasure and delight. Hess was a great age of house buildingand the staircase was of great importance and great care was taken over the design of stair parts . Peace, wealth, and secorby from serious turmoil led men in all parts of the country to refurbish their old homes or to build new ones; and records remain, either in actual buildings or in old plans, of houses of every size, from the great palaces of Burghley or Hatton wherein they entertained their sovereign, down to the little house, not forty feet square, which was devised for Sir Walter Raleigh in St James's, Much pains and great skill were expended in con­triving these houses so that they should be convenient and well­looking The planning of them was in the nature of a new experiment, for there was no precedent, either of extent or disposition, which was exactly to the point. The treatment of the exterior-in other words, their style of design of stair parts in  architecture-was also something fresh; for it became the fashion, gradually in­extent, to seek inspiration in this direction on the design of stair parts from Italy, a country which for more than a century had- produced most marvelous buildings, both as to conception anal as to the lovely detail with which they were embellished.

This new demand in regard to style of staircase (stair parts)  was partly met by inviting foreign workmen to this country, and partly by sending English designers to study staircase (stair parts) design in Italy; but the knowledge thus acquired was utilised by our native craftsmen in their own way. It influenced them, but did not enslave them. At first it puzzled them, with the result that much hybrid work was done which would have astonished both their Gothic forefathers and their Italian contemporaries, but which nevertheless has an attractive piquancy of its own.

This tentative stage in staircase or stair parts design lasted well into the seventeenth century, until the knowledge and genius of Inigo Jones, most ably seconded by John Webb, gradually wrought a revolution, and English architecture freed itself from the pleasant inaccuracies of its earlier exponents.

It is at the time when the old order was beginning to give way to the new that the story of the English House in staircase or stair parts design is taken up in the following pages. It will be pursued through the next two centuries. We shall see how the crude ideas of Elizabethan and Jacobean architects in staircase or stair parts design were mellowed under the influence of Inigo Jones; how John Webb carried on his master's teaching through the disturbed years of the Civil War; how wealthy men, following the lead of the Earl of Arundel, indulged their growing taste for collecting antiques, pictures, and other works of art. Houses will be described and pictured in staircase or stair parts design which Evelyn and Pepys must have watched many of the events which they record in their pages.

In due course will come the great homes of the great nobles of William and Mary, of Anne and the Georges; homes which express in a vivid way in staircase or stair parts design led by the social distinctions of the times, and indicate the vast interval which lay between the duke and the merchant-more particularly in the opinion of the duke. It was at this period that domestic architecture in staircase or stair parts design reached the zenith of its splendour, aided, as it was, not only by the patronage of noblemen like Lord Burlington, but by their participation in the work of staircase or stair parts design. That they were able so to participate was largely owing to the publication of books on architecture, both ancient and modern. The point of view from which architecture was then, regarded, largely determined by this literature, is of great historical interest, although the march of events has been adverse to its continued acceptance. Contemporary with these great efforts in design were in- numerable smaller houses, essentially English in expression, .A charmingly simple. In them lived men and women who .ped to make the eighteenth century famous-Addison and wper, Reynolds and Garrick, Mrs. Thrale and Frances burney. But all through the eighteenth century the artificiality which marks much of its sentiment becomes every now and then apparent in its houses and their lay outs, wherein are sometimes to be found manufactured ruins and strange attempts Gothic temples. Yet always is perceptible an earnest, tempt at design. If in architecture itself the sense of staircase or stair parts design became somewhat dulled, it was still acute in the smaller matters of decoration, of furniture, and of articles for household u-e; the ornament which prevailed towards the close of the period under review is quite admirable of its kind.

Such, very briefly indicated, is the ground to be traversed in the following inquiry on staircase or stair parts design. Some of it must be trodden with care and no with hasty steps; but it is hoped that the journey may not be without interest, and may perhaps induce the reader to explore at his leisure parts of the country of which here he will possibly catch but a glimpse. In the meantime let us return to our starting-point staircase design, where the old order began to give way tc the new.

The history of English houses and staircase or stair parts design, from the time of James I. onwards, is a record of development on lines that were laid down in the time of Elizabeth. It was in her days that the great change from medixvalism took place, and houses were built for comfort and pleasure without any serious thought of defence. Such houses are still habitable; there are plenty of people living on-day in Elizabethan houses, but the enthusiasts are compara­tively few who live from choice in the ill-lighted, vaulted rooms of the Middle Ages. Spaciousness, cheerfulness, dignity, and often magnificence staircase or stair parts design, were the qualities aimed at in houses of the end of the sixteenth century; and these qualities are appropriate i1l the present day. Convenience is another matter; it is an -elative term, and its significance varies with the varying wants of mankind, changes with their changing habits and customs.

An Elizabethan house provided a magnificent staircases with well designed component stair parts leading to admirable rooms for the common use of the family and guests-reception rooms as they could be called now. It also provided an adequate number of bedrooms. Further, so long as the great hall was the customary. dace for eating, the kitchen was. conveniently situated, and the food was cooked within a reasonable distance of where it was consumed. In these respects, therefore, a house of that period fulfilled some of the chief requirements of the present day. The direction in which it failed when measured by modern standards was in its sanitary arrangements in the construction of staircase or stair parts design, which, indeed, judged by our own ideas, in earlier years did not exist at all. But we must be careful not to argue backwards, and conclude that because things were lacking which we consider essential, therefore houses were found un­comfortable at the time. The better way is to accept what existed as satisfying the wants of the period, and to argue from that, if we please, how vastly we have improved in our own habits upon those of our ancestors.

In tracing the changes staircase or stair parts design which took place in the arrangement and disposition of rooms during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, therefore, it will be found that not much was done which made houses essentially more comfortable, according to modern notions, than they had been in the late sixteenth century. Indeed, during much of the time comfort was very little studied, and it is one of the reproaches levelled at the architects of the early eighteenth century, more especially those who were con­cerned with houses of vast size, that their first thought was for display and their last for comfort. Pope's exclamation about Blenheim palace, "This very. fine, but when d'ye sleep and where d'ye dine? " crystallises much of the criticism that might be bestowed upon the large houses of that period, which, however, only reflected the spirit of the age. In these houses the most striking change that occurred was the abolition of homeliness. When the great Elizabethan house was planned, the household was in the nature of a large family. It is true that the members of the actual family grouped themselves in one wing and the servants in another, but the great hall was their common meeting ground, and the relations between the heads of the household and their servants were more affectionate than they became in later years. All the rooms, moreover, were intended for daily use, however finely they were decorated. The whole effect was one of stately homeliness. When the Queen Anne mansion was planned, much of it was devoted to state functions as a first consideration, and was intended for occasional use only; apartments suitable for this purpose having been provided, the rest of the space was allotted to the ordinary use of the family, and ,he servants were relegated to the basement (which they sometimes shared with their employers' or to a detached wing. Stateliness, not homeliness, was now the keynote. The nobleman stood on a pedestal of grandeur with the finest staircase or stair parts design in their homes , round which his dependants grouped themselves as best they could, and among them struggled the parson, the poet, and the man of letters. The glorification of the individual found expression in his house and his gardens which were all designed with theatric magnificence.

The changes here indicated will be dealt with at length in subsequent chapters; the first step towards them was taken when the hall ceased to be a living-room and became a vestibule, as the result of an alteration in domestic habits, an alteration which rendered easy the adoption of a house-plan more closely related than was formerly possible to those Italian models to which architects had been approximating their designs for half a century. So far, the models had been copied but half­heartedly, partly because of the conservatism of English habits, partly from incomplete knowledge of Italian methods of design. But as knowledge increased, both from the study of books and from the first-hand investigations of travelling students, so was the Italianising of English buildings accelerated; and a great obstacle to this progress was removed when the ancient use and position of the hall-which had a tradition of three centuries behind them-were no longer preserved. The movement indicated was by no means regular; it was quicker in some places than in others, and in some hands than in others: much depended upon the architects employed. Those who were learned, those who had travelled, and again those who were influenced by the cultured few, departed more completely from old-fashioned ways than did those who had not enjoyed the same advantages. The main stream of architectural develop­ment is fairly well marked and continuous. but there are in­numerable backwaters in which the impetus of the current is hardly perceptible. As a consequence there are to be found as late as the end of the seventeenth century buildings which look almost contemporary with those of the beginning.

The man who did more than anyone else to bring learning to bear on staircase or stair parts design, and to introduce into England a true and correct knowledge of Italian detail, was that great artist, Inigo Jones. His first architectural work of importance was the Banqueting House at Whitehall with its impressive staircase or stair parts design, the building which was finished in 1622.
It has no trace of traditional English design about it (stair parts Fig. 22). To us it appears a beautiful building, but by no means abnormal, because we can see many others of the same type. But to those who saw it when it was just built, it was something entirely novel, something in which they sought in vain for any of the customary devices for producing archi­tectural effect. Doubtless it was a stimulant, but it did norevolutionise English architecture. Indeed, it was only Inigo Jones, and after him his pupil John Webb, who could pretend to work on such learned lines on staircase or stair parts design. The ordinary surveyors-of whom there must have been a large number, although their names have not survived-still worked in the hybrid style in which they had been trained, with the result that such a house as Aston Hall, near Birmingham, which was completed in 1635, is thoroughly Jacobean in character (stair parts Fig. 2), although of sufficient importance to have warranted the adoption of the latest ideas in staircase or stair parts  design, had they been at all widespread.

There is one point, however, in which Aston Hall shows the impending change in house-planning, and that is the disposition of the great hall. It is entered in the middle of one side, instead of through screens at the end, thus making a large vestibule of it instead of a living-room. The same treatment is to be found in some of the plans of John Smithson, an eminent architect of the time; and an examination of his drawings will presently be undertaken, in order to illustrate the steps which led from the Jacobean style to the more staircase or stair parts fully developed design classic.

Nothing illustrates this change more aptly than a comparison between Smithson's drawings on staircase or stair parts design and those of Inigo Jones and John Webb. The first are Jacobean, the second are classic. In the Jacobean are seen efforts to sever the ties which ancient traditions still imposed; a striving after. Italian detail, which was never thoroughly achieved; a mixture of a little old­ fashioned romance, with a little new-fashioned learning. In the classic stair parts  are seen an ignoring of tradition; a mastery of Italian methods; a mixture of sound knowledge with a feeling for good proportion. As an illustration of the first large building in England conceived in the fully developed staircase or stair parts classic design style, nothing could be better than the drawing made by Thomas Sand by about the middle of the eighteenth century, showing how the great palace designed for Charles I. would have appeared (see staircase or Stair Parts Fig. 1). It is also, interesting in connection with the inquiry into the Jones and Webb drawings, which will be fully dealt with in Chapter IV Stair Parts.

Incidentally a study of the drawings by Jones and Webb forces the inquirer to reconsider the relations of those two men as hitherto accepted, and compels him to readjust his ideas as to some of the work he had been taught to attribute to Jones.

With the seventeenth century we get into much closer touch with the designers of buildings Stair Parts than was possible in earlier times: in many cases we can get behind the buildings to their architects. But the chief purpose of the following pages is to trace the changes that took place in the houses themselves and their accessories like Stair Parts, and although it would be neither possible nor desirable to omit all mention of the architects, the latter will be subsidiary to the main theme, end will be dealt with not so much biographically as by way of showing how their training, their opportunities and their idiosyncrasies affected the buildings with which they were concerned.