'More Window Than Wall'
René Ammann | 25. January 2026
An article at BBC contends that the Elizabethean Hardwick Hall “has lessons for how we can heat our homes more efficiently today.” (Photo: Mike Peel/CC-BY-SA-4.0/Wikimedia Commons)
Girth of the walls at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, England, an exceptional manor built in the late 15th century—in what we now know as the Little Ice Age, when soldiers froze to death in the middle of the European summer—with “more window than wall,” to keep the temperature around 10°C (18°F) warmer inside: 1.37m (4-½ feet)
“Pretty much all the fireplaces I see are also built on the central spine of the building,” writes Graihagh Jackson at BBC, “meaning not much heat would be lost to the windows or exterior wall.” (Photo: Mike Peel/CC-BY-SA-4.0/Wikimedia Commons)