THE TOWN HOUSE IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE
established as the grandest of all types. The square open-well type
occurs in Mansart's Blois and then with countless minor varia-
tions in the Paris hStels (see e.g. fig. 92). These variations all aim
at suppler, more elegant forms.
Externally the Paris hotels are just as elegantly varied, though
never anything like as boldly Rococo as the palaces and houses in
Germany and Austria, whereas in London the exterior of the lyth-
and 18th-century brick house was, except for ornamental details,
almost standardised. It has no connection with the classic French
style, that much is certain, although it may have had some originally
with the less pretentious domestic architecture of Henri IV and later
with Holland.
As for country houses, they are—at least after 1660—of minor
importance in France, where the life of the ruling class was centred
in the court, while in England most of the noblemen and nearly all
the squires still regarded their London houses only as pieds-b-terre,
and looked on their seats in the country as their real homes. Con-
sequently it is here that one can expect variety and, indeed, finds it.
All the more noteworthy, however, is it that about 1700, when the
standardised town house had become an accepted fact, a type of
smaller country house had also been introduced (clearly on the
Mauritshuis pattern) that—with many and delightful minor vari-
ations—is to be found all over the countryside, in the villages round
London, at Hampstead, Roehampton, Ham, Petersham, round the
close at Salisbury—everywhere. They are usually built of brick
with stone quoins, either completely rectangular or with two short
wings on the sides, the entrance with a pediment, hood or porch,
and with a larger pediment to crown the centre of the house (fig. 93).
These lovable houses of mellow and undated Tightness are too well
known to need further description. Their origin and difiusion
have however not yet been fully elucidated. The earliest
example seems to be Eltham Lodge, near London, of 1663. It was
designed by Hugh May, with Pratt and Webb Wren's most im-
portant competitor in the sixties. By 1685 or 1690 the type was
certainly fully established. It has as a rule a generously spaced three-
flight staircase with an open well and rich woodcarving and rooms
of simple and straightforward shapes; of that ingenious commodite
on which all the French 18th-century architects insisted in their
writings, they have little.
Apparently, to the British, comfort was something quite different
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