was the property of the family of the Blythes of Norton, two of whom
arrived at great honours in the church; one of them, John, being the
Bishop of Salisbury, and the other, Geoffrey, Bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry."[1] The above was the mansion of the family: its
picturesqueness is of pleasing character; and our inquiry into the
probable age of the structure has naturally enough led us into a few
observations upon the early domestic architecture of this country. The
subject is, however, too rife with interesting details for the present
occasion; so that all we now purpose is by way of reference to the
specimen or illustration before us.

[1] Rhodes's Peak Scenery, Part IV.

The house at Norton Lees has been supposed by some persons to be as
old as the reign of Richard II.; but Mr. Rhodes observes, "that it was
erected many years after this period can hardly be doubted." Certain
features of resemblance assist its appearance of antiquity, as the
wooden framework, which is observable in the oldest specimens of
house-building in this country. According to Strutt, the Saxons
usually built their houses of clay, kept together by wooden frames;
shortly after the Norman Conquest plaster was intermixed with timber,
and subsequently the basement story was made of stone. The upper
apartments were so constructed as to project over the lower, and
considerable ornament both in carved wood and plaster was introduced
about the doors and windows and roof of the building. Nevertheless,
timber, with lath and plaster, and thatch for the roofs, constituted
the chief materials in the dwellings of the English from an early
period till near the close of the fourteenth century and beginning of
the fifteenth, when bricks began to be used in the better sort of
houses.[2] The mansion before us, as we have seen, is referred to the