The Parts of a Manor House

CHAPTER I - About Manor Houses

In this little book the term manor house is used as meaning the dwelling-place of the lord of the manor, the manor being usually land or estates granted originally by the King to one of his subjects in return for certain services rendered. For example, Elena de Gorges held the manor of Bradpole, in Dorset, by the service of finding an armed esquire, when war should happen, for forty days; and Ralph de Stopham held by the manor of Bryanston by the service of finding for our lord the King, as often as he should lead his army into Wales, a boy carrying a bow without a string and an arrow without feathers, at his own cost, for forty days.

Similarly, William the Moigne held the manor of Owres of our lord the King by the service of being caterer in the King's kitchen and keeper of his larder.

Many of these old customs have survived in the services still rendered by certain noblemen at the coronation of a King or Queen.

The usual custom of the manor was for the lord to hold half the land, the other half being divided between the franklins, or freeholders, and the villeins, or serfs.

It was not until the coming of the Normans that small manor houses began to be built in various parts of the country, but there were never a great number of them, as the nobles for the most part lived in strong castles.

The lord of a manor ruled his estates much as the King ruled his country. He held his own courts, in which he could fine, flog, imprison, and even put to death such of his serfs as offended against the law and customs.

When houses were first built in remote country districts they were generally strongly fortified, but this was not always the case, as there are a few very old manor houses that can show nothing in the way of defence beyond strong walls and doorways. It was on the Welsh and Scottish borderlands, at the junction of high-roads, and at the fording-places of rivers that the greater number of fortified manor houses were built.

Many of these old houses are called castles (for example, Woodsford Castle, Stokesay Castle); but they are nothing more than fortified manor houses which came to be called castles from the tops of the walls having been castellated, that is, fitted with battlements.

To embattle a wall or a tower it was necessary to obtain a licence from the King, and to do so without permission was regarded as an act of rebellion. On the Borderlands permission to embattle walls was given by the Lords Marchers in the name of the King. We can quite understand that the King should object to his nobles turning their houses into little fortresses without his knowledge.

In the reign of Edward II, William Montacute, Earl of Sarum (Salisbury), was granted a licence to embattle his house at Kersyngton, in Oxfordshire, and in the following reign he was granted a pardon by Edward III for embattling a part of his house at Doneygate, in Somerset, without licence.

The first of the outer defences was the moat, filled with water from a neighbouring stream. This moat surrounded the house on every side, the only way across it being by means of a bridge of wood and, in later days, of stone. There was often a drawbridge, but this did not extend the full width of the moat. It merely filled the gap left between the end of the stone bridge nearest the house, and the doorway.

The entrance doorway was usually placed in a strong tower and protected with a portcullis, or iron grating, which, like the drawbridge, could be raised or lowered at will.

On the roof of the entrance tower, and sometimes all around the tops of the outer walls, was a footway or walk, called an allure or rampart-walk, from which arrows and other missiles could be shot at an enemy below. At one corner of the roof was a watch-tower, from which a good view of the surrounding country was obtained, and on which a beacon fire could be lighted in times of danger.

Houses that had no moats, or only dry ones, were often protected with towers at the four corners, together with a barbican, or strong tower, placed to guard the main doorway.

Wells of water were considered of such importance, especially in case of siege, that they were frequently placed in separate towers, called well-towers, the entrances to which were locked and carefully guarded.

Many fortified manor houses, with moats, embattled walls, and gatehouses, were built long after the need for them had ceased to exist. Even in the sixteenth century, peace and prosperity all over the land, it was the fashion to build country houses with defences that were no longer needed.

At the Record Office in London can be seen a large number of the licences that were granted to certain lords of the manors, giving them permission to embattle the walls of their houses.

What we may call “domestic” manor houses, those that were not fortified, were for many years very simple buildings, composed of a large hall with a few private rooms at one end and the retainers’ quarters at the other end. The first change from this simple oblong building would be to add more rooms at each end, and after a certain length had been reached a turn was made, and so a courtyard was gradually evolved with the various buildings grouped around it.

As this courtyard kept much of the sunlight from reaching the rooms the custom arose of building rooms above those on the ground floor. Such rooms were at first called solars, meaning "sun-rooms", and they were mainly used as bedrooms, which were reached by outside stairways. Sometimes a chapel was added.

We have very few manor houses that remain as when first erected, and they may all be said to have grown rather than to have been built. For example, the small manor house of a Norman lord would be enlarged in the reign of Edward I, and perhaps almost entirely re-built when Henry VII was King, and again added to in the days of Elizabeth. It was in the reign of this queen, with the coming of peace and prosperity, that many moats were drained and laid out as gardens, that windows were enlarged, and that gatehouses were pulled down, leaving these old houses much as we see them to-day.

The materials used for buildings of all kinds in the Middle Ages were always those that were cheapest and near at hand; no money was spent in bringing materials from a distance. Where stone was plentiful it was used, and where little stone was to be had, as in the Eastern Counties, many fine houses were built of brick.

In the chalk districts the walls were frequently faced with flints, cut and trimmed, and a number of good buildings treated in this way may be seen in the chalk districts of Kent and Sussex. But even when other materials were abundant, wood was always so convenient, especially when a house was wanted in a hurry, that it was continually employed, and in country districts to-day old timber houses are perhaps more common than those of any other kind.

The first drawing in this chapter shows two views of the fine old manor house still standing at Ightham Mote, in Kent, and the illustration A Moat is take from one side of the same house. The entrance to a fortified house (Chapter V) is from the Moat House at Appleby, in Leicestershire, and the embattled walls are those in Alnwick, in Northumberland. The last illustration gives a good idea of the appearance of a manor house from the courtyard after passing through the great gateway. This is from Little Wolford Hall, in Warwickshire. All these houses are in the style called Tudor-Gothic, excepting the half-timbered parts, which were added in the reign of Elizabeth. The windows in these later parts, it will be noticed, are much longer than those in the earlier portions.

During the last few years a large number of the smaller manor houses have been made into farmhouses, and with the breaking up of large estates into small for purposes other than those for which they were built, as Canford Manor (Dorset), one of several manor houses that have been turned into public schools. Canford was the seat of Lord Wimborne, who converted an old manor house, dating from the reign of King John, into a modern mansion, now one of the most beautiful schools in the country.

The historical interest of our old English manor houses, begun some of them in the reign of the second Edward and finished in the days of the Tudors, is so great that we may regard them as among the most valuable links to our island story. They have come down to us from the days when mail-clad warriors awakened echoes in the stone-flagged courts, and sturdy cavaliers ducked their heads as they cursed at the narrow doorways.

It is good to visit an old manor house like Ightham Mote in Kent. We never tire of rambling through panelled halls and paved courtyards, or of wandering at will in the sweet old gardens, the flowers gay and bright, the hedges neat and trimmed, the grey old pile beside them dark and still, and soon we get to love and reverence these ancient homes of our native land, which breathe the spirit of an age which we have entirely broken; while as for the nameless builders of these massive walls and sturdy towers, may we never cease to venerate their memory.

"Their swords are ruste, their bodys duste,

Their souls are with the Saints, we truste."