f
families, and the progress of architectural improvement, than the
natural decay of these buildings, that I should conceive it difficult
to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman, and not
belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments of which
are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances at least must be
extremely few. Single rooms, windows, doorways, &c. of an earlier
date, may perhaps not unfrequently be found; but such instances are
always to be verified by their intrinsic evidence, not by the
tradition of the place.[6]

[5] Hist. of Whalley. In Strutt's view of Manners, we have an
inventory of furniture in the house of Mr. Richard Fermor,
ancestor of the Earl of Pomfret, at Easton in
Northamptonshire, and another in that of Sir Adrian
Foskewe. Both these houses appear to have been of the
dimensions and arrangement mentioned. And even in houses
of a more ample extent, the bi-section of the ground-plot
by an entrance-passage, was, I believe, universal, and is
a proof of antiquity. Haddon Hall and Penshurst still
display this ancient arrangement, which has been altered
in some old houses. About the reign of James I., or,
perhaps, a little sooner, architects began to perceive the
additional grandeur of entering the great hall at once.
This apartment subsequently gave its name to the whole
house.--See an interesting paper on Old English Halls,
_Mirror_, vol. xviii. p. 92-108.

[6] Hist. Middle Ages, vol. iii., p. 423.--The most remarkable
fragment of early building which I have any where found
mentioned is at a house in Berkshire, called Appleton,
where there exists a sort of prodigy, an entrance-passage
with circular arches in the Saxon style, which must
probably be as old as the reign of Henry II. No other
private house in England can, I presume, boast of such a
monument of antiquity.

It need scarcely be remarked, in conclusion, that the Hall at Norton
Lees, as it appears to the reader, conveys but an imperfect idea of
the ancient structure. The walls of the lower story entirely of stone,
and the upper, stone and plaster intersected by wood, are original, as
is probably the enriched gable, with the pinnacled ornament at its
apex; beneath was originally a small bay window, which has been
stoppe