guests
are welcomed to the fireside, and there their first impressions of the
home are formed. The architectural treatment of the hall sets the
keynote of the entire home interior, so to speak. Its doorways and open
arches frame vistas of the principal adjoining rooms, and its staircase,
usually winding, affords a more or less complete survey of the whole
house from various altitudes and angles. It is the place where the
master puts his best foot foremost, as the expression goes, and happily
the recognized utilitarian features of the typical Colonial hall permit
a notable degree of elaboration at once consistent and beautiful.

Throughout the feudal period of the Middle Ages the hall was the main
and often the only living, reception and banquet room of castles,
palaces and manor houses. It was the common center of home activities.
There the lord and family retainers, servants and visitors were
accommodated, and all the common life of the household was carried on.
In early times there were, besides the hall, only a few sleeping rooms,
even in the greatest establishments. Later, more retired rooms were
added, and gradually the hall became more and more an entranceway or
passageway in the house, communicating with its different parts.

When houses began to be built more than a single story in height, the
staircase became an important feature of the hall, and balconies were
also introduced overlooking this great room, which was often the full
height of the building. In fact, balconies were for a time more
conspicuous than staircases, which were frequently located in any
convenient secluded place. However, as builders came to appreciate more
fully the attractiveness of this utilitarian structure, when embellished
with suitable ornament, the staircase was accorded a more prominent
position. Eventually it became the most important architectural feature
of the hall, for the most part supplanting the balcony, which was in a
measure replaced by the broad landings of broken, winding and wing
flights.

Throughout the Georgian period of English architecture, the hall of the
better houses retained something of the size and aspect of the great
halls of feudal days, while at the same time accommodating the staircase
and serving as a passageway leading to the principal rooms on the
various floors. In the more pretentious houses of the period they were
the scene of dancing and banqueting on special occasions, and for that
reason were