the latter was used only for public events, never used as a great hall here described). Penshurst Place in Kent, England, has a little-altered 14th century example. Surviving 16th and early 17th century specimens in England, Wales and Scotland are numerous, for example those at Eltham Palace (England), Longleat (England), Deene Park (England), Burghley House (England), Bodysgallen Hall (Wales), Darnaway Castle (Scotland), Muchalls Castle (Scotland) and Crathes Castle (Scotland). There are numerous ruined examples, most notably the roofless hall at Linlithgow Palace (Scotland). Survival The domestic and monastic model applied also to Collegiate institutions during the Middle Ages. Several colleges at Cambridge and Oxford universities have medieval halls which are still used as dining rooms on a daily basis. So do the Inns of Court and the Livery Companies in London. The "high table" (often on a small dais or stage at the top of the hall, farthest away from the screens passage) seats dons (at the universities) and Masters of the Bench (at the Inns of Court), whilst students (at the universities) and barristers or students (at the Inns of Court) dine at tables placed at right angles to the high table and running down the body of the hall, thus maintaining the hierarchical arrangement of the medieval domestic, monastic or collegiate household. Numerous more recently founded schools and institutions have halls and dining halls based on medieval great halls or monastic refectories. Decline By the late 16th century the great hall was beginning to lose its purpose. Increasing centralization of power in royal hands meant that men of good social standing were less inclined to enter the service of a lord to obtain his protection, and so the size of the inner noble household shrank. As the social gap between master and servant grew, the family retreated, usually to the 1st floor, to private rooms. In fact, servants were not usually allowed to use the same staircases as nobles to access the great hall of larger castles in early times, and servants' staircases are still extant in places such as Muchalls Castle. Other reception and living rooms in country houses became more numerous, specialized and important, and by the late 17th century the halls of many new houses were simply vestibules, passed through to get to somewhere else, but not lived in. Several great halls like that at Great Hall in Lancashire were downsized to create two rooms.