Every Day LifeHomes Before the ‘Great Rebuilding’

Solar

Chamber Hall

Kitchen

Some Aims in Home Design

Medieval

• Suitability to status

• Shelter

• Protection

• Accommodate occupations– Farming

– Crafts

• Freedom from discomfort

Early Modern

• Privacy

• Cleanliness

• Warmth

• Light

• Comfort

Additions of the ‘Great Rebuilding’

• Floor over hall

• Stairs

• Smoke bay or hood

– Fireplace and chimney

– More fireplaces

• Glazing

Rebuilding Over Time

• Original postulate (Hoskins) 1570-1640

• Kent; Sussex Weald; Halifax, Yorkshire 15th C.

• Devon Late 16th C

• Oxfordshire 1600-1640

• Gloucestershire 1630-1690

• Wales Mid 17th C.

Peasant houses - Yorkshire

31 houses

• 14 do not mention rooms

• 15 had halls – cooking, sitting, eating

• 17 had chambers - sleeping

• 12 use the word kitchen. (also service space)

Furnishings

• Rushes as floor covering

• Almary or aumbry (armoire) in six houses

• Trestle table; chairs; benches; stools

– Window seats built in

Hearth

• Smoke holes with shutters in roof or eaves

• Intake through windows

• Dangers?

Framing

Two bay longhouse, Dartmoor

Three bay yeoman’s longhouse, Buckinghamshire

Three Bay Cruck House

Reconstruction of house (before 1552)

Solar

Chamber Hall

Kitchen

Housing in Wales

• Gentry house: A permanent, multi-bayed timber house of distinctive cruck-framed (wood counterpart of the stone arch) type.

Two bayed hall

• Peasant House: Single bayed hall; less ornate truss

Great House, Newchurch, Radnorshire (Gentry house)

Bishop Bonner’s Cottage (Museum), Dereham, Norfolk

Cob House, Devon 1539

Tyddyn Llwydion, Pennant Melangell, Montgomeryshire. 1554Reconstruction of a peasant hall house (single-bayed hall)

Wealdon House

• Jettied (overhanging) ends,

• Linked at eaves level by a continuous plate

• Single hipped roof.

Building a peasant house

Cruck House Scotland

Fron-Goch, Nantmel, Walesrecorded 1875

Hampshire – New buildings and remodeled onesRoberts, Edward. "WG Hoskins's' Great Rebuilding’ and Dendrochronology in Hampshire." Vernacular architecture 38.1 (2007): 15-18.

Owner recognition in a Welsh peasant house

Base and full crucks

A Consequence of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

• Decline of domestic glass industry (loss of market)

• Availability of salvaged glass

• New glass importedPanel of leaded glass

fitted to diamond mullions at MeadlandsCottage, Needham Market, Suffolk

Windows

• No covering except shutter

• Cloth

• Glass after 13th century in high status dwellings: Windows often considered movables

Domestic furnishings

• Fabrics

– Bedding

– Pillows

– Sheets

– Coverlets

Bed 1480

Seating

• Chairs

• Stools

• Forms (backless benches)

Almary

Furniture ~1500

‘Form’