Dartington Hall and the Development of the Double-Courtyard Design in English Late Medieval High-Status Houses

Abstract

The paper traces the development of the double-courtyard design in high-status English residences during the late Middle Ages and early sixteenth century. Dartington Hall, Devon, is used as a case study in order to aid in the contextualization of the development. Excavations here carried out in 1962 by Platt and in the 1990s by the authors help to shed light on the date and development of the south court, which was mostly demolished in the seventeenth century. It has been suggested that Dartington Hall is an early example of the double courtyard, but this study finds that it conforms more closely with single-courtyard residences that developed a second court over the course of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.