Old Country Life. Baring-Gould Sabine
that littered the pavement.
That house is a very astonishing one to me, for it reveals a state of affairs singularly rude – at a comparatively late period. Things were improved in this particular later; bedrooms many were constructed, communicating with each other. At the head of the stairs slept the squire and his wife, and all the rooms tenanted by the rest of the household were accessible only through that. The females, daughters of the house and maid-servants, lay in rooms on one side, say the right, the maids in those most distant, reached through the apartments of the young ladies; those of the men lay on the left, the sons of the house nearest the chamber of the squire, the serving-men furthest off.
When the party in the house retired for the night, a file of damsels marched up-stairs, domestic servants first, passed through the room of their master and mistress, then through those of the young ladies, and were shut in at the end; next entered the daughters of the house to their several chambers, the youngest lying near the room of the serving-maids, the eldest most outside, near that of her father and mother. That procession disposed of, a second mounted the stairs, consisting of the men of the house, the stable-boy first, and the son and heir last, and were disposed of similarly to the females, but on the opposite side of the staircase. Then, finally, the squire and his wife retired to roost in the chamber that commanded those of all the rest of the household. This arrangement still subsists in our old fashioned farm-houses.
Now may be understood the odd provision in a will proved in the Consistory Court of Canterbury in 1652 (Bowyer, f. 57) – "I give to my son Thomas the sole fee-simple and inheritance of my dwelling-house, and all my lands and hereditaments thereto belonging, to him and to his heirs for ever. And my will is, that Joan my daughter shall have free ingress, egress, and regress to the bedd in the chambre where she now lieth, so long as she continueth unmarried."
But to this arrangement followed another, more practical and convenient, that of having a grand corridor up-stairs, out of which opened the doors of the bedrooms; or, where there was a glazed-in quadrangle with staircase and landings around it, there the doors of the bedrooms opened from these landings. The corridor was used as a room for dancing, or for music, or for games; it was the recreation place of the house on a rainy day. Being up-stairs, and away from library and parlours, the young people might skip, and play blind-man's buff, dance, and disturb no one; nor was there much furniture in these corridors to stand in the way and get knocked over.
This corridor is a feature of an old house so very dear to young folks, and so very advantageous to their health, that it is a pity in our modern houses we have got rid of it.
A word on the furniture of our old country houses must not be omitted. Unfortunately there set in at the beginning of this century a most detestable fashion in furniture, absolutely void of taste; and to make room for the villainous articles then imported into our old country houses, much beautiful old work was turned out, very often was given to servants when they married. The consequence is, that much of it passed into cottages, where it soon got destroyed. It was not only old carved oak that was cast forth, for much of that had been got rid of in the Georgian epoch, but even the beautiful polished wood cabinets, chests of drawers, and Chippendale chairs of a more recent period.
Of early furniture, I mean mediæval, little remains in our houses, for one reason, because there was in them very little. The era of furniture was begun with the Tudor monarchs; it was all of oak, and the carving was influenced much by Holbein, who inspired artists with admiration for German Renaissance. Cabinets with architectural façades and heavy oak furniture continued in the Elizabethan and Stuart periods. The date of a chair can be told approximately by the position of the rail binding together the legs. The primary object of this brace was, to hold the legs firmly, but it was also found to possess the not less important advantage of providing a person sitting in the chair with the means of keeping his feet from the cold stone-slabbed pavement. When boarded floors came into fashion, it became no longer necessary to have the front brace of the chair placed so near the floor, and to give more freedom to the feet it was gradually heightened. Some time after this the side braces were raised to the same level as the front brace, and later still, as the first necessity for their use was gradually lost sight of, they were dispensed with altogether. This was the first step towards the bad system of construction now almost universally practised, of leaving the legs of chairs without any support at their lower extremities. At the beginning of this century a still further deviation from right principles ensued. The legs of chairs were made to curve, and often to curve in such a manner as to make them unserviceable for supporting the weight reposed upon them.
"Let us examine an old oak chair, and see how it was constructed. In the first place, we shall find that the whole of the work is executed in solid oak, the uprights forming the back, and the back legs being made of one continuous piece; this at once gives strength and backbone to the whole structure. The framework holding the seat is next securely tenoned, and pinned with oaken pegs into the four legs, thus binding the whole of the parts firmly together. Even at this stage we have a far more strongly constructed piece of work than the modern chair when quite completed; the old workman, however, not content with this, next turned his attention to the weakest part of all – the feet of the chair – and securely fastened them together about three or four inches from the floor with four strong braces, tenoning each brace at both ends into the legs of the chair, and securing it, as before, with oaken pegs. This last addition made the whole a perfectly strong and almost indestructible piece of framing, and constitutes one of the most essential differences in the construction of ancient and modern furniture. The legs of most modern chairs are made to depend entirely for strength on their hold, at one end, to the framing of the seat of the chair, into which they are generally only glued. The legs of the ancient chair, on the other hand, are secured at both ends; and the four braces connecting them together act as struts as well as ties; they form an admirable protection against any blow the chair may receive at its lower extremities. Many of the old chairs constructed on these excellent principles are now in good condition, after nearly two hundred years of daily use."[2]
In mediæval times there were trestles and boards for a dining-table; but in Chaucer's time fixed tables were coming into use. He tells how that in the rich and luxurious Franklin's house there were —
"Alle deyntees that men cowde thynke,
His table dormant in his halle alway
Stood redy covered al the longe day."
The "table dormant" was used only by very rich people; it was a new fashion at the close of the fourteenth century, and was expensive. It took its name from the fact that it was slept upon at night; it served as a bed for one of the men who lay in the hall. This table consisted of a single long trestle with a plank on it. It had but two legs, one at each end, and a beam between supported by struts. But at the same time that these tables came into fashion, another variety was in use, supported by a pair of short trestles at each end. The top of this table was also formed of planks, but they were hinged together so as to be easily folded up and removed, when additional space was required. A table of this kind is referred to by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, when, as Capulet enters the hall with his guests, he exclaims —
"Come, musicians, play.
A hall! a hall! give room, and foot it, girls.
More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up."
A remarkably cleverly constructed table of the reign of Elizabeth exists at Slade in South Devon. It is based on the plan of the table dormant, but is convertible into a settle when no longer required as a table; the planking rests on the settle arms when serving for a board, and slides back and assumes an erect position when required as a settle back.
A "drawing-table" was a third variety. It was one that was square framed, but could be drawn out at both ends, so as to nearly double its normal length.
In a paper on 'Our Household Furniture,' contributed to the Art Journal by Mr. G. T. Robinson, an illustration of one of these tables is given; and in speaking of the ingenuity displayed in the construction of the sliding leaves, he says, "The whole mechanism is admirably considered for the purpose it has to fulfil. Indeed its adaptation