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FIG. 4.-WINDOW ON NORTH SIDE OF BASEMENT.

arch, which is pointed, not four-centred like the arches of the other doorways. There are also crooks for another door on the inside of the wall itself. Immediately within this doorway, opening from the north side of the corridor, is a wide straight stone staircase, which appears to be original, and is now blocked by the floor of the hall above. The floor of the western part of the corridor (K) is at a higher level than that of the rest of the corridor, with a short flight of steps between the two levels. The barrel vault over the staircase, which is not pointed, is of much later date.

The doorway at the east end of the corridor was formerly external, but was blocked by the erection of the later turret (N) on the outside of it. The doorway is 5 feet 3 inches in width, with chamfered and rebated jambs similar to those of the western doorway, and here again there are crooks at the rebate and also on the inside of the wall. The doorway has a low four-centred arch, with a rise of 2 feet 2 inches, moulded on the outer side with six shields bearing the Etton arms, three on each side of the arch (Fig. 3). Each half of the arch is a single stone. On the outer side is a groove for a portcullis in an outer chamfered jamb which is continued upwards to an arch at a higher level, which is no longer visible (if it still exists), for all this outer part was covered by the inner masonry of the later turret. The rere-arch has a pointed segmental curve, similar to but not concentric with that of the barrel vault of the corridor, and it is placed at a considerably higher level than the inner arch, the springing of the former being about at the same level as the apex of the latter. I am inclined to think that the inner arch bearing the Etton shields is of slightly later date than the rest of the basement; both in form and detail it is of more advanced character than the arch at the opposite end of the corridor, and the chamfer of the jamb stops rather awkwardly into the arch; but it cannot in any case be later than the middle of the fifteenth century, and it is probably much earlier.

The three rooms on the north side of the corridor are each 21 feet 9 inches in length by about 15 feet in width. Each is lighted by a single window on the north side (Fig. 4), with stepped sill on the inside; that to the westernmost room (c) has been altered. The easternmost room (A) has a smaller window on the east side, from the jamb of which a staircase, now blocked, led to the upper floor; this staircase is original, and was lighted by a small window. The westernmost room (c) also has a staircase, now blocked, which led to the upper floor, and may also be original. On the west side of the latter room is a recess (H) lighted by a window on the west; a door

way through the north wall now gives access to the modern north wing, but the walls at this point have been so much altered that it is impossible to say whether the recess on the outside of the wall (M) is original or due to modern alteration. None of the rooms on this side of the corridor have fireplaces or garderobes.

The three rooms on the south side of the corridor are each about 28 feet 6 inches long by 15 feet wide. Each is lighted by a window on the south side, and the easternmost room (D) has another window on the east, blocked by the lower part of the Elizabethan bay of the great chamber above. All these windows have stepped sills on the inside, and are placed high up from the floor; in the room D the height from the floor to the top of the window sill is 7 feet 4 inches, and the floor level is about 2 feet above the level of the terrace on the outside. Each of the rooms D, E, and F is provided with a garderobe, approached by a narrow passage from the jamb of the window in each case. That to the centre room (E) has been converted into a passage to the modern south wing. This room has a fireplace, and there was probably another to the adjoining room to the west (F). The room D also has a fireplace in the east wall, between the east window and the south-east angle; this fireplace is 5 feet 4 inches in width, and has a chamfered lintel 22 inches deep. The garderobes and fireplaces show that these rooms were used as living-rooms.

In the south wall of the corridor, near its west end, a doorway, similar to but narrower than the other corridor doorways, opens into a narrow passage which leads to a small room (G), 10 feet 9 inches long by 8 feet 11 inches wide, placed between the south-eastern room (F) and the west wall, and lighted by a small window (now blocked) on the west. The floor of this room (G) is at a higher level than that of the basement generally. Between the west wall and the passage leading to this room (G) is a space (L) now filled up with rubbish. The whole of the west wall was refaced when the house was altered and extended in the eighteenth century.

All the rooms in the basement (including the small room G) and the central corridor are covered with barrel vaults of pointed segmental section. The ridges of the vaults are indicated by dotted lines on the plan.

On the upper floors the external walls appear to have been almost entirely rebuilt, with the exception of the south wall of the "great chamber" (over the room marked D on the basement plan), and the northern part of the east wall from the turret to the northeast angle. In this latter wall, to the north of the turret, are the jambs of a large blocked window, with the springer stone of its arch

remaining over the north jamb; this seems to have been an original late fourteenth-century window. From the south jamb of this window a staircase ascended in the thickness of the wall, lighted by a little window adjoining the north side of the later turret. Everything above the basement has however been so much altered, either in the sixteenth or eighteenth century, that it is impossible to say what the original plan of the upper part was.

We may safely assign the building of this tower house to the second half of the fourteenth century, and it must therefore be attributed either to the Thomas de Etton who married Elizabeth Fairfax, or to his son, the last Thomas de Etton. I have suggested the latter as the most probable builder of the house, and have mentioned his acquaintance with John, lord Nevill of Raby, of whose will he was one of the executors. It is interesting to note that this acquaintance with one of the most illustrious heads of the great house of Nevill would naturally bring Thomas de Etton into association with the builders of some of the great fortified houses of his time in the north of England. John, lord Nevill, was himself the builder of Raby and Sheriff Hutton. One of his daughters, Matilda, married a cousin of Richard, lord Scrope, who built Bolton, in Wensleydale, in 1379. Another daughter, Eleanor, was the wife of Ralph, lord Lumley, who constructed Lumley 'de novo' in 1392. And about the same time Wressle Castle was being built by Sir Thomas Percy, who was a nephew of John Nevill's first wife, and whose sister-in-law, Hotspur's mother, was John Nevill's sister.

3

The later alterations to Gilling-apart from its extension in the eighteenth century-consist of the erection of a turret, which no doubt once contained a staircase, blocking the doorway at the east end of the basement corridor, and the remodelling of the upper floors by Sir William Fairfax towards the end of the sixteenth century.

The "great chamber," now the dining-room, which I shall presently describe in detail, is the work of Sir William Fairfax. It extends over the room marked D on the basement plan, and over that part of the basement corridor immediately to the north of D. As this afforded sufficient length for the room, the south wall was apparently left its original thickness (about 6 feet 6 inches). The east wall is pierced. by the bay window (0), and by a large window between the bay and the turret, which in any case would have involved taking out most

1 I owe this information to Mr. W. H. Brierley, F. S. A., who acted as Mr. Hunter's architect for alterations in 1904.

2 The licence to crenelate Raby is dated 1379, and that for Sheriff Hutton, 1381.

3 Marked N on the basement plan (Fig. 2). The addition of this stair-turret probably dates from the time of one of the earlier Fairfaxes of Gilling.

of the length of this wall; but, as the retention of a wall of the original thickness would have unduly restricted the width of the room, this east wall was taken down altogether, and rebuilt about half its former thickness. As the west wall of this room is not exactly over the division wall between the rooms marked D and E on the basement plan, I think that this wall also was probably taken down and rebuilt over the haunch of the vault of the room E, in order to give greater width to the "great chamber." That part of the east wall which lies between the north end of the "great chamber" and the north-east angle of the house is an original thick wall, but, with the exception already mentioned, all the other external walls have been reconstructed. Of the internal walls on the principal floor, the north wall of the "great chamber" and of the present staircase (over the south walls of the rooms marked A and B on the basement plan), and the west wall of the present staircase (over the division wall between the rooms marked E and F on the basement plan), appear to be original (mediæval), but the remainder of the interior has been entirely remodelled.

The room over the "great chamber" has a bay window on its east side (over the bay below). This bay has a ribbed plaster ceiling, which is exactly the same, both in scale, design, and detail, as a ceiling in the Elizabethan part of Helmsley Castle,' except that at Helmsley the ornament in the central squares is a Tudor rose; the ornament in the hexagonal panels is the same in both cases. This room has an Elizabethan window, now blocked, in its south wall. There is also a blocked Elizabethan window immediately to the west of the south window of the "great chamber," and another on the story above.

Among the inventories printed by Mr. Edward Peacock, already referred to, is "A note of all my Bookes remayning at Gilling."2 This is undated, but as it is found in the manuscript volume which evidently belonged to Sir William Fairfax, the note dates from his time or that of his son. Among the books mentioned in this interesting list is "A Regester of all the gentlemens armes in ye great chamber." This identifies the "great chamber" of Sir William's time with the present dining-room. The inventory of plate and household stuff at Gilling, taken for Sir William Fairfax in 1594-5,3 shows that there was then a "dyninge parlor" apart from the "great

1 The Elizabethan building at Helmsley Castle was the work of Edward Manners, third earl of Rutland, who died in 1587. His arms (sixteen quarterings), impaling those of his wife, Isabel Holcroft, occur

among other heraldic devices in a plaster
frieze.

2 Archaeologia, xlviii. 152.
3 Ibid., xlviii. 123.

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