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requirements, and not until the pressure of Economy-under-forced: draught compelled the ordinary motorist to turn to it for cheaper motoring was it other than a : sporting model. There are some good sporting cars that do not come under the description of a small car, but as a broad definition one may lay it down that every small two-seater bodied car is a "sports" model. Some are more than that, for they are marvels of a technical efficiency that can be translated into speeds up to 100 miles an hour on Brooklands.

re

Here let me pay a tribute to the value of the Weybridge track to the British designer and : manufacturer, But for the enterprise of Mr. Locke King, in erecting that racing enclosure, it is not too much to say that the British motor car would not possess the efficiency that marks it to-day, and the present type of smail car, in which I consider this country leads the world could not have been evolved. It has been the testing ground that determined the practical value of every step taken the open-air laboratory where experts carried out their searches into the complex problem presented by the motor car. However valuable such events as the Tourist Trophy race and the Scottish Motor Car Trial may be, they but serve to demonstrate the success or failure of individual applications of the lessons mainly learned on Brooklands. Its work in this way has become so impressed on our foreign competitors that first the United States and now Italy, Germany, and France have been impelled to construct racing courses and circuits to do for their cars what Brooklands has done for ours. The sportsman's taste in cars is critical to a degree. He wants everything he can get, of course, but above all, he

THE WOLSELEY TEN LIGHT FOUR-SEATER.

SIX-CYLINDER 24-60 H.P. SUNBEAM

THE AUSTIN TWELVE FOUR-SEATER TOURING CAR

hall

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great

N the days of our remote forefathers the of a house or castle was the general place of assembly. Ladies might have their bowers, where they would sit and work at embroidery, and, no doubt, since human nature persists, gossip; but the great hall was a general sitting-room for the entire household. There on a daïs, a rough trestle-table was set for the family and their guests, whilst in the body of the hall were the tables for the servants, guests' servants, and men-at-arms. After meals the tables were easily taken apart and put away. There was usually a gallery for musicians, and trophies of the hunt and of arms decorated the walls. In the earliest times of all a fire was lit upon the floor and the smoke escaped as best it could; later, there was a huge open fireplace and a chimney. There was no furniture to speak ofa few rough stools and benches to sit on, and perhaps a heavy coffer or two, which, after the evening's entertainment, served for beds.

It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century, or so, that the privacy of a dining-room was appreciated. This resulted in the use of permanent tables which remained in their place. The servants, by the same token, remained in theirs. But the great hall was still the place of entertainment on a large scale; and though jongleurs had gone out of fashion, there was still music

and dancing. And so, though since then the halls of country houses have been neglected from time to time, they have for the most part been used as a general sitting-room to the present day, when every agent's advertisement explains the use of the room by calling it a "lounge hall."

The hall in a modern house or an old 44 adapted house almost always gives upon an outer hall or lobby, so that it is well protected from the chilly blasts of the opening front door. At the same time most of the downstairs rooms open from the hall, and there is the staircase, so that, in these circumstances, the room is not usually the cosiest one in winter.

An ideal hall, a genuine relic of the past, may be seen in the extraordinarily fine example at The Priory, Bradford-on-Avon. This room is beautifully proportioned and well lit. A fine mullioned window is seen in the gallery, and another faces it at the far end of the hall. Here the panelled screens on either side beneath the gallery (in some houses the whole space under the gallery is enclosed) must serve to keep most of the draught from the fireplace, which is the natural point of congregation. The fireplace of the hall is an excellent Tudor specimen with a finely carved overmantel in oak. Opposite there is a heavily curtained doorway. The vaulted roof, with plaster decoration,

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is especially noteworthy. So perfect a specimen of old English hall, furnished, as at present it has been, with chairs, tables and cupboards in strict keeping (if not necessarily of the same period), would be, perhaps, rather spoiled by the introduction of modern easy chairs. A comfortable compromise might be made with a large oak settle or two with plenty of cushions.

The next example to be considered is the pretty hall in a Queen Anne house, at Sunninghill in Berkshire. From the beginning of the eighteenth century comfort, in our modern sense of the word, was well understood; and this hall is both cosy and dignified. There is an Adam fireplace, and some delightful low panelling, painted white, is seen upon the stairway. Such a room is in no way spoilt by the introduction of modern furniture, and the deep sofas and chairs, covered with good chintzes or cretonnes, are exactly suitable. Such a hall is an admirable setting for good sporting pictures, such as the horse we see here over the fireplace.

The study in this same house is of the same kind, for such a room might easily be a lounge hall." The panelled oak door which we see on the left may give, for the purposes of our argument, upon the outer hall The oak posts which support the roof in the raised half of the room give a pleasingly antique air to this little sanctum, which would be a perfect place of its kindstudy, smoking-room and hall combined-for the bookish sportsman.

A purely modern hall, of a design adapted from the great hall" of bygone days, is exhibited in a well-known house near Mark Cross in Sussex. Here again we have the vaulted roof, the gallery-no longer for minstrels, but to give light to an upper passage-and

beneath it an arcade with a semi-circular arch supported by black marble columns. The capitals are of the Ionic order. There is a simple fireplace, and the panelling round about it is of grey sycamore and ebony.

In so modern a room, with its lines derived but not copied from an old design, an excellent opportunity would be found for the use of new furniture exactly reproduced from good antique models, but in no way stained or varnished to appear old." The fine lines of a big so-called "refectory" table with huge bulbous legs would be remarkably suitable. Left alone, or perhaps slightly darkened with linseed oil, such a table would always be pleasing to the eye. But how often do we see (a) an exact copy at all, or (b) a copy that is not faked up in one way or another to look old. It is an infinite pity that such noble designs as those of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods cannot be appreciated for their own sakes. Nothing could be better for a hall. The same rule would apply to any chests or coffers. The owners of old ones almost always put these in the hall, and for a good reason. They make excellent store-cupboards for rugs, piles of old newspapers, or even croquet sets and cricket stumps. But new chests made to the old design would be just as useful and nearly as ornamental.

The hall, as used in these days, is the most convenient room in the house. What is to be done, then, with the type of house-and there are many of themwhere there are enough sitting-rooms, but the usual passage-way of the small town house? These are, as a rule, the ugliest and least serviceable contrivances known to modern architecture.