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 at an earlier date were constructed of stone; as were also the larger private mansions of ancient origin in both town and country, and the huge public buildings, such as the halls and prisons. Stone was also used in the construction of many of the newer buildings. With the distinctly new type of large mansion that came into vogue during the later part of the reign, brick and tile were the favourite building materials. Taking into consideration all the houses, great and small, through and through, timber was probably the chief element of construction. A large majority of the London houses were constructed in a peculiar fashion of a massive timber framework with gable roofs. The squares and the triangles formed by the beams were filled in with lath and plaster. Each story projected some distance over the one below; and the wooden fronts were grotesquely carved and painted. Examples of this style of building may still be seen in Staple's Inn, London; Leicester's Hospital, Warwick; Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford; and whole streets of modern imitations, both in form and decoration, at Chester. Smaller country houses were either built of small stone, often put together without cement, a habit still followed at Keswick, or consisted of poor clay hovels.

Roofs of churches and of many of the great