. The Victoria history of the county of Surrey. Natural history. A HISTORY OF SURREY of this work which match the stairs at Slyfields and Shalford remain at Guildford, and in the outbuildings at Slyfields are some original window frames of this sort; such are very rare. Leigh Place has some of the best carved woodwork in the county. Building in Surrey seems always to have been of a refined and cultured quality, as may be seen from the delicate Georgian bow windows in the Guildford High Street and in other towns. Happily there is much of this still left. Early stairs either went up between two
. The Victoria history of the county of Surrey. Natural history. A HISTORY OF SURREY of this work which match the stairs at Slyfields and Shalford remain at Guildford, and in the outbuildings at Slyfields are some original window frames of this sort; such are very rare. Leigh Place has some of the best carved woodwork in the county. Building in Surrey seems always to have been of a refined and cultured quality, as may be seen from the delicate Georgian bow windows in the Guildford High Street and in other towns. Happily there is much of this still left. Early stairs either went up between two walls, as at Crowhurst and Alfold House, or wound round a central newel. Some of the latter are left, and often in unexpected places as at Hurst farm, Mil- ford. At Cobden's, a small farmhouse on the Sussex bor- der, there is a stair that, starting at the side of the ingle, winds back in the thickness of the wall over the top of the ingle nook. This seems to have been the normal position, but the stairs are so impossible that it is rare to find them left. Winding stairs were so troublesome for furniture that they were generally replaced by square-planned stairs that rapidly developed into the usual balustraded form. An interesting intermediate stage is found at Rake House, Witley, and a similar instance on a larger scale exists at Borde Hill near Cuckfield in Sussex. In the former of these a central square of four corner posts filled in with plastering is carried about 3 feet above the top landing and finished with a table top ; the stairs run round this in short flights. The next step was to fill in between the four posts with a balustrade, work the newels, and ultimately cut these asunder and form ornamental tops to them. There are many fine early staircases left, of which those at Sly- fields, a house at Shalford (Fig. 19), and Smallfield Place near Reigate are of similar character, with rusticated newels and balusters formed of upright planks pierced and carved. Another for
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectnatural, bookyear1902
