English craftsmen have in the best periods of our architecture turned readily to working in wood, trained as they were in the Middle Ages in the building of timber-framed houses and the framing of timber roofs for churches and halls. And when the open roofs and timber houses were no longer the rule, the joiner found full scope in the oak wainscot whereby rooms were " made warmer and more close than otherwise they would be."
The earliest wainscot recorded appears to have been plain boards, fixed side by side and painted ; and there exist rare examples of narrow overlapping boards, or " clinker-boarding," nailed to the wall, as in the porch of the Guildhall at Lavenham. Framed panelling of the Gothic period is distinct from this earlier arrangement of clinker-boarding or painted boards. A substantial framework of uprights and cross-pieces enclosed long narrow panels, which were enriched with cusping or with painting.
The length of wainscot panels was reduced in the early Renaissance, and the panel became an oblong of which the height is not much greater than its width. In the early sixteenth century the panel was ornamented with various devices, of which the best known is the " linen pattern," or "linenfold," so called from the ornament resembling (at any rate, in certain examples) a piece of material arranged in vertical folds upon it.
There is no reason to suppose that the device in its original form was derived from folded drapery. The linenfold does not appear in manuscripts earlier than the middle of the fifteenth century, and is first represented with a single rib dividing off the ornament into two folds.' "Wavy woodwork "-lignum undulatum, or "septum undulatum "-is the term used in certain college accounts! In certain examples, however, the folded drapery is given an incised or relieved border, based on the selvedge or borders of the woven fabrics of the period ; and, in one example, buttons and cords are carved for its suspension.' In certain cases the rods upon which the drapery is rolled project beyond the edges, and are ornamented with spiral twists or foliations, and the edges of these folds are indented and cut back into fantastic hollows. The pattern, which appears first in the northern districts of France, was in use before the sixteenth century in England.'
Among examples that can be dated approxi­mately by emblems and badges is the panelling at the Vyne, dating from between 1520-I525, which is crisply carved with folds rolled on spirally-twisted foliated rods, and with royal badges, such as pomegranates, fleurs-de-lys, roses, shields, short mottoes, cardinals' hats, and linked initials filling in the spaces where the linenfold is cut back. Linenfold panelling was made for the hall of Queen's College, Cambridge, in 1531, in which the panels were surmounted by a frieze containing the arms of benefactors alternating with heads richly carved, and this has since been removed to the Lodge. Linenfold panels made about 1520 for the house of Coo, a rich Norwich merchant in Dial Yard, are remarkable for their finish and refined design, which equals any contemporary continental woodwork.
The most important are the seven panels originally set over the chimney-piece, in which the owner's name, a shield bearing his merchant's mark, and the arms of the Mercers' Company appear in the cut-out spaces. Medallioned heads, a motif of the Italian Renaissance, appear in certain panels. These are usually in profile, and fantastically designed with foliated helmets and eccentric caps and head-dress.
Panels containing heads within a wreath with panels filled with ornament of Italian character appear in some of the early sixteenth-century panels from Boughton Malherbe and in the hall of Magdalen College, Oxford, wainscotted at considerable expense in 1541.
At Great Fulford certain panels are dated 1534, and one is carved with the knot, the badge of the Bourchier 1 family. In some instances, portraits were probably intended, as in the carved heads of a man and woman in the wainscot on the east wall of the dining parlour at Haddon Hall.' In these panels the costume of the period of Henry VIII. is carefully rendered, and the figure and dress of the man is not unlike that of Sir George Vernon on the tomb of his father at Tong Church. Another type of ornamented panel is the double-ogee scroll or strap, with ornamental fillings of various ornaments (especially the vine), which was widespread throughout nearly all north-eastern Europe during the late fifteenth century. In the wainscoted room on the first floor, formerly at Boughton Malherbe, the panels are nearly all of this type, but the panels vary in detail, some being enriched with grapes and foliage, others with ornamental cusping.
In the wainscot of flank of a wall formerly in the hall at Halnaker, the panels were carved with foliated scrolls; while the doors were linen-panelled. In the panels, knots, scrolls, and devices were mingled with the cognizance's of the founder, of Henry VIII., and of Katherine of Aragon. In a compartment near the centre were the royal arms, and over the doors leading to the buttery and cellar busts of men and scrolls, one inscribed " Les Bien-Venus " and the other " Come in and Dringe."
In the examples hitherto mentioned, all the panels have been carved with Gothic or quasi-Italian ornament. In the dining-room at Haddon Hall, however, the panels (with the exception of those just beneath the cornice, which are carved with coats of arms, medallioned heads, linked initials, and other devices) are plain, while during the second half of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the paneling was usually of plain framed repeated oblongs.
Wainscot of the later Tudor period is plentiful, whole houses being sometimes lined with oak throughout. In the hall the wainscot was often carried up to about the level of the window sills, other rooms were usually wainscoted from floor to ceiling.' A contract between the builder of Hengrave and the carpenter for " seelying " the house shows that some of the rooms were wainscoted their full height, and others, such as the hall, for a certain number of feet,' the inter­vening space being hung with tapestry or stained cloth, or decorated with plasterwork or painting.
At this date, there is no trace of dado or skirting. It might be supposed that the oak for this wainscoting was English grown, but, according to Harrison, " our wainscot is not made in England "; and it is certain that in the eastern counties, Lynn and other coast towns imported a considerable amount of oak from Norway and Denmark in planks. The oblong panels of this period are framed in narrow stiles. Variety and richness were given to the homogeneous surface by dividing it into sections by pilasters, fluted or carved, or by introducing enriched panels. The pilasters were often enriched with shallow patterns, as the room from a house in Exeter, and in the job room at Bradninch Manor, Devonshire, where each pilaster differs in design.
In one, armour in use in the Elizabethan period is set out in trophies; in another, musical instruments. The base of the wainscot is plainly panelled ; in the second height the pilasters are fluted, and the spaces between them enriched with geometric devices. The third height is occupied by semicircular arches, and the pilasters are here carved with scale pattern and finished with capitals of foliage filling up the spandrels of the arches. The mouldings of the wainscoting are planted on to the woodwork, and not, as in earlier work, worked in the solid. Later there is a preference for a composite panel rather than arcading, and also for skilled joinery with enrichments of split turnings.
Such lathe-turned balusters, drops, beads, and spindles, sawn longitudinally, were also applied to woodwork at an earlier date in the Low Countries. There are examples of wainscoting with reserved ornament upon salient features such as the chimney-piece and doorways, the Laudian wainscot of St John's College, Oxford, and the wainscoted room formerly in the Reindeer Inn, Banbury.
In the latter room the doorway and chimney-piece are treated with broken pediments, and detached columns are placed at the angles of the recess of the bay window; while the wall surface is divided by pilasters.
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Michael Jourdain is a man known in his field. This article teaches all you need to know from Wainscotting to standard wall panelling. http://www.periodfurniture-carved.co.uk
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