Proc. Hampsh. Field Club Arckaeol. Soc. 47, 1991, 153-170 A FIFTEENTH CENTURY INN AT ANDOVER By EDWARD ROBERTS INTRODUCTION eighty feet from west to east where it fronted the High Street. On this plot were to be built In March 1445 a contract was made between Robert four ranges around a courtyard (Fig 1). Thurbern, Warden of Winchester College, and two carpenters who were to build a timber-framed inn for the College at Andover. The building contract, The East Range which is of exceptional interest for its detailed The east range, with its ridge parallel to the description of a mid-fifteenth century inn, shows that it was to comprise four ranges, built around a High Street, stands between cross-wings which courtyard (WCM 2522; Appendix). When the con- are parts of the north and south ranges (Figs 1 tract was first published in 1892, it was correctly and 2). It is in four bays and its chief associated with The Angel Inn in Andover High component was the finely-carpentered and Street (Kirby 1892, 175) but, when the contract was spacious hall (now subdivided). The southern again published in 1952 no reference was made to two bays of this hall were originally open to the the inn's name and, in 1961, W A Pantin called it roof, for their rafters are heavily sooted and 'an inn at Andover, Hants which is only known to us there is a carefully framed opening in the roof from its description in a contract for its building' apex for a louver. The central roof truss of the (Salzman 1952, 517-9; Pantin 1961, 168). However, hall is most unusual in design (Fig 3). It has a the documentation is so full and unbroken, and the surviving structure conforms so closely to the 1445 jointed cruck whose upper members are not contract, that there can be no doubt in linking one rafters (as is commonly the case) but scissors with the other. braces which cross and extend to the opposing In the early 1970s, Richard Warmington was the principal rafters. The sharp outline of this first to recognize the importance of the inn to the cross is softened by a cambered bracing piece architectural historian and he made measured which creates, with the jointed crucks, a drawings of the north range and also of a medieval graceful arch. The small struts linking the fireplace which had been removed during renova- principal rafters to a scissors braces, were tions (Warmington 1970, 3-6; 1972, 11). The subse- properly mortised and clearly integral. No quent publication of a detailed descriptive list of exact parallel to this truss appears to have Winchester College muniments has made readily been recorded, although it does partly resem- accessible the records of The Angel from the ble a group of fifteenth century church roofs in fifteenth to the nineteenth century (Himsworth 1976-84, 86-7) and recent extensive refurbishment north-east Hampshire (for example, at Rother- has revealed substantial remains of the inn's east- wick and Up Nateley) and a domestic roof at ern range and fragments of the south range. Thus 20-24 The Square, Titchfield (Atkinson 1942, there is now available for study a rare combination 148; pers comm Mr J Oliver and Miss E Lewis). of detailed documentary evidence together with a The hall truss is described in the contract as 'a significant proportion of the structure of the origi- coupel trussid fro the groundsile', and Salzman nal inn. Indeed, this combination makes The Angel correctly observed that this phrase implies a arguably one of the most significant timber-framed cruck construction (Salzman 1952, 518'). buildings in Hampshire. The north face of this truss is well cham- fered but, on the southern face, deep moulding A DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL runs from the bracing piece, along the scissors STRUCTURE brace and down the post - an indication that this was intended to be the 'high' end of the The building contract of 1445 described a hall. The trusses at either end of the hall have rectangular plot, ninety feet north to south and curved queen struts and a central king strut to 154 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY M IMI + H COURTYARD of _l. A CHAMBER GATE CHAMBER MTHE |= = : NTHE > SOUTH CROSS-WHG NORTH CROSS-WNG c L o|_ HHH STREET Fig 1. A plan of The Angel Inn at first floor level. (Brick walls are represented by hatching) produce a graceful pattern. All wind braces was oversailed by a chamber above (Fig 2). and purlins are finely chamfered (Fig 2). This is shown by a lack of mortises for Clearly the hall was designed to impress, partition-frames both in the soffit of the cross- although its relatively small size (20 feet x 30 beam and in the surviving post at this point. feet) suggests that it was not designed to All this conforms to the contract, as do the accommodate the whole company at one sit- measurements of the hall (thirty feet long and ting. Indeed it may be that the grander guests twenty feet across) - although the hall truss ate privately in the heated parlours in the has spread by a few inches due to the removal cross-wings - a practice suspected at other of a brace. fifteenth century inns (Pantin 1961, 186-7). The northernmost bay of the east range Traces of dark red paint on the post at the contains a gateway which is still the entry to north end of the hall may represent an early, or an inner courtyard. It is now eleven feet nine even original, decoration. inches wide, although the contract required Although the hall occupied only two bays at twelve feet. From the gateway a blocked roof and first floor level, at ground floor level it doorframe with a depressed four-centred arch extended a further bay to the north where it gave access to the north, overshot bay of the ROBKRTS: A FIFTEEN! H ( 1MIRV INN AT ANDOVKR 155 I he Angel Inn, Andovcr: the scissors brace in the hall viewed from the north side. (Photo courtesy of Mr F G Green) hall. Above both this overshot bay and the of the wall plate imply showy and extrava- gateway was a two-bay chamber, now divided gant close studding, now unfortunately but originally one room on the evidence of the removed. face of the central tie beam which has no The contract specifications for the east peg-holes for a first floor cross-frame. The range were faithfully observed by the carpen- placing and size of this chamber exactly con- ters, except on one point - the orientation of form to the contract according to which it was the entire range was reversed. Thus the gate- to be twenty-two feet long of which ten feet house, which the contract requires to be should oversail the hall [xfete to be trussid over in placed at the south end of the range, is in fact to the hall J. at the north. While this could be attributed to Where visible, the cross-frames and west- medieval indifference or uncertainty with ern wall-framing of this range are composed regard to such niceties, a more plausible ex- of rectangular panels and curved arch braces planation is the desire to site the main en- (Fig 4), but on the eastern elevation of the trance to the inn at the junction of the High hall, where it fronts the High Street, a line Street and the main London road (Wrar- of close-set, rectangular mortises in the soffit mington 1970, 9). en x > 2 3 x o a > •2. a > >x 0 5 10 metre* Fig 2. A longitudinal section through the two cross-wings and the central, east range. (Modern partitions have been omitted) ROBERTS: A FIFTEENTH CENTURY INN AT ANDOVER 157 Fig 3. A cross section through the hall truss. The north range intervals of about eight and a half feet. If, as seems likely, the fourth truss (which has been The north range comprises two separately destroyed) was similarly spaced, then the east, framed structures: a cross-wing and a stable gable end of the cross-wing jettied over the block. To the north of the inn gateway stands street by approximately two feet. This bears the fine, three-bay cross-wing, its eastern gable out the contract which requires that the end now truncated. In the ground floor chamber to the north of the hall should have 'a chamber, which occupies all three bays, the joty utward ofijfote est and west'. (The last phrase ceiling is borne by two richly-moulded cross- must refer to an east-west orientation rather beams. The chamber above was originally than to jetties on both sides, for a western- open to the roof on the evidence of the clasped facing jetty would hardly have been built hard purlins which are chamfered both above and against the stable block.) below. The roof has queen posts, side purlins, A large, stone chimney stack, almost cer- undiminished principals and curved wind tainly built by Thomas Beere in 1449/50, rises braces. Three surviving trusses are spaced at to the apex of the western gable of this cross- 158 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOCICAL SOCIETY CELLAR Fig 4. The southern cross-frame of the hall which also functions as a side wall of the south cross-wing (the jetty and roof of which are outlined with a broken line). ROBERTS: A FIFTEENTH CENTURY INN AT ANDOVER 159 wing (WCM 2684). This feature, taken with According to the contract, a stable block was the spaciousness of the chambers and the to adjoin the cross-wing to complete the north quality of the moulding on the timbers, shows range.