The opening itself was wide, and was lined with brick or stone. The interior was occupied by a fire-back of cast-iron and a movable grate or basket supported on dogs.
[Illustration: No. 97. Jacobean Door, shewing absense of architrave.]
Doors were at first merely a part of the panelling without hanging frames, but later they were treated as important features of the rooms. They were often framed with columns and pilasters, surmounted by entablatures, with or without pediments. Obelisks were sometimes placed over the pilasters. The frieze was fluted or carved. In many cases the tympanum of the pediment or even one of the door panels bore the owner’s coat of arms.
In the earlier phases the mouldings framing the panels were simple in form, and worked on the stiles and rails. But later they were applied, being wider in display and more elaborate in section. These applied mouldings, evidently the result of mechanical appliances, later led to extreme license in broken angles and panellings of complicated form.
Ceilings, and occasionally the frieze, were in plaster, decorated with intersecting ribs, or bands dividing the surface into compartments geometric in shape, and further enriched with stamped or modelled ornament.
Windows were relatively small as to individual openings, large lighting areas being obtained by grouping a number of these side by side, and also in tiers, the dividing bars or mullions being either in wood or stone.
Glazing took the form of small pieces of glass united by lead frames, commonly arranged in trellis form, resulting in diamond-shaped pieces. Occasionally painted or coloured glass was used, generally in heraldic devices in the upper portions of the windows.
The windows themselves were frequently deeply embayed.
The growing appreciation of domestic comfort, evident in the general arrangement of the buildings of this period, is also apparent in the furniture, which from this time approximates somewhat to the modern forms, though still crude, and leaving much to be desired in the way of personal comfort.
[Illustration: No. 99. Oak Table, English. 17th century.]
Tables, which had hitherto been mere portable boards laid on trestles, or, if fixed, were on heavy legs with rails below, developed into more useful forms. These were the draw-inge table which could be extended by drawing out two flaps worked on runners from beneath the normal top, and the gate-leg table, which in principle resembled the modern folding type. Large tables were formed by putting a number of gate-leg tables together, and when not so in use they could be placed in different parts of the room.