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They could hardly tear themselves away from Anne Hathaway's thatched, half-timber cottage at Shottery, with its carved, four-post Elizabethan bedstead, its garden full of rustic flowers, and its ingle-nook where perhaps Shakespeare sat to woo. "If we could only take it just as it is, and carry it out to America," sighed Diana. "But it would be nothing without its surroundings," said Loveday.
This picturesque building of stone, wood, half-timber work, and tiled roofs is a little to the east of the Minster. It consists of a series of rooms ranged round a central courtyard. It is of much historical interest, and since it was restored recently to be the home of the Convocation of the Northern Province, it has returned to the service of the church.
Ditchling village is charming, with more than one old half-timber house, and the church of St Margaret's is not only interesting in itself, but, standing as it does upon rising ground and yet clear of the great hills, it offers you one of the finest views of the Downs anywhere to be had from the Weald.
You must have been having too heavy a dose of Mr. Bayweather. But I like it, you know. I find it awfully interesting to know so in detail about any past period of human life; as much so . . . why not? . . . as researches into which provinces of France used half-timber houses, and how late?" "You like a great many things!" he said impatiently.
But on the river side it was still an old Elizabethan mansion, with gabled roofs standing boldly up against the sky; and low broad casements, latticed and filled with lozenge-shaped panes; and half-timber walls, with black beams fashioned into many forms: and with one story jutting out beyond that below, until the attic window under the gable seemed to hang in mid-air, without visible support, over the garden sloping down a steep bank to the river-side.
In Surrey there are several materials for building, hence there is a charming diversity of domiciles. Even the same building sometimes shows walls of stone and brick, half-timber and plaster, half-timber and tile-hanging, half-timber with panels filled with red brick, and roofs of thatch or tiles, or stone slates which the Horsham quarries supplied. These Surrey cottages have changed with age.
The oriel window cast its slowly moving shadow on the half-timber walls; and the many lattice casements, with their small diamond-shaped panes, glistened in the sun as in the days gone by. The garden-plots were unchanged, and the smooth turf on the terraces was as green and soft as when he ran along them at his mother's side. The old house brought to his mind his mother rather than his wife.
We are, to be sure, looking in all directions for suggestions, and it cannot help appearing wonderful to a thoughtful observer how many and varied these suggestions are. Our wealthy citizens are building châteaux in the style of Francis I or of somebody else, Venetian or Florentine palaces, Roman villas, Flemish guild-halls, Elizabethan half-timber houses.
I was weary with the long walk in the morning, and after our mid-day meal I stole away from mademoiselle and Minima in the salon, and betook myself to the cool shelter of the church, where the stone walls three feet thick, and the narrow casements covered with vine-leaves, kept out the heat more effectually than the half-timber walls of the presbytery.
I saw, now, that I had come with Jervaise to a side door last night. This front approach was more imposing up a drive through an avenue of limes. The house seen from this aspect looked very sweet and charming. It was obviously of a date not later than the sixteenth century, and I guessed that the rough-cast probably concealed a half-timber work structure.
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