The solar was a room in many English and French medieval manor houses, great houses and castles, mostly on an upper storey, designed as the family's private living and sleeping quarters. [1] Within castles they are often called the "Lords' and Ladies' Chamber" or the "Great Chamber". [1]
The word solar has two possible origins: it may derive from the Latin word solaris meaning sun (often a room with the brightest aspect), or — as the solar provided privacy for its occupants — it may come from the Latin word, solus, meaning, "alone". [1]
In some houses, the main ground-floor room was known as the Great Hall, in which all members of the household, including tenants, employees, and servants, would often or could sometimes eat. Those of highest status would be at the end, often on a raised dais, and those of lesser status seated further down the hall. But a need was felt for more privacy to be enjoyed by the heads of the household, encouraged by the senior women, who wanted a daytime space to talk, read and view parts of the grounds. The solar was the key inner family room, for seclusion from the hustle, bustle, noise and smell (above all from cooking) of the great hall. [2]
The solar was generally smaller than the great hall as it was not expected to house so many people. It was a room of comfort and status, and usually included a fireplace and often decorative woodwork or tapestries/wall hangings.
The solar was almost ubiquitous among late castles across the British Isles, such as Broughton Castle, in Oxfordshire, [3] and Stokesay Castle in Shropshire. [4] In the medieval house of Great Dixter, in East Sussex, it consists of three rooms and a fireplace from the late 15th century. [5] In Windsor Castle its walls are painted green with gold stars. [2]
In manor houses of Normandy and northern France, [6] the solar was sometimes a separate tower or pavilion, away from the great hall to provide more privacy to the lord and his family.
The possibly related term grianán (from Irish grian, "the sun"; often anglicised as "greenawn") was used in medieval Ireland for a sunny parlour or reception room. [7] By extension it was used to refer to any summer palace or noble house.
In England from north to south:
In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the great hall was the largest room in castles and large houses, and where the servants usually slept. As more complex house plans developed, the hall remained a large room for dancing and large feasts, often still with servants sleeping there. It was usually immediately inside the main door. In modern British houses, an entrance hall next to the front door remains an indispensable feature, even if it is essentially merely a corridor.
A parlour is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessary conversation between resident members. In the English-speaking world of the 18th and 19th century, having a parlour room was evidence of social status.
Edlingham Castle is a small castle ruin, having scheduled monument and Grade I listed building status, in the care of English Heritage. It is located in a valley to the west of Alnwick, Northumberland, England. It has been described as "...one of the most interesting in the county", by Nikolaus Pevsner, the architectural historian. Edlingham itself is little more than a hamlet with a church alongside the castle.
Tattershall Castle is a castle in Tattershall, Lincolnshire, England. Since 1925 it has been in the care of the National Trust.
Montacute House is a late Elizabethan mansion in Montacute, South Somerset, England. An example of English architecture created during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the more classically-inspired Renaissance style, Montacute is one of the few prodigy houses to have survived almost unchanged from the Elizabethan era. The house has been designated as a Grade I listed building, and its gardens are also listed at the highest grade on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals with manorial tenants and great banquets. The term is today loosely applied to various English country houses, mostly at the smaller end of the spectrum, sometimes dating from the Late Middle Ages, which currently or formerly house the landed gentry.
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically the dining room is furnished with a rather large dining table and several dining chairs; the most common shape is generally rectangular with two armed end chairs and an even number of un-armed side chairs along the long sides.
Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house situated within the parish and former manor of Powderham, within the former hundred of Exminster, Devon, about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of the city of Exeter and 1⁄4 mile (0.4 km) north-east of the village of Kenton, where the main public entrance gates are located. It is a Grade I listed building. The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing. At that time the word "great" simply meant big and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence. In the medieval period, the room would simply have been referred to as the "hall" unless the building also had a secondary hall, but the term "great hall" has been predominant for surviving rooms of this type for several centuries, to distinguish them from the different type of hall found in post-medieval houses. Great halls were found especially in France, England and Scotland, but similar rooms were also found in some other European countries.
The great chamber was the second most important room in a medieval or Tudor English castle, palace, mansion, or manor house after the great hall. Medieval great halls were the ceremonial centre of the household and were not private at all; the gentlemen attendants and the servants would come and go all the time. The great chamber was at the dais end of the hall, usually up a staircase. It was the first room which offered the lord of the household some privacy from his own staff, albeit not total privacy. In the Middle Ages the great chamber was an all-purpose reception and living room. The family might take some meals in it, though the great hall was the main eating room. In modest manor houses it sometimes also served as the main bedroom.
Hylton Castle is a stone castle in the North Hylton area of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. Originally built from wood by the Hilton family shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1066, it was later rebuilt in stone in the late 14th to early 15th century. The castle underwent major changes to its interior and exterior in the 18th century and it remained the principal seat of the Hylton family until the death of the last Baron in 1746. It was then Gothicised but neglected until 1812, when it was revitalised by a new owner. Standing empty again until the 1840s, it was briefly used as a school until it was purchased again in 1862. The site passed to a local coal company in the early 20th century and was taken over by the state in 1950.
Little Moreton Hall, also known as Old Moreton Hall, is a moated half-timbered manor house 4.5 miles (7.2 km) south-west of Congleton in Cheshire, England. The earliest parts of the house were built for the prosperous Cheshire landowner William Moreton in about 1504–08 and the remainder was constructed in stages by successive generations of the family until about 1610. The building is highly irregular, with three asymmetrical ranges forming a small, rectangular cobbled courtyard. A National Trust guidebook describes Little Moreton Hall as being "lifted straight from a fairy story, a gingerbread house." The house's top-heavy appearance, "like a stranded Noah's Ark", is due to the Long Gallery that runs the length of the south range's upper floor.
The meanings attributed to the word hall have varied over the centuries, as social practices have changed. The word derives from the Old Teutonic (hallâ), where it is associated with the idea of covering or concealing. In modern German it is Halle where it refers to a building but Saal where it refers to a large public room though the distinction is blurred:(Halle ). The latter may arise from a genitive form of the former. The French salle is borrowed from the German.
Broughton Castle is a medieval fortified manor house in the village of Broughton, which is about two miles southwest of Banbury in Oxfordshire, England, on the B4035 road.
Clifton Hall was a fortified manor house in the village of Clifton, Cumbria. Dating from around 1400, it was constructed by either Elianor Engaine or her son-in-law William Wybergh, and was held by the Wybergh family until the 19th century. Initially taking the form of an "H"-plan design built around a central hall, around 1500 a three-storey stone pele tower was added, providing both additional security and acting as a status symbol for the family. At the start of the 17th century a new stone hall was added to the south of the tower.
Lytes Cary is a manor house with associated chapel and gardens near Charlton Mackrell and Somerton in Somerset, England. The property, owned by the National Trust, has parts dating to the 14th century, with other sections dating to the 15th, 16th, 18th, and 20th centuries. "Yet all parts blend to perfection with one another and with the gentle sunny landscape that surrounds them," comments Nikolaus Pevsner. The House is listed as Grade I by English Heritage.
Ilkley Manor House, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England, is a local heritage museum, art gallery, and live venue, and was established in the present building in 1961 to preserve local archaeological artefacts after the spa town expanded and much Roman material was lost. It was managed by Bradford Council Museums and Galleries department but had to be closed in 2013 owing to lack of funds. In order to keep the building open to the public, the Ilkley Manor House Trust was formed, and in April 2018, Bradford Council transferred the Manor House and three adjacent cottages to the Trust as a community asset transfer.
The Wealden hall house is a type of vernacular medieval timber-framed hall house traditional in the south east of England. Typically built for a yeoman, it is most common in Kent and the east of Sussex but has also been built elsewhere. Kent has one of the highest concentrations of such surviving medieval timber-framed buildings in Europe.
Prodigy houses are large and showy English country houses built by courtiers and other wealthy families, either "noble palaces of an awesome scale" or "proud, ambitious heaps" according to taste. The prodigy houses stretch over the periods of Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean architecture, though the term may be restricted to a core period of roughly 1570 to 1620. Many of the grandest were built with a view to housing Elizabeth I and her large retinue as they made their annual royal progress around her realm. Many are therefore close to major roads, often in the English Midlands.
The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples were built in stone.
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