Wall Panelling Corporation

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Often traces of floral designs are to be found on such panels-painted onto the plain oak in bright colours. Obviously at some time during the fashion for excessive ornament the owners sought to bring their plain rooms `up to date,' without the expense of introducing new carved panels.

From the hundreds of wonderful examples of Elizabethan chimney-pieces still to be found all over England I have selected three,-one in carved Ham stone, another in plain oak, and one in Beer stone and plasterwork. I do not think any of these have been altered since their original installation. Each in its way is typical of the fashions and motifs in general use at that time yet they are all very different in style.

The fine stone example is the only remaining feature of a large room at White­-staunton in Somerset, not a very large house though probably the manor at one time. All the accepted paraphernalia of the Renaissance is collected together with the entire equipment of the stonemason's books on design and heraldry, yet the whole is a magnificent piece of work and thoroughly English in its execution.

Conventional architectural details include Ionic columns, caryatid and atlante, dentils, egg and flower and leaf design. The fine heraldic display with supporters and full achievement of arms is of course the main feature of the design and the sheer weight of the stone bodies of the supporters makes this immediately obvious. The caryatid and atlante cut off at the waist, are supported by solid plinths decorated with twisted cornucopias brimming with flowers and fruits; this gives them a strength of design that otherwise might have proved a weakness in the general conception. They bear on their heads baskets again filled with fruit and flowers which in turn support the whole overhanging cornice. The underside of this cornice is decorated with equally spaced flower heads, each one different.

It is the base of this design that is really the background for the stonemason's skill; he has carved a wonderful frieze with infinite detail and a very proper appreciation for finish, such as the leaf at the curved end (shown in detail drawing) and the fine ridging of the ram's horn in the Ionic capital.

The interlacing pattern which appears behind the columns gives the added strength necessary for the support of the weight in the design above­ without this the columns would appear too frail for their colossal job. The angry little bearded faces on the plinth below the foot of the columns again give a feeling of strength and vitality.
The whole ornate, and to our modern standards, overdecorated chimneypiece is typical of Elizabethan England.
The example in oak I found in a little farmhouse at Britford, near Salisbury in Wiltshire.

Built round an early tudor stone fireplace this example shows the same well balanced appreciation of design, though the scale and effect are both very different. The cornice here which fits into the ceiling is supported by eight little columns, Roman Doric in design, grouped in two's and standing on deep plinths.

 

Detail of Strapwork