CHAPTER IV - Gatehouses and Chapels
Every old manor house had a
gatehouse, through which those going to and from the house had to pass.
Sometimes, as we have seen, this gatehouse was strongly fortified, and at other
times it was a picturesque little building, without defences, giving entrance to
the courtyard.
All our cathedrals and monasteries once had gatehouses, of which many remain, as
do those at the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. In the gatehouse lived the
Warden, or officer whose business it was to question all those wishing to pass
through.
We have a survival of the old gateways in the lodges of country houses. Where a
large mansion has several drives leading to it a lodge, or small cottage, is
placed at the entrance to each of them. In one of these lodges the gardener
lives, in another the game-keeper, and in yet another the coachman or chauffeur.
The lodge-keepers, or their wives and children, open the gates for visitors, and
close them securely at night, just as the wardens and porters opened and closed
the gates of the old manor houses.
In fortified houses it would be the duty of the officer in charge to raise or
lower the drawbridge and work the portcullis or iron grating. The gateway
illustrated is from a charming little manor house at Pokeswell, in Dorset. It is
built of brick, and the room above the entrance arch is reached by a flight of
stone steps placed inside the wall. The style of this gatehouse is called
Jacobean, from its having been built, like the manor house it guards, in the
reign of James I.
The brick wall surrounding this house is a singularly beautiful one, and it
shows that the old masons gave a considerable amount of care and time to the
building of such a common-place thing as a wall.
In olden days no manor house was complete without its private chapel, or
oratory, which was generally reached by a short passage leading from the hall.
The lords of the manors, in addition to attending the services of parish
churches, always had morning and evening prayers read in these chapels, and at
these prayers the retainers and servants, as well as any guests staying in the
house, were expected to be present.
Some of these private chapels are very beautiful little buildings, as the one
illustrated. This is at Ightham Mote, in Kent, and, like the house to which it
belongs, was built in the reign of Henry VII. It remains to-day exactly as when
first erected, with its cradle roof, screen, and choir stalls, all of oak, and
is one of the best private chapels we have left dating from the early part of
the sixteenth century.
