Spiral staircase

“ Occasionally, to-day, a staircase of the spiral type is found,—a type that possesses certain satisfying characteristics, but which never enjoyed the popularity of the straight staircase. Some few of the staircases in the old Derby Street mansions at Salem are of this type, as is the staircase at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, the poet Whittier's last residence. ”

“ On such staircases as these furniture can be conveyed up and down without damage to the walls, or injury to the furniture. Architects who build modern narrow and steep staircases, forget that often a coffin has to be conveyed with its tenant down them; and this can be done neither with convenience nor dignity upon them.
But let us think of the staircase on a brighter occasion than a funeral. The grand old flight of steps with its landings, and with sometimes its bay-window with seats in it on one of the landings, how it lends itself to the exigencies of a sitting-out place at a ball. ”

“ This gives them the appearance of grotesque little men, with bent legs, resting one arm on the spire, and might have caused a serious loss of beauty if the whole work had been less perfect in its conception. A curious outside staircase, reached from within, goes over the south window of the transept, giving it a deeply recessed appearance; and the bold buttresses, terminated with crocketed pinnacles, throw broad shadows during the afternoon, which add immensely to the charm of the building. ”

“ The risers, or faces of the steps, are of deal. The stairs are supported by cast-iron girders, following the slope, the lower ones being fixed at the foot to stout timbers under the flooring, and the upper ends bolted to the cast-iron columns which support the landing. These columns are of the same pattern as the rest throughout the building, but only five inches in diameter. They are supported on concrete, and eight of them are required for each staircase. The floor of the landing is carried by lesser cast-iron girders, with flooring-joists. ”

“ Of undiminished loveliness are the fluted Corinthian columns, lofty ceilings and elaborate moldings embellished with classical motifs. An outstanding feature of the building is the winding staircase which rises at the rear of the marble-floored entrance hall. This stairway of unsurpassed beauty has been frequently honored as a masterpiece of design and craftsmanship.
A curious fact about the building is that neither a marriage, a birth, nor a death has ever taken place within its walls. ”

“ The great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence. It winds through the midst of the house by flights of broad steps, each flight terminating in a square landing-place, whence the ascent is continued towards the cupola. A carved balustrade, freshly painted in the lower stories, but growing dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase with its quaintly twisted and intertwined pillars, from top to bottom. ”

“ Usually they communicate with each floor through a sort of lobby. The stairs are always of stone. As the steps at each angle do not suit the same level of the mural gallery, these latter are coaxed and accommodated, usually very clumsily. Now and then the arrangement is different, the stair stops at the first floor, and is continued at the opposite diagonal. Sometimes, as at Carlisle, Ludlow, and Bamburgh, where the outer door is at the ground-level, the staircase commences in the side of the doorway, and ascends straight in the wall, and, on reaching the next angle proceeds as a well-stair. ”

“ Beckford, “and to do away with the cold and uncomfortable appearance you generally have in staircases.” The effect of the whole is so novel that you lose all idea of stairs, and seem merely going from one room to another. As you stand on the landing the vaulted and belted ceiling behind you has the appearance of a row of arches in perspective. The same solemn and mysterious gloom pervades the staircase. The architect has frequently entreated to be allowed to introduce a little more light, but in vain. ”

“ The thickness of the walls immediately above the solid is twelve feet; at the top of the stone staircase they are eight feet, and where the walls are thinnest, immediately under the cornice, they measure two feet. A drop hole formed in the courses of the staircase and solid, provides for the range of the weight of a revolving light. The ascent to this building, as at the Bell Rock, is intended to be by an exterior stair or ladder of brass, and the interior communication between the several apartments by means of flights of circular oaken steps. ”

“ It is not very necessary to describe the lands or the people; and really the most remarkable thing in the place was a staircase, of a very wonderful character. Let the reader imagine, if he can, a splendid stairway, sixty-five feet from balustrade to balustrade, consisting of two vast flights, each of one hundred and twenty-five steps, of eight inches in height, by three feet broad, connected by a flat resting-place sixty feet in length, and running from the palace wall, on the edge of the precipice down to meet a waterway or canal cut to its foot from the river. ”

“ It is not at all necessary to have the stairs carpeted, if the treads are broad enough, and turned balusters painted white with a mahogany hand rail are in scheme. Such a staircase adds much to the home-quality of a house. ”

“ I venture up the stone staircase, although most of the finely carved balusters are gone, and the arch-stones have so slipped out of place that they seem to cling together by the will of Providence rather than by any physical law. The stairs themselves, although of fine stone that has almost the polish of marble, are cracked as if an earthquake had tormented them, and worn by the tread of innumerable feet into deep hollows. ”

“ A back staircase is another thing no house should be built without. This spares the hall immensely, and saves the best stair-carpet, and prevents one meeting the servants as one goes up and down—a thing I personally very much object to. I don’t know why, but I resent hearing them go up to bed past the drawing-room door, and owe our present house yet another grudge, because, for the first time in our lives, we have here no second staircase. If there should be one, I again advise the oilcloth dado spoken of in my former book ”

“ In these apartments, windows are out of the question; there is merely a door, so low and narrow, that it will scarcely suffice to admit the light. The staircase is worthy of the rest of the building; it consists of a beam, or rather a tree jagged in a slovenly manner, one end of which rests on the ground, and the other is raised to the height of the floor. ”

“ The noble staircase of the east front of the building leaps over three arches; under one of which carriages pass to the basement door; and, as you approach from the gate, the eye cuts the ascent at right angles, and the sky, broken by a small spire at a short distance, is visible beneath. Broad stairs occur at equal distances, with corresponding projections, and from the upper platform rise the outer columns of the portico, with ranges of columns three deep extending back to the pilasters. ”

“ The great staircase forms one of the finest coup d'oeils of the kind I ever beheld. It is in the center of the whole edifice, opposite the church gates. The dome is painted with Apollo and the Muses, in a circle, and the four seasons in the corners. The steps and balustrade are all of marble of different colours, on a very grand scale, crowned with two capital lions. If any fault can be found with this elegant piece of architecture, it is that the area below is too small in proportion to the grandeur of this part of the building. ”

“ The room you enter is by no means gloomy. A carved oak staircase with balustrade of peculiar form leads to other rooms panelled to the ceiling, with fine overmantels. The leads of the small window-panes are of fanciful design; one bears the date 1627 and the initials I. W. H., and these occur again with the date 1639 in some oak carving in one of the bedrooms. A "well" stone staircase between rough-hewn stone walls leads up to the attics, which have open timber roofs with semicircular span to the main beams. ”

“ To our right is a massive oaken staircase. We ascend in gloom, for the staircase being built in the middle of the house, only a few straggling rays of light can reach it, and whence they proceed is a mystery. Every few steps we mount we are upon the point of stumbling into the door of some cupboard or apartment ”

“ The ascent of the staircase is facilitated by pretty regular but modern footings cut in the floor; and at the top is a small platform, in which is a thick block of granite, resembling an immense chest, imbedded in the solid building, and hollowed out so as to leave alternate projections and retirings, into which are let blocks of the same material, with corresponding grooves and projections, intended forever to conceal and protect the entrance to the principal chamber which is behind them. ”

“ In this sketch I have chosen the point of view from the entrance loggia of the house, because looking from it I could well see, and therefore illustrate, the way in which a grand staircase, covered at the top, but open to the air upon one side, usually connects, in large houses, the upper and lower arcades of the Patios, and consequently the upper and lower floors of the mansion which open on to the two main arcades. The staircase is very rarely closed by iron-work or otherwise ”

“ The exiled prince to whom it gives its title has not the means to keep up four hundred rooms; he contents himself with preserving the huge outside. The repairs of the prodigious roof alone must absorb a large part of his revenue. The great feature of the interior is the celebrated double staircase, rising straight through the building, with two courses of steps, so that people may ascend and descend without meeting. This staircase is a truly majestic piece of humor; it gives you the note, as it were, of Chambord. ”

“ To the right of the entrance a second door opened into a mural stair, a fragment of the cylindrical shell of which remains. This led to the second floor and battlements. For its support the external wall is thickened by a half-round buttress, solid below, and ascending to the summit. The door and the staircase are utterly ruined. In this floor are two window openings in flat-sided recesses, apparently round-headed. The windows, probably large loops, are broken away, and the ashlar face of the recesses is gone, but the relieving arch in the wall is flat pointed. ”

“ It is fear of something in the house. They are always listening and watching at the top of the front stairs. They have lifted all the carpets, so that every footstep echoes through the whole house. Mrs. Reed goes down to the first door, but never alone. To-day I found that the back staircase is locked off at top and bottom. ”

“ For the increased passing up and down, a staircase wider at its lower part will be required. If now the builder, when putting up the ground floor, follows the old dimensions, then after all the stories are built, the lower part of the staircase, if it is to yield equal facilities for passage, must be reconstructed. Instead of a staircase adapted to those few stories which the original type of house had, economy will dictate a pre-adaptation of the staircase to the additional stories. ”

“ The kitchen and offices formed the other wing.
“The massive staircase is about 4 ft. in width, and consists of solid oak steps; it is supported by the ancient chimney stack, and opens into a small landing on the first floor, from which access is given to various bedrooms, and through them to others. This landing, which was originally lighted by the usual four-light window, now partially built up, has a remarkable ceiling, cornice, and frieze, in plaster work. ”

“ It is noteworthy that the common practice in England with regard to wood stairs is to frame and form the finished work in the workshop and fix it bodily in the position it has to occupy. In America, especially in the eastern states, the finished staircase is built up piece by piece upon a rough framework which has been used by the workmen during the erection of the carcase of the building. ”

“ The masterpiece of its constructive elements is its wonderful doubly spiralled central staircase, which permits one to ascend or descend without passing another proceeding in the opposite direction at the same time. ”

“ They were worshipping before a great black fetor-belching aperture which reached up almost out of sight, and which I could see was flanked at right angles by two giant staircases whose ends were far away in shadow. One of these was indubitably the staircase I had fallen down.
The dimensions of the hole were fully in proportion with those of the columns—an ordinary house would have been lost in it, and any average public building could easily have been moved in and out. It was so vast a surface that only by moving the eye could one trace its boundaries. . . ”

“ The staircase itself, whether it be of wood or stone, should never rise more than six and a half inches to each step, and, if possible, a landing or resting-place should be arranged every twelve or fifteen steps. In ordinary London houses the half-landing is sufficient, but all winders are fatal to a good staircase. ”

“ The stairs are an important feature of a building. On entering a house they are usually the first object to meet the eye and claim the attention. If one sees an ugly staircase, it will, in a measure, condemn the whole house, for the first impression produced will seldom be totally eradicated by commendable features that may be noted elsewhere. ”