cloister with
dwelling-rooms and common-rooms entered from its walk, formed the
model on which colleges, hospitals, and alms-houses were planned. The
castle, already described, was the residence of the wealthy during the
earlier part of the Gothic period, and when, in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, houses which were rather dwellings than
fortresses began to be erected, the hall, with a large bay window and
a raised floor or dais at one end and a mighty open fire-place, was
always the most conspicuous feature in the plan. Towards the close of
the Gothic period the plan of a great dwelling, such as Warwick Castle
(Fig. 8), began to show many of the features which distinguish a
mansion of the present day.

In various parts of the country remains of magnificent Gothic
dwelling-houses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries exist, and
long before the close of the perpendicular period we had such mansions
as Penshurst and Hever, such palaces as Windsor and Wells, such
castellated dwellings as Warwick and Haddon, differing in many
respects but all agreeing in the possession of a great central hall.
Buildings for public purposes also often took the form of a great
hall. Westminster Hall may be cited as the finest example of such a
structure, not only in England but in Europe.

The student who desires to obtain anything beyond the most
superficial acquaintance with architecture must endeavour to obtain
enough familiarity with ground plans, to be able to sketch, measure,
and lay down a plan to scale and to _read_ one. The plan shows to the
experienced architect the nature, arrangement, and qualities of a
building better than any other drawing, and a better memorandum of a
building is preserved if a fairly correct sketch of its plan, or of
the plan of important parts of it, is preserved than if written notes
are alone relied upon.

_Walls._

The walls of Gothic buildings are generally of stone; brick being the
exception. They were in the transitional and Early English times
extremely thick, and became thinner afterwards. All sorts of
ornamental masonry were introduced into them, so that diapers,[9]
bands, arcades, mouldings, and inlaid patterns are all to be met with
occasionally, especially in districts where building materials of
varied colours, or easy to work, are plentiful. In the perpendicular
period the walls were systematically covered with panelling closely
resembling the tracery of the windows (_e.g._