he earliest instance of
side lights in Philadelphia, and one of the earliest in America. The
width of the brick piers or munions is such, however, that there are
virtually two high narrow windows rather than side lights in the
commonly accepted sense of the term. Indeed, they are treated as such,
being divided into upper and lower sashes like those of the other
windows, only narrower. Neither door nor windows have casings, the
molded frames being let into the reveals of the brickwork and the
openings, as in most early Colonial structures, having relieving arches
with brick cores. A six-paned, horizontal toplight above the doors
corresponds in scale with the windows. This simple entrance, with its
high, narrow, four-panel doors having neither knob or latch, is reached
from a brick-paved walk about the house by three semicircular stone
steps, such as were common in England at the time, the various nicely
hewn pieces being fastened securely together with iron bands. Severity
is written in every line, yet there is a picturesque charm about this
quaint doorway that attracts all who see it. In this the warmth and
texture of the brickwork play a large part, but much is also due to the
flanking slender trellises supporting vines which have spread over the
brickwork above in the most fascinating manner.

Toward the beginning of the nineteenth century and for a few decades
thereafter, under the influence of the Greek revival, a new type of
round-arched doorway was developed in Philadelphia,--broader, simpler,
heavier in treatment than most of the foregoing. There were no
ornamental casings, the only woodwork being the heavy frame let into the
reveals of the brick wall. Above a horizontal lintel treated after the
manner of an architrave the semicircular fanlight was set in highly
ornamental lead lines forming a decorative geometrical pattern. Double
doors were the rule, most of them four-panel with a small and large
panel in alternation like many earlier doors, but the panels were molded
and sunken rather than raised. In a few instances there was a single
vertical panel to each door, sometimes round-topped as on the doors of
the Randolph house, Number 321 South Fourth Street.

The most distinctive of these doorways is that at the southeast corner
of Eighth and Spruce streets, where elliptical winding flights lead to a
landing before the door. The ironwork is undoubtedly among the most
graceful and best preserved in the city. This