BUILDINGS IB

The use of half-timbering, when the face of a building
consisted of woodwork and plaster, made houses and
streets very picturesque. The woodwork was often
artistically carved. Each storey was made to
overhang the one below it, so that an umbrella, if
umbrellas had been in use then, would have been
almost a superfluity, if not a needless luxury, besides
being impossible to manipulate in the narrow streets
and ways of a mediaeval city. The upper storeys
of two houses facing each other across a street were
often very close. Usually there were no more than
three storeys. The roofs were very steep and
covered generally with tiles, but in the case of the
smaller dwellings with thatch. From a house-top
the view across the neighbourhood would be of a
huddled medley of red-tiled roofs, all broken up
with gables and tiny dormer windows ; there would
be no regularity, just a jumble of patches of red-tiled
roofing.

The present streets called Shambles, Pavement,
Petergate and Stonegate, contain excellent examples
of mediaeval domestic architecture.

Shops were distinguished by having the front
of the ground floor arranged as a show-room, ware-
£<5use, or business room which was open to the
street. The trader lived at his shop. In the case
of a butcher's, for example, the front part of the
shutters that covered the unglazed window at night,
was let down in business hours so that it hung over
the footway. On it were exhibited the joints of
meat. Butchers' slaughter-houses were then., as
now, private premises and right in the heart of the
city.

The rooms in the houses were quite small, with
low ceilings. The small windows, whether they
were merely fitted with wooden shutters or glazed