Stratford Hall, Part IV: Placing the Windows

Updated 8/26/2023

In the previous post* I wrote about all the construction details of Stratford Hall which William Walker, the Master Builder, had to work out before the masons could begin laying the walls.

They are all visible in this photograph: the brick pattern (Flemish Bond) and its variations, the brick headers over the windows in the ground floor and the main floor, the corner brick pattern and that around the windows, the cap at the shoulder, where the walls become thinner by one brick.

The Hall needed big windows on the main (family) floor above, smaller ones on the ground (service) floor below. As William Walker placed and sized the windows he would have considered all these constraints.

I wondered:

Was he drawing on paper, a board, a plaster wall, a framing floor? 

Drawings about framing can still be seen on cathedral walls and floors. So perhaps Walker did his layouts on the floor of the Hall.

He could have used the ground floor as a framing floor as soon as the foundation was set. The floor itself, his sketches and calculations, would become covered with pavers when the Hall was finished and ready for use.

It would also have been easier to lay out his ideas, check his dimensions for both floors from the inside, rather than working on scaffolding outside or in a shed nearby.

Walker used 5 equally sized squares to lay out Stratford Hall's floor plan. Perhaps he used a similar simplicity for the elevations. I drew squares.  

The red boxes show the interior of the wing. My tentative pencil marks are barely visible.

 

Simple squares (using the room height as the length) lay out the window locations for the Hall. Here is the main floor wall with 2 squares. They mark the edges of the center window for the main floor and the ground floor below.

 

 

They also locate the center of the window. The window frame is 2 squares tall - as noted by the diagonal line.

The size of the main floor windows and the width of the ground floor windows is set.

Squares of the same proportions, moved to the sides of the window, locate the outer edges of the windows on the left and right. Note: Square A-A and Square B-B.  

Those windows will be the same size as the center windows. There is plenty of room for the flat arches above the windows; the edging brick patterns are not crowded.

 

The only unknown is the vertical height of the ground floor windows and how far above the floor they will sit. Space must be given for the rowlock arches over the windows.

The Lines which located and sized the main floor windows extend to the ground floor. I've labeled them A-B, B-A, A-B to match what I drew earlier. 

Using the window width as a radius, and the floor of the lower level as the base, (the Line below 3) the center of the circle can be found, the circle and its daisy wheel drawn. It marks the brick arch over the window. It also intersects the Lines of the window widths  locating the height of the ground floor windows. 

The windows are 3/4/5 rectangles.

Walker trained as a joiner in Scotland at the time when James Gibbs, also a Scotsman, was there, and when Gibb's book, 'On Architecture', was published. Gibbs' book included plans for 2 'menageries'.** One was laid out with similar crossed squares, the other used the inside for its geometry as the exterior wall - shown here - was irregular, as is the exterior surface at Stratford Hall. Gibbs also used the 3/4/5 rectangle for layouts.

Copies of James Gibbs' book came to the Colonies. It is possible both William Walker and the Lee family had read the book in Virginia.

* Previous posts:

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/06/stratford-hall-and-paul-buchanan.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/07/stratford-hall-part-ii-geometry-of.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/08/stratford-hall-part-iii-look-at.html

** My posts on Gibbs' geometry:

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2021/12/james-gibbs-book-of-architecture.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2022/01/james-gibbs-of-architecture-draughts.html

*  See previous posts:

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/06/stratford-hall-and-paul-buchanan.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/07/stratford-hall-part-ii-geometry-of.html 

**Personal note: I have been asked at workshops how I use practical geometry. Here is an example of how I would approach a design today. The geometry would tell me what size the windows would be and their spacing.

Stratford Hall - Part III: Designing with Brick

 

I had just published 2 posts on the practical geometry used to frame/construct Stratford Hall.*

The thinking, drawing, and writing about the overall structure of the Hall was done. 

I began exploring the drawings. 

The window layout was rhythmic, straight forward: all the windows on each floor were the same size. The space between them as well as the spaces between them and the corners were equal.  

 

As an architect I have used this pattern on new wings for old houses. I would size the windows to compliment the existing; then divide the remaining space evenly. Or perhaps I would give a little more width to the outside walls, depending on room layout requirements.**

Here, I thought, is a similar layout. 

However,  I was wrong.

As I thought about the proportions I was laying out a wood frame:  locating posts, beams, center lines of windows, heights indicated for headers, a window schedule. I was building the structure. The character of the exterior and interior would come later with the addition of sheathing, siding, and plaster finished with trim and moldings. 

The interior and the exterior of a brick frame are the structure, they are not added later. Stratford Hall was built of brick. Its character comes from the manipulation of the brick.

So, from the beginning the masons who worked for William Walker, the Master Builder, needed to know:  

 

Where to lay Flemish Bond using brick of just one color? Where use the whiter bricks as headers?

Where to leave window openings? How wide, how tall? 

 

 

 

What brick pattern to use at the window openings? How many bricks? At the corners of the wings too?

Where to use a flat arch as a header? Where a rowlock arch? 

Where to place the brick cap and make the brick wall thinner?

That question was easy to answer: where the wall diminishes just above the joist pockets which hold the main floor joists.

 

 

In this image you can see how much information William Walker had to give the masons as they began. 

How many rows at grade before the  
the corner brick pattern begins, as well as the use of lighter headers?  

What is the height of the ground floor windows, and their width?  

The brick details at the sides windows and at the corner which needed careful calculations are visible here.             

The black line at the corner is an electrical cord.

 

When I knew the issues I could ask the question:  

How did William Walker, Master Builder, lay out the elevations?

 

I will propose some answers in the next post.

*  See previous posts:

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/06/stratford-hall-and-paul-buchanan.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/07/stratford-hall-part-ii-geometry-of.html 

** I knew about the use of proportion and rhythm in architecture and applied it for many years before I 'discovered' Practical Geometry. I studied the illustration in pattern books without understanding the numbers engraved along the sides of those drawings nor pausing to read the texts. I did not 'discover' the practical use of geometry: I finally read the text in the books and studied the scales.

 

 

 

 

Stratford Hall, Part II: The Geometry of the Elevations

Stratford Hall, begun in 1736 - As visitors would have seen it when they came to the house from the plantation's docks on the Potomac River.

 

My first post on Stratford Hall* looked at the how the foundation plan was composed of 5 equal squares. The location of the central hall which runs between the chimneys was also shown to be sited by the circle that laid out the squares.

The Master Builder, William Walker,** seems to have used  the square as his geometry to layout the house.  Did he use the square for the rest of the plans and elevations?  I obviously think he did, but we have few notes, only his actual construction as proof.

 

Was the width of the chimney bases determined by those squares?

Probably. The exterior dimensions of the house foundation and the chimney bases would have been set at the same time. Here are the Lines which divide the width of the square into 4 parts: one part on each side for doorways, 2 parts in the middle for chimney masonry.  The Lines are not quite accurate: note the red lines with arrows. Perhaps this is because the masons who built fireplaces had different skills than those who laid brick walls and the dimensions were not as critical. 

 

 

 Note that these Lines, when I added them to the square based on the inside of the brick walls, give no useful information.

 

 

A brick wall can be measured from the outside or the inside.

 A garden wall needs 2 parallel Lines (twine) to be staked - one on each side of the wall - to guide the construction.

 A brick wall for a building would also have 2 Lines. The bricklayer, checking his Lines for a building layout must decide which side of the wall to use.

 

 

 

At Stratford Hall a square and its lines define the exterior dimensions; they sets the size of the wing from ground to ridge pole at the top of the square (A).  The third points (B) mark the height of the brick walls which is the location for the  plate for the roof trusses. 

The lines which divide the square into 4 equal section locate the width of the chimney stack - note where they cross (C) in the middle of the square.

 

 

 

 

The lines of the square, based on the width from the interior side of the brick walls, cross at the floor-to-floor height of the lower level (D). This dimension tells the mason where the joist pockets for the floor joists to carry the main floor should be located. 

The central space of the house is the Hall, the place to gather and entertain. See my previous post for floor plans.*

Here the square is based on the inside dimension: brick wall to brick wall, just as it was for the wings. 

The geometry of the wings (the drawing above) applies here too: the location of the main floor and the height of the walls is the same.

The ceiling of the Hall is vaulted: a tray ceiling, sloped on all 4 sides. The height of the ceiling is not arbitrary but is determined by the height of the walls. 

 A red line encloses the hall and its ceiling;

The scale on the right side shows the wall height divided into 4 parts. The height of the sloped part of the tray ceiling is 1 part.   

4 parts = wall height, 5 parts = floor to ceiling.  

The Master Builder could have used the floor of the hall as a framing floor for this ceiling, making the height simple to calculate. 

At this small size the diagram of the square and its lines gets messy. So I chose a different way to show the relationships. 

 

* My first post on Stratford Hall:  https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/06/stratford-hall-and-paul-buchanan.html

** For a biography of William Walker see https://chipstone.org/article.php/559/American-Furniture-2006. He was a Scotsman, probably trained as a joiner and wright in Scotland, who immigrated to Virginia before 1730. He would have known of the work of James Gibbs and Colen Campbell. He might have known them.

 

 

 

 

Stratford Hall, Part I: Paul Buchanan's Ideas

This post is an introduction to my understanding of the geometry of  Stratford Hall, the plantation and home of the Lees of Virginia for 4 generations  beginning in 1736.

Here is the house as it looked this spring when I was there for 3 days. 

In the gift shop I found the book  Paul Buchanan Stratford Hall.* Of course I bought it.

The book focuses on Buchanan's  research at Stratford Hall from 1984-1993, after it introduces us to his historic preservation work at Colonial Williamsburg as well as other Great Houses in Virginia, including Gunston Hall.

This image on page 14 is from one of Buchanan's favorite pattern books, The London Tradesman, by R. Campbell, published in London in 1747.

I spotted the compass leaning against the beam, and the man to the far left, probably the builder, with his rod. That led me to the book which is available online. 

It is a fascinating review of the trades in mid-18th c. London. Geometry is listed, among others, as a necessary skill. 

Chapter XXXI, Of Architect and those employ'd in that Branch, lists the skills men need to succeed in that profession.  Campbell writes that an architect's "head (must be) Mathematically and Geometrically turn'd."  and "Besides this Plan he generally forms a Model in Wood." pages155-6

For a stone mason, "Geometry is absolutely necessary". page158

For a carpenter: "He must understand as much Geometry as related to Measuration (the act of measuring) of Solids and Superficies (surface areas)". page 160

For a joiner: "His Business requires that he should be acquainted with Geometry and Measuration". page 161  

Of course I wanted to understand how Buchanan applied this, what he knew about the geometric skills listed by Campbell. I study how our ancestors used geometry as a practical tool for construction, as well as for design.

Using the HABS drawings for the house, done in 1969, Buchanan overlaid squares and a circle.

His squares 'work': they fit. However they do not tell us much about how to build the house. They do not provide clear and simple information - the layout of the plan, the size of the spaces and their relationship to each other - for the Master Builder who, at Stratford Hall, was William Walker.

 

I used the width of the wings as the dimension of a square to lay out the foundation plan using 5 squares. The middle square is centered between the 2 wings. The foundation would have been easy to layout with compasses, and a rod, both of which are in Campbell's illustration.

 

 

Twine, also essential, is not in the illustration. Maybe it was too skinny - just a line. (A deliberate pun: twine marks the 'Line' - as in 'chalk line'- which the builder needs in order to build.)

Here is the width of the east wing used as the radius for a circle, drawn in red. The 6 points of the circle locate the square, drawn here in black. 

I drew this for the readers of this post who might not know how a daisy wheel can be used. In the process I saw that the foundations for the fireplaces are also located, see the black dashed line.

For an introduction to the use of a daisy wheel see: https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/01/geometry-in-construction-practical.html

* Paul Buchanan Stratford Hall and Other Architectural Studies, copyright 1998,  Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, Inc. Stratford Hall Foundation, Stratford, VA.