[Illustration: 106.--WOLLATON HALL, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. ONE OF CORNER TOWERS (1588).]
The west front of Kirby (Fig. 107) offers a great contrast to Wollaton. Here everything up as high as the parapet is as simple as it can well be; there are no pilasters, no niches, no strap-work panels. The windows and the cornices which make the circuit of the building are the only architectural features. The gables have the strap-work, but it is of a simpler form than that at Wollaton: the irregularity of their outline, combined with the tapering obelisks, some of which have open stone bows at the bottom, something after the fashion of a jug handle, imparts the necessary picturesqueness, without having recourse to the expensive devices employed at Wollaton. The latter house was built between the years 1580 and 1588, and the gables may therefore be taken as dating from 1588: the date of the west front of Kirby is not recorded, but from the character of the work it may very well have been subsequent to the main building operations in 1570-75, and, as already stated, these gables were not improbably added towards the close of the sixteenth century. One curious point about this front is the care which was taken to make the quoins perfectly regular in size: in some cases where the quoin stone was larger than the regulation size, the overplus was slightly sunk, and then scored with false joint-lines to match those of the adjacent rubble.
[Illustration: 107.--KIRBY HALL, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. PART OF WEST FRONT (POSSIBLY 1595).]
There was a simpler type of curved gable which was freely used, as in the courtyard at Rushton (Fig. 108), and it was sometimes combined with steps, as at Apethorpe (Fig. 109), the result being picturesque without being fussy. The date of the example at Apethorpe is 1623-24, and that at Rushton 1627. The curve, instead of being ogee-shaped as in these instances, was sometimes composed of two curves of similar form, with a square shoulder between them, like those at Blickling (Plate XXXVII.), or the sweep of the ogee was broken by the introduction of a vertical line, such as may be seen in the gables at Lilford (Plate XXXIV.). Further varieties occur at Montacute (Fig. 48), Stanway (Plate XXII.), and Westwood (Plate XXIII.).