3. Ground Floor & Cellars

The outer hall is a fairly small space with painted walls and half-panelling to the dado rail. The glass fanlight with tracery above the front door can now be clearly seen. Immediately behind the front door as we face northwards, an archway of dark oak leads to the inner hall. Arches are reminders of the Roman influence in neo-classical architecture. This archway even has a ‘false’ decorative keystone which imitates that feature used when stone or brickwork arches are constructed. The key stone in these arches was put in place and while the additional bricks or stones are added and set at an angle to each other, the whole structure is supported by a temporary wooden framework. When this is finally removed the arch has very great weight-bearing properties. This arch and dome building technique using a herring bone pattern has been known since the Renaissance in Italy when Brunelleschi (1377-1446) designed the massive dome of the cathedral in Florence using no scaffolding. It will have been noticed that the decorative brickwork of the lintels above each of the exterior rectangular windows have no keystone because there is no arch to support.

There are identical doors to left and right from this outer hall, both of heavy oak panelling and each one recessed into the wall with the surrounding frame heavily moulded and each recess bearing its own panelling. During the occupancy of the building by the Adult Community College the interspaces on the door frames were painted blue which was consistent with the period in which the house was built. The historic buildings division of the company contracted to redecorate used the pale sky-blue paint which was Robert Adam’s choice for the interior of Kenwood House in the 1760s (see appendix) and of course the Grey Friars 1780s extension was built in the Adam style. Above each door frame a row of dentil mouldings are evident and each row is supported at either end by miniature corbels. This form of moulding appears again and again throughout the building.

As we progress through the ground floor of the original house built by the Rev John Halls in 1755, the position and function of the various rooms can be clearly seen from the plan in the figure below (for full set of photographs and plans, see the printed book).

The door on the left (west) of the inner hall, for example, led into the Morning Room which would have had the furnishings of the day – Chippendale furniture, painted wallpaper and patterned carpet.

The bow window looking out onto the High Street still has its own shutters and the coving, just below the level of the ceiling is moulded with dentils which are interspersed with moulded flowers. In the days when the building was occupied by Colchester County High School, this was a cloakroom for the Preparatory Department and a classroom when Colchester Adult Community College took over.

The fireplace surround is a rather dull grey marble streaked with fawn. This is original 1755, apart from the arched cast-iron inset which is circa 1860. The mantel shelf above is supported at each end by an elaborate corbel. On either side of the fireplace there is a deep recessed archway, the most westerly one has a door to a corridor behind. It is almost certain that this doorway was added when the east and west wings were built in 1904, and that became a corridor, originally part of the Butler’s Room.

Returning to the small outer entrance hall, the door on the right (east) leads to an identical room to the one on the left (west). It has a similar shuttered bow window and intricate decorated coving consisting of a mixture of dentils, corbels and moulded flowers.

There is also a splendid fireplace surrounded by black marble with an additional edging of green. The mantelpiece is in white marble supported at each end by very substantial corbels. The front of the mantelpiece is moulded with medallions and vertical grooves.

In the days of the Rev John Halls, this was the Breakfast Room and beside the fireplace a two-doored hatch leads into the kitchen area behind as a useful service facility.

It is relevant that during Colchester County High School’s occupation this room was a small dining area for the Preparatory Department and for those who had brought packed lunches. It was furnished with low tables and chairs for the smaller children and very different from the furnishing of 1755 where Chippendale chairs might have been in existence.

Moving through the archway from the outer hall to the inner hall we can look back and notice that on either side of the door there is a cupboard with doors which match the door panelling to the Morning and Breakfast Rooms.

On the right, as the stairs are ascended, the original dark oak panelling which matches the treads still exists. On the left, twisting its way upwards, the original banister starts with an ornamental coil, its centre ‘eye’ probably made of ebony surrounded by ivory. The numerous turned oak struts supporting the banister rail present a mesmerising climb to the landing.

As we pause in the inner hall we notice matching panelled doors to the left and to the right which also again match those to the morning room and breakfast room which we have already explored. The door to the west leads into a corridor which adjoins the back wall of the Morning Room. This corridor only appeared when the 1904 extension was built by the French Nuns. In the Rev John Halls’ house it would have been part of a small room to the north which was the Butler’s Pantry. This plan showing the butler’s pantry also suggests that the very deep chimney breast would have allowed a fireplace here which was demolished when the west wing was added. The junction of the original 1755 house and the 1904 west wing is clearly visible today. There is a sharp demarcation between the old oak floor boards and a newer marble mosaic floor in black, white and red. Here the neo-classical influence is faithfully continued in the black fret border of the mosaic which reflects an ancient Greek influence. At intervals in the mosaic a variation of a Greek cross appears. This religious symbol is very appropriate because the corridor leads to the grand hall, formerly the Nuns’ chapel where they would have practised their Catholic religion. The double doors which form the entrance to the former chapel can be seen at the end of the corridor.

Returning to the inner hall, we can now explore what lies behind the door opposite and which appears to lead to the east wing. Again there is a corridor which adjoins the back wall of the breakfast room, and so, in effect, this is a mirror image of the first section of the west wing which has just been described. On this dividing wall there is a delivery hatch which backs onto the one already seen in the breakfast room. Its position indicated that this corridor only came into being when the east wing was added and was formerly part of the kitchen. On either side of the delivery hatch and backing onto the rear wall of the former breakfast room there appears to be a void. Part of this is taken up by the large chimney breast of the breakfast room, which may also have provided a fireplace here prior to the east wing’s construction. Hidden behind some of the flimsy panelling on the western portion is a narrow, dark, servants’ staircase. This original staircase had an exit on the first floor and another on the top floor where the servants’ quarters were situated. The rest of the void houses a small cupboard and marks the point where the original 1755 building joins the 1904 east wing. The east wing was built over the former yard which had double gates adjoining the High Street to allow horse-drawn carriages into the coach house.

At this junction we take a sharp turn to the right and enter a large room with four sash windows looking onto the High Street. This room is in line with the Breakfast Room and has a connecting door. It was used by the Adult Community College as the administrative office. Before that, the French nuns in 1904 used it as a workshop, and when they opened their school in 1910 it played a part in the pupils’ education. But most certainly when Colchester County High School occupied the building it became the pupils’ dining room – and very spartan and disciplined it was too. Staff sat at a high table, and enforced silent eating took place. A small hand bell was rung for silence and eating and then again for talking.

   Hand bell

Retracing our steps from the dining room back to the position of the original delivery hatch, we see that there is a door opposite this and beyond, an array of back kitchens, larders, storage rooms and sculleries, all of which have been added to and altered over the years to make a network of maintenance areas. When the building came up for sale by Garraways of London on Thursday August 26^th 1813, these ‘offices’ were described as composing “excellent kitchen, store closets, servants’ hall, bakehouse and scullery, pantries, larders, dairy and roomy cellars in the basement”. All these areas were linked together in the 1980s to form the Refectory of the Adult Community College.

Behind a door in one corner of this complex, gloomy twisting steps lead to the cellars. These are of great interest because they do not appear to be aligned with the 1755 building and may be a remnant of an earlier house on this site.

There are numerous adjoining and semi-divided spaces in the cellars, some with arched roofs and doorways, some with racks and one which was obviously cool enough to hang hams and other joints. It has an elaborate door reminiscent of the type used in Iceland and the Faroes today where fish is hung in outside airy spaces and becomes preserved by impregnation with salt from the fierce cold winds blowing off the sea and through the slatted panels. Other remnants of gas lamps, massive pulleys and wine bins also remain (see appendix). A small derelict fireplace which is almost immediately under the main staircase may have become obsolete when the 1780 north-facing extension was added or may more likely be from a previous building because there now appears to be no chimney stack associated with it.

One section of the cellars through an arched doorway extends under the original yard and has a coal chute for delivery of fuel. The area leading up to this section has a very intricate floor and an archaeological examination of this seems to suggest that it contains material which is much earlier than the C18th when the present house was built. This gives credence to the theory that the cellars belong to an earlier house of circa 1714 which either collapsed or was demolished. Materials from previous buildings and occupations appear again and again as our tour of the site will reveal.

The buildings beyond the kitchen, cellars and service areas and surrounding the yard were again described in the Garraway’s catalogue of 1813 as a “paved yard with gates to the street, double coach house with a very extensive store-chamber over it and two three-stall stables, brew house and various outbuildings, all of the most substantial brick and of perfect repair”. All of these structures extended to within a few feet of All Saints’ House next door. Most of the yard was later covered over by the large east wing built in 1904, but amongst the hotchpotch of the present interconnecting spaces, a very clear large brick archway with keystone can be seen set into more modern brickwork. The best view of this is obtained from the first floor north-facing windows of the east wing. This is undoubtedly the remnant of the wide entrance to the former coach house, but at the time of writing is half-hidden beneath a mid-C20th metal fire escape. This entrance is not aligned with the present frontage of the east wing and suggests that the entrance to the coach house was set back from the road. Within this internal labyrinth of passages, cupboards and small rooms there are arched recesses which speculatively may have been part of harness and tack rooms.

Retracing our steps once more to the inner hall a sharp turn to the right (north) past the foot of the staircase takes us to the area immediately outside the Rev John Halls’ dining room. Here the original 1755 house would have ended with, possibly, a large window looking onto the garden, but the Rev Halls added the dining room and adjacent rooms to west and east together with matching rooms above on the first floor. The extension reduced the light in the inner hall, and to compensate for this a very fine hemispherical glass dome was added in the roof immediately overhead to light the area below. This very splendid dome was restored in 1980 but cannot be seen from the outside because it is hidden by the parapet and does not have a drum to raise it sufficiently in order to indicate its importance. As we look up at the dome from the inner hall we can see that the decoration and mouldings surrounding the circumference of the dome are very intricate. The circle of the dome fits into the centre of an exact square. The perimeter of the square is decorated with carved mouldings, and each corner has a ribbed fanshaped decoration springing from a cluster of acanthus leaves.

The dome and the large extensions to the house were designed and built in the Adam style. Robert Adam himself (1728-92) gradually emerged as an architectural genius after he made a grand tour from 1754-8, spending some time in Rome. It is therefore fortuitous that the building of the new extension to Grey Friars in 1780 should benefit from these newly-acquired talents. As we visit these later extensions we can contrast the style, decoration and mouldings with those of the earlier part of the house, some of which have already been described in the Morning and Breakfast Rooms.

As we proceed into the dining room, one of the most attractive in the house, it is immediately apparent that its neo-classical style and decorations are lighter in relief than the heavier more robust Palladian style so easily recognisable in the first part of our tour. This lighter touch is often described as “gaily elegant”. And so we step over the threshold of the inner hall to the dining room. It is immediately striking. Airy and lofty it looks out onto the garden. Its high ceiling is possible because of the mezzanine storey above. It is little wonder in the days of CCHS it was the favourite classroom of all time, even in the 1920s.

Tables and small chairs together with old-fashioned desks (appendix 1) filled the room. A taller, sturdier desk with a higher chair was set aside for teacher at the front of the class. Chalk, talk and heavy discipline were the order of the day which could be relieved by a few surreptitious glances out of the magnificent bow window to the tranquillity of the garden beyond.

Although the 1780 extension is always described as being built ‘in the Adam style’, the influence of Robert Adam could, speculatively, have been very first hand. He was certainly in the area in the late 1770s when he was redesigning the old brick-built church at Mistley – some seven miles from Colchester. He finished his work in 1777 and the remaining twin towers can still be seen there. Other projects kept him in the area – the Swan Basin and Grapevine Cottages also at Mistley. But by far the most ambitions scheme by a local resident was to turn Mistley into a spar. The Adam style Grecian Salt Water Baths was perhaps one of the best small buildings that Robert Adam ever designed. But it never materialised. The Grey Friars extension, however, came about in 1780.

Devoid of the pupils, staff and furniture the room has a feeling of opulence. In imagination it is set up for dining in the late 1700s with servants silent and attentive beneath the decorative mouldings and motifs inspired and expanded by Robert Adam who mixed his styles to give his version of neo-classicism a touch of neo-gothic. The mouldings at the cornice in this room are lighter, wider and essentially of low relief. They do not always conform to any strict pattern or design laid down in standard works on mouldings. One of these mouldings which is a variation on the Vetruvian Scroll moulding shows a scroll growing out of a scroll which is lighter and more feathery that its origin, and is surmounted by a variation on a billet moulding. Others appear to have floral or palmette origin. The shallowness and low relief of all the cove mouldings in the room is achieved by using stucco work rather than carved wood. The latter will be seen later when the more robust mouldings of the ornate landing are viewed.

It is very sad that the fireplace does not still have its original free-standing cast-iron grate. There was, of course, additional heating from the old-fashioned Victorian radiators (which can be seen throughout the building) boosted by boilers in the cellars. The immediate surround of the fireplace is a sandy-coloured striated Sienna marble, but the main surround is a pure white very high quality marble with pilasters on either side. This part of the fireplace is original to the room of 1780. The capital of each pilaster is carved with a figure from Greek mythology. The centre (key stone position) is similarly carved.

Few of the many fireplaces throughout the house are completely original with their cast iron grates intact. Others have been altered or added over time to give Victorian or Edwardian flourishes and a few were probably removed during the 1904 alterations and extensions. The Delft tiles lining the back and sides of the dining room fireplace were probably added as a decorative feature round about 1900 when the fireplace went out of use. It is unlikely that they are earlier because the blue colours are not strong enough.

Interpreting the carved mythological figures on this fireplace is a difficult task. Robert Adam is known to have liked the intrigue of mythology, and figures such as these appear frequently in many of his architectural works. Other fireplaces throughout Grey Friars bear motifs such as swags of flowers and urns carved into the frieze, but nothing so puzzling as these three figures.

The two nude female figures, lightly draped and in low relief on left and right are easy to identify, they are Muses. In Greek mythology, Apollo, God of the Sun was the leader of the nine Muses and their functions are identified from the objects or emblems which they are holding. The Muse on the left is holding a lyre. Both Terpsichore and Erato held lyres, but the former held a large one, and the latter a small one. Terpsichore, however, was nearly always depicted standing rather than sitting, and because she was the Muse of dance and song this seems to fit very neatly into the atmosphere of a 1780s dining room and its after-dinner pleasures. Erato was the Muse of love song and so either of these Muses with their additional weaker association with open spaces (such as gardens) would have been appropriate symbolic choices for this delightful spacious room overlooking the grounds.

The Muse on the right of the fireplace is unmistakably Euterpe, the graceful mistress of sing, music, lyric poetry and the inventor of the double flute. She is also the patron of joy and pleasure – and of flute players in general. It is obvious in this relief that music is her main function because she is holding and playing a flute. Again, these are activities which conjure up the ambience of an C18th dining room adjoining the garden.

The central figure in the keystone position appears to be much more important than just a Muse. Again, she is a lightly-draped nude with flowing hair and appears to be lying on a rocky surface rather like a sea shore, with gnarled trees beyond. Her arms are thrown up above her head and her facial expression is one of anguish – or is it ecstasy? The carving of this figure is of a much higher quality than the other two and it is quite possible that it may have been executed by a different sculptor, or at a different time, or even that the small rectangle of marble in the centre of the fireplace was added and carved much later – perhaps in Victorian times.

The central figure in the keystone position appears to be much more important than just a Muse. Again, she is a lightly-draped nude with flowing hair and appears to be lying on a rocky surface rather like a sea shore, with gnarled trees beyond. Her arms are thrown up above her head and her facial expression is one of anguish – or is it ecstasy? The carving of this figure is of a much higher quality than the other two and it is quite possible that it may have been executed by a different sculptor, or at a different time, or even that the small rectangle of marble in the centre of the fireplace was added and carved much later – perhaps in Victorian times.

Returning once more to this beautiful former dining room, we can see that even more grandeur is added by the bow-fronted window and entrance to the garden. Robert Adam’s predilection for the apse (a semi-circular extension to a rectangular space) perhaps persuaded the C18th designer of Grey Friars’ dining room to accentuate the curved garden façade in order to give a false sense of spaciousness and mystery – almost akin to that of a Roman bath. It lacks a rounded vault above, however. But some features of this magnificent access to the garden can be seen in John Kent’s design for Chiswick House in London – the centrally placed low-level double inward and outward opening stable doors surmounted by a large sash window. The five tall arched windows, although said to be in Adam style, owe much to the Baroque.

At each end of the bay is a pilaster – its capital decorated with acanthus leaves. A similar pilaster separates each of the five segments of the bay window. The coving from the top of the pilasters to the ceiling has four rows of different mouldings which in turn are then continuous with the coving of the room. Before we retrace our steps to leave by the door through which we entered we have a stunning view of the doorway.

The immediate door frame has two rows of decorative mouldings separated by plain recessed wood. The innermost moulding shows a string of small flowers, the outer one is a cable moulding. The most impressive parts of this doorway are the extremities which show a typical entablature – pilasters either side with capitals supporting an architrave, frieze and cornice and here for the first time we see moulded ornaments called patera (small circular flower-like discs). The central one is circular and the two outer ones are oval.

We exit from the former dining room and enter once again the inner hall. A narrow dark passage on our right with intermittent arched shelving on either side leads westward to a small door opening to the exterior. This would have been part of the former Butler’s Pantry – the remainder being behind the left hand wall. In the days of Colchester County High School this was a washroom for the younger pupils. Approximately twenty small low-level hand basins joined side-by-side stretched along this north wall. These were removed in the time of the Adult Community College and the space was converted to a small intimate classroom.

On the right adjoining the small door to the exterior is the entrance to the Rev John Halls’ former library. To the right (east) of this door is the lower section of a narrow staircase which now only leads to a balcony in the library, but would originally would have climbed further as part of a second servants’ staircase from the Butler’s Pantry to the mezzanine floor. Opposite this is a door surmounted by a semi-lunar window which leads to a lavatory.

This once housed a beautiful Victorian lavatory pan decorated with blue flowers and birds. This was still in place when the building was used by Colchester County High School, but was for the sole use of the headmistress, Miss King, whose room was in this former library. Being sent to the headmistress for misbehaviour was a terrifying experience to be avoided at all costs.

As soon as the door is opened to the former library the balcony is the first feature which strikes you, and it becomes obvious that the small section of the servants’ staircase which was viewed from outside the entrance also serves the balcony which, it appears, was used for storing books.

To light this room there is one Venetian window the frame of which is undecorated. There is a distinctive fireplace with a grey streaked original white Carrera marble surround. It has a black cast-iron grate and canopy. Just above the marble architrave there is a wide frieze (also of marble) carved with swags of flowers and leaves in relief which unite centrally to join a decorative urn. This was a very usual symbol for Robert Adam and styles which used his influence. It did not always have funereal connotations, but was more likely to have water-carrying association and was an emblem of the river gods. The tiled inserts date from about 1915

The marble cornice just below the mantelpiece is carved with a band of repetitive foliage. It is known that Robert Adam enlarged the repertoire of decorative motifs and mouldings and this may be an example of one of these variations.

On either side of the fireplace built into both alcoves are two full-height mahogany bookcases which were most certainly made to measure and were contemporary with the building of the library in 1780. the top two thirds of each bookcase has glazed panel doors and the lower one third has solid mahogany cupboard doors. We have seen and will see that many features throughout Grey Friars are shared with some of the most spectacular and famous neo-classical buildings in the country. These bookcases are reminiscent of those in the former London home (now a museum) of Sir John Soane (1753-1837). Standard patterns and designs of the day obviously spread their influence from the very grand to the mediocre and finally to the more modest residences.

When the former library became a headmistress’s study in 1920 it was furnished accordingly. The original roll-top desk and chair and small side table in the photograph are now held in the archives of Colchester County High School in Norman Way, Colchester. The small rail-back chair by the window was rescued from the attic when Grey Friars was sold in 2008. These items of furniture appear in the appendix.

We leave the former library, turn right (westwards) and immediately leave the building by a small door into the garden. Here we shall take a leisurely but observant stroll.