File:Vanishing England (1911) (14585017387).jpg

Identifier: vanishingengland00ditc (find matches)
Title: Vanishing England
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson), 1854-1930
Subjects: England -- Description and travel England -- Antiquities
Publisher: London : Methuen
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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hohave eyes to see and hearts to understand. The Englishcottages have an importance in the story of the develop-ment of architecture far greater than that which concernstheir mere beauty and picturesqueness. As we follow thehistory of Gothic art we find that for the most part the in-stinctive art in relation to church architecture came to anend in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, but theright impulse did not cease. House-building went on,though there was no church-building, and we admiregreatly some of those grand mansions which were rearedin the time of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts ; but art wasdeclining, a crumbling taste causing disintegration ofthe sense of real beauty and refinement of detail. Acreeping paralysis set in later, and the end came swiftlywhen the dark days of the eighteenth century blotted outeven the memory of a great past. And yet during allthis time the people, the poor and middle classes, theyeomen and farmers, were ever building, building, 1 j;>
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no VANISHING ENGLAND quietly and simply, untroubled by any thoughts of style,of Gothic art or Renaissance ; hence the cottages anddwellings of the humblest type maintained in all theirintegrity the real principles that made medieval architec-ture great. Frank, simple, and direct, built for use andnot for the establishment of architectural theories, theyhave transmitted their messages to the ages and have pre-served their beauties for the admiration of mankind andas models for all time. CHAPTER VOLD CASTLES CASTLES have played a prominent part in themaking of England. Many towns owe theirexistence to the protecting guard of an oldfortress. They grew up beneath its sheltering wallslike children holding the gown of their good mother,though the castle often proved but a harsh and cruelstepmother, and exacted heavy tribute in return forpartial security from pillage and rapine. Thus New-castle-upon-Tyne arose about the early fortress erectedin 1080 by Robert Curthose to guard the passage of

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