A Critical Review of Sources on the Development of English Vernacular Architecture, 1600-1800, as it relates to the Geographical Region concerned
by R J Brierley BA
A Master's Dissertation, submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Master of Arts degree of the Loughborough University of Technology
September 1991
Supervisor: Professor M A Reed, BA, MA, LLB, PhD, FSA, FRHistS Department of Library and Information Studies
@ R J Brierley, 1991 CONTENTS
Page No.
Acknowledgements iii
Abstract iv
List of Plates v
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
PART I REVIEW OF SECONDARY SOURCES
Chapter 2 A Selection of Monographs & Periodicals 6 on Vernacular Architecture
PART I I REVIEW OF PRIMARY SOURCES
Chapter 3 Open Air Museums of Vernacular Architecture 35
Chapter 4 Buildings in a_ Landscape 77
PART I II
Chapter 5 Conclusion 155
Bi bliography 159
ii Loughboi ol)::;h Ur;!ver!jlty ef To,=~:r.J.·~'~} t..lt.rnry
"::~Jc;;::;...;:~"·1C:1!.!<; ._ ---- ~--~- ~~~. D"t\.ool:) \\ ~ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to express my thanks to Professor Open Air Museum who were particularly helpful during my visit to this museum. I wish to thank the Hughes family of Pettaugh, Suffolk who showed me their farmhouse, and also Ken Bowen and Graham Anderson of Eardisland, Herefordshire for their information on timber-framing. Finally, I am grateful to or Charles Baker for his interest and encouragement and to Allied Breweries Limited for the use of their printing and photocopying facilities. iii ABSTRACT This dissertation attempts to reveal, through the examination of both primary and secondary sources, that English vernacular architecture of the period, 1600-1800, provides considerable evidence as to why many consider England to be the most topographically varied country in the world. Architectural styles of this period not only reflect changing social conditions, but also the wide use of natural materials available. Examples of these include the many varieties of stone and brick, as well as the varied uses of timber, all of which represent the complex geology that underlies the English landscape. Part One of the dissertation is a review of secondary sources, that is books and periodicals relating to the subject. It examines the contents of these in terms of both quality and usefulness for those wishing to research the subject for themselves. In Part TWo, the primary sources are examined, that is examples of vernacular architecture. This begin~ with a series of reviews on seven open-air museums where buildings have been re-erected or renovated 'in situ' in order to rescue them from demolition. In many cases expert advice and craftsmanship have ensured that the buildings have been reconstructed as closely as possible to the manner in which they were originally built. This is followed by a review of three regions of England which reflect the diversity of building styles and materials together with the social, agricultural, commercial and industrial development of England during the period. These are: South and South-East England; The Central Pennines and adjacent areas; and East Anglia. iv LIST OF PLATES Plate 1. "Pendean n farmhouse, Weald and Downland Museum. Plate 2. "Market Place", Weald and Dow;lland Museum. Plate 3. Titchfield Market Hall, Weald and Downland Museum. plate 4. Horsham slates, Weald and Downland Museum. Plate 5. "The String of Horses", Avoncroft Museum. Plate 6. Detail on "The String of Horses", Avoncroft Museum. Plate 7. Merchant's House, Avoncroft Museum. Plate 8. "Forge Cottage", Avoncroft Museum. Plate 9. Stangend cruck house, Ryedale Museum. Plate 10. Harome cruck house, Ryedale Museum. Plate 11. Northolt barn, Chiltern Museum. Plate 12. "Hill Farm" barn, Chiltern Museum. Plate 13. Haversham granary, Chiltern Museum. Plate 14. High Wycombe Toll House, Chiltern Museum. Plate 15. Workers' cottages, Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet. Plate 16. Tilt forge and workshops, Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet. Plate 17. Eighteenth century cottages, Black Country Museum. Plate 18. Timber-framed cottage, Blists Hill. Plate 19. Half-cruck timber roof, Acton Scott Working Farm Museum. Plate 20. Diamond-shaped vent-holes on post and truss barn, Acton Scott Working Farm Museum. Plate 21. Linear vent-holes on barn, Acton Scott Working Farm Museum. Plate 22. 'Catslide' roofs at Goudhurst, Kent. Plate 23. "Dragon House" at Smarden, Kent. Plate 24. Weatherboard and tile-hanging at Smarden, Kent. Plate 25. Farmhouse with typical Wealden roof at Smarden, Kent. plate 26. Wealden farmhouse and ragstone wall at Smarden, Kent. v Plate 27. Farmhouse of rags tone at Chilmington Green, Kent. Plate 28. "Old Palace" at Brenchley, Kent. Plate 29. "Rampyndene" at Burwash, East Sussex. Plate 30. Flint cottages at Glynde, East Sussex. Plate 31. Flint buildings at Lewes, East Sussex. Plate 32. Grey and red brickwork at Lewes, East Sussex. Plate 33. Sla te-hanging at Lewes, East Sussex. Plate 34. Half-timbering and plaster fronts at Lewes, East Sussex. Plate 35. Regency stucco and bow windows at Lewes, East Sussex. Plate 36. Bow windows among the shop fronts at Lewes, East Sussex. Plate 37. Black-glazed tiles at Lewes, East Sussex. Plate 38. Wealden house near Burpham, West Sussex. Plate 39. Wealden house with thatched roof and 'large framing' at Amberley, West Sussex. Plate 40. Cottage of sandstone at Amberley, west Sussex. Plate 41. Chalk lump, brick and 'small framing' at Amberley, West Sussex. Plate 42. Flint and chalk lump at Amberley, West Sussex. Plate 43. Thatch, flint and sandstone at Amberley, west Sussex. Plate 44. Georgian red brick at Winchester, Hants. Plate 45. Tha tch at Wherwell, Han ts. plate 46. Thatch and 'small framing' at Wherwell, Hants. Plate 47. Linear patterning in flint and stone at Hanging Langford, Wilts. Plate 48. Cheguerboard patterning in flint and stone at Steeple Langford ,Wil ts. Plate 49. Cottages of stone, brick and chalk lump at Hanging Langford, Wilts. Plate 50. Oolite limestone at Wylye, Wilts. Plate 51. Thatch and oolite at Codford St. Peter, Wilts. Plate 52. Nineteenth century shop fronts at Shaftesbury, Dorset. vi Plate 53. Eighteenth and nineteenth century shop fronts at Shaftesbury, Dorset. Plate 54. Cottages on Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, Dorset. Plate 55. Thatched cottages of flint, brick and cob at Winterbourne Stick land, Dor set. Plate 56. The eighteenth century estate village of Milton Abbas, Dorset. Plate 57. Cottages at Milton Abbas, Dorset. Plate 58. Grey and red brickwork at Newbury, Berks. Plate 59. Eighteenth century brickwork above modern shops at Newbury, Berks. Plate 60. 'Small framing' at East Hagbourne, Berks. Plate 61. Tile-hanging, 'small framing' and thatch at East Hagbourne, Berks. Plate 62. 'Herringbone' style of brick-nogging at East Hagbourne, Berks. Plate 63. The eighteenth century estate village of Nuneham Courtenay, Oxon. Plate 64. Half-timbered cottages with dormer windows at Little Missenden, Bucks. Plate 65. Brick cottages with dormer windows at Little Missenden, Buc ks. Plate 66. Georgian elegance at Amersham, Bucks. Plate 67. House built of York stone near Huddersfield, W. R. Yorks. Plate 68. Grouped multi-light windows on workers' cottages at Heptonstall, W. R. yorks. Plate 69. Workers' cottages at Heptonstall, W. R. Yorks. Plate 70. Embellishment on a gable end at Heptonstall, W. R. Yorks. Plate 71. Venetian windows at Heptonstall, W. R. Yorks. Plate 72. Tenements at Luddenden, W. R. Yorks. Plate 73. "Kershaw House" at Luddenden, W. R. Yorks. Plate 74. Pennine hill farm in the 'long house' style near Haworth, W. R. Yorks. Plate 75. Georgian farmhouse at Starbotton, Wharfedale, W. R. Yor ks. vii Plate 76. Arched window on a farmhouse at Keld, Swaledale, N. R. Yorks. Plate 77. Typical barn of the Yorkshire Dales. Plate 78. Close-up of a Dales barn. Plate 79. Barn door on a farmhouse at Askrigg, Wensleydale, N. R. Yorks. Plate 80. Courtyard showing flight of steps to hayloft at Starbotton, Wharfedale, W. R. Yorks. Plate 81. Lime-washed building at Starbotton, Wharfedale, W. R. Yorks. Plate 82. Roofs at Richmond, Swaledale, N. R. Yorks. Plate 83. Houses at Richmond, Swaledale, N. R. Yorks. Plate 84. Pantiled roofs and stone walls at Thornton-le-Dale, N. R. Yorks. Plate 85. Hill farm on the North York Moors. Plate 86. Limestone cottages at Langton, E. R. Yorks. Plate 87. Thatched cottages at Warter, E. R. Yorks. Plate 88. Georgian elegance at Howden, E. R. Yorks. Plate 89. Dutch gables at King's Lynn, Norfolk. Plate 90. Crow-stepped, Flemish gables at King's Lynn, Norfolk. plate 9l. "Clifton House" at King's Lynn, Norfolk. Plate 92. The Customs House at King's Lynn, Norfolk. plate 93. Cottages of carstone, flint and brick at Flitcham, Norfolk. Plate 94. The eighteenth century estate village of New Houghton, Norfolk. Plate 95. Georgian houses at Hingham, Norfolk. Plate 96. "Beacons field House", "Admiral's House" and "Quorn House" at Hingham Norfolk. Plate 97. Dutch gables at Hingham, Norfolk. Plate 98. Pantiles and peg tiles at Debenham, Suffolk Plate 99. Houses at Debenham, Suffolk. Plate 100. Colour wash at Debenham, Suffolk . . 'vi ii - Plate 101. Front view of a farmhouse at Pettaugh, Suffolk. Plate 102. Rear view of the same farmhouse at Pettaugh, Suffolk. Plate 103. Georgian red brick and green plaster-fronting at Bildeston, Suffolk. Plate 104. Colour washed plaster o~er timber-framing at Kersey, Suffolk . Plate 105. Colour washed plaster over timber-framing at Lavenham, su ffolk. Plate 106. Thatch and colour wash at Chelsworth, Suffolk. Plate 107. Thatch and colour wash at Chelsworth, Suffolk . Plate 108. Thatch and colour wash at Brent Eleigh, Suffolk . Plate 109. Merchant's houses at Lavenham, Suffolk. Plate 1l0. Brent Eleigh Hall , Suffolk. Plate 111. Incised pargeting at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk. Plate 112. Close-up of incised pargeting at Lavenham, Suffolk. Plate ll3. Raised pargeting at Clare, Suffolk; Plate 114. Tudor chimney on nThe Cliftons" at Clare, Suffolk. Plate 115. Elaborate chimneys and colour wash at Clare, Suffolk. Plate 116. Elaborate chimney on a farmhouse with pantiled roof at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk. Plate 117. Elaborate chimney on a gate-keeper's cottage at Glemsford, Suffolk. ix Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION One of the most fascinating characteristics of ~England lies in its diversity of domestic architecture which, prior to the Industrial Revolution, was so closely related to the landscape in which it was set that it both mirrored and complemented it. A keen traveller with reasonably sharp powers of observation who has a fair knowledge of England can often look at a photograph of an English cottage or village street and geographically place the architecture to the region of England in which it is located; and sometimes to the county or part thereof. This is particularly true of vernacular architecture constructed between the years 1600-1800, since many of the poorer and less solidly constructed buildings of an earlier period vanished, often without trace, over the centuries, due to migration as a result of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions; and a large number of the better quality buildings have undergone changes and 'improvements' to harmonise with the domestic styles of later periods. In the case of buildings of 1800 onwards, the rapid industrial development of England gave rise to the need first of all to import brick from one region to another, and later, in the twentieth century, to resort to the use of such materials as plastics, concrete, steel and other metals. Consequently, local and regional styles gradually disappeared and it is now almost impossible to locate geographically a modern house simply by examining a photograph, unless, of course it has been deliberately constructed with local materials in order to harmonise with the surrounding architecture; for example, as in the case of a modern estate of 1 houses built in a Cotswold village. The English landscape complete with cottages and farmhouses, vi llages and towns is one· of the most varied in the wor ld. In fact, because of England's tiny size in comparison to that of th~ vast majority of other countries, the wide variety of changes in landscape within a few miles have not only provided the reason as to why many consider it to be the most topographically varied country in the world, but also that this fact alone epitomises England in its uniqueness. Lycett Green (1) expands on this as follows: "If you travel from the fertile valleys of Somerset to the watery marshes of Lincolnshire, from a Sussex downland village like West Dean to a wild moorland one like Sparrowpit in Derbyshire, you will see greater variation of building styles and materials in shorter distances than anywhere else in the world, for England is one of the most geologically complicated countries known to man. At one moment in West Hanney in Berkshire you will find brick and half-timbered cottages, and the next moment, two miles away in the village of Lyford, you are amidst buff-coloured stone. Northumberland and Northamptonshire, Hampshire and Nottinghamshire are like separate countries - worlds apart - and this is not just because the lie of the land is different, but because the people, their needs and their local building materials were different, and their buildings evolved to suit all three. The soft white clunch cottages at Uffington clustering round one of the best churches in England are as different from the great granite blocks which make the cottages of Sennen in Cornwall as chalk is from cheese. In a cosy county like Kent where the land was always rich and the oak woods thick, cottages reflect the nature of the land and the people just as the strong, wild spirit of the North is reflected in the square-set, rugged and unadorned cottages of Cumberland." Furthermore, Grigson (2) provides a further illustration of the pOints made by Lycett Green in his comparison between a journey in New Mexico and one across England: "Outside Santa Fe in New Mexico I once insisted upon going for a walk. It was an ignorant, insulting, insular, English thing to do. Americans know better, and I was regarded from automobiles with an entirely proper surprise. I kept on with the walk. I went down from the highway into an eroded water cou rse. I admi red plants of Span ish Bayonet, or yucca, and 2 their relation to the shape and tones of the gulley; and then realised with a shock that for hundreds, hundreds of miles around, this gulley repeated itself, with little change of erosion, scale, tone, vegetation. It was scarcely a country for cars, let alone for walking. If variety is one of the essential hormones, then continents on the American scale must be travelled by air. By contrast, take a straight line across the width of England from Shelve in Shropshire to the East Anglian coast between Yarmouth and Lowestoft. The distance is 201 miles. You cross in the journey more than two dozen different geological formations from Carnbrian and Pre-Cambrian rocks in the west to pliocene clays in the east. The widest belts are 23 miles of clay and 28 miles of underlying chalk. In 201 miles the shapes, the vegetation (within a broad sameness), the landscape, the look of the buildings (so far as buildings and local stone or absence of stone are still connected) - all these change repeatedly; which is England." I have divided this dissertation into two parts. Part 1 is a review of selected monographs and periodicals on English vernacular architecture and the use of local building materials; and Part 2 is a study of primary sources, namely the buildings themselves, based on my own observations of open air museums, villages and occasionally towns in different parts of England which reflect the quality of local building materials, and isolated farmhouses and cottages set in their natural landscape. I have attempted to include contrasting regions, and contrasting styles of architecture within each region in order to provide as great a variety as possible. county Boundaries Throughout this dissertation I have decided to ignore the changes in county boundaries that took place in the 1960s and 1970s together with the subsequent creation of new metropolitan counties. The main reason for this is that the majority of books cited and reviewed have adopted this policy. A secondary reason is nostalgic in origin 3 but has its foundations in the fact that up until the 1960s the English shires had changed very little since they were first created. I have, however, referred to the new counties where it has been appropriate to do so, and mainly to save confusion. In particularly complex cases the nearest town has been included. REFERENCES 1. EVANS, Tony, & Candida LYCETT GREEN. Eng lish Cot tages. 1983, p. 23. 2. SMITH, Edwin, & Geoffrey GRIGSON. England. 1957, p. 10. 4 PART I REVIEW OF SECONDARY SOURCES 5 Chapter 2 A SELECTION OF MONOGRAPHS & PERIODICALS ON VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE English Cottages. (1983. pbk ed. First published in 1982.) English Cottages by Tony Evans and Candida Lycett-Green is an excellent introduction to vernacular architecture designed to attract anyone who is remotely interested in the subject. Approximately three quarters of the work consists of remarkably clear colour photographs of cottages in various parts of England depicting the use of local building materials. Each photograph bears a succinct and yet detailed footnote stating the history and origins of the building depicted. The photographs are by Tony Evans and the text and captions are by Candida Lycett-Green. The author's note states that the book is by no means comprehensive but is an attempt to show that English cottages are the most varied and beautiful in the world. The period covered is approximately 1360- 1906. As with most books on the subject, new county boundaries are ignored. The Introduction by John Betjeman briefly outlines the history of the cottage from its humble medieval origins, when it merely provided a shelter together with very bare necessities for simple peasant folk, through to the nineteenth and twentieth century idealised views that cottages epitomise the delights and romance of rural life in the beauty of the landscape as demonstrated by estate villages begun in the 1700s, the cottage orne~ of the mid 1700s and early 1800s, and the garden cities of the early to mid 1900s. Lycett-Green provided the other chapters and begins with an 6 account on local styles and materials, the first paragraph of which is quoted in my Introduction. This chapter summarises how and why regions in England developed their own style of building together with its peculiarities using local materials until well into the eighteenth century. The chapter on model villages and estate cottages outlines the practice begun in the eighteenth century of the creation of estate villages by landowners for their labourers. It explains that those villages built prior to the early 1800s were laid out formally in straight lines but nevertheless adhered to regional styles of building using local materials. The chapter entitled ·Picturesque" describes the origins of the / cottage orne which started to appear in the eighteenth century at the same time as the model village. These were created entirely from the landowner's self-indulgent enthusiasm for the quaint country cottage epitomising everything that was picturesque. It was purely an aesthetic idea and bore no relation to the cottager's lifestyle but was interwoven with the Romantic period in art inspired by the works of French and English artists and poets who expounded the beauty of gothic ruins, trees in a landscape and the idyllic rural scene. Cottages with elaborate designs combining gothic style frontages, crooked porches made entirely of tree trunks, deliberately shaggy thatched roofs and barley sugar Tudor style chimneys started to appear in the corners of country estates as follies or as dwellings for the keepers and gardeners. This style of building continued into the nineteenth century when the vogue for gazing on picturesque cottages inhabited by the poorer classes was replaced by the desire of the middle and upper classes to own such a cottage as a second or third home. However, it had 7 virtually disappeared by the middle of the nineteenth century when the fashion for foreign travel completely overtook the desire for a country cottage, and wealthy people started to spend most of their leisure time overseas. Finally, the chapter entitled "Arts and Crafts" completes this succinct and clearly written overview of the English cottage by briefly describing the final revival of cottage architecture in the late nineteenth and eary twentieth centuries and how architects such as Lutyens and Clough William-Ellis revived earlier styles of domestic architecture whilst adding their own particular touch of vernacular originality before ribbon development and the mass production of housing necessitated by the technological age precipitated the end of vernacular building. Each chapter is followed by Evans' beautiful photographs of the types of buildings discussed, clearly conveying the regional styles and materials and how they blend in with the landscape. One criticism I would make is that all the photographs are of excellently preserved cottages that would feature very well on a calendar or a chocolate box. The problem with this is that the original structures may not be adequately displayed as in the case of a semi-dilapidated building where original building materials are exposed. Despite this fact, however, English Cottages is an excellent beginner's guide to English vernacular architecture in relation to its geographical setting. English Cottages and Farmhouses. (1982. ) English Cottages and Farmhouses by Olive Cook explores the concept of vernacular architecture in much more detail than Evans and 8 Lycett-Green's English Cottages. Yet in many ways it is a less satisfying source than English Cottages, for, despite Olive Cook's perceptive account of the historical background of the English farmhouse, its attendant farm buildings, and the tenant's cottage charted through six chapters in logical sequence, the organisation and structure within those chapters is somewhat haphazard. This, coupled with Olive Cook's fine attention to detail makes the book difficult to read. Both interiors and exteriors are discussed together with farming methods and rural social history, but olive Cook attempts to cover them all in, for example, one account of three farms in different parts of the country. Consequently, it is difficult to isolate regional architectural styles and the use of local building materials without having to re-read some of the pages; and the need to identify some of the buildings described by referring to Edwin Smith's excellent photographs for clarification becomes not only desirable but essential. Olive Cook uses some noteworthy sources for her work, for example, Alec Clifton-Taylor's The Pattern of English Building, M.W. Barley's The English Farmhouse and Cottage, and R.W.Brunskill's Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture, all of which are reviewed later in this chapter. She also uses Chaucerian quotes and extracts from written works of the period being reviewed, for example, The Boke of Husbandry by John Fitzherbert, a sixteenth century horsebreeder (1), and, although these are interesting, they are often intricately and sometimes unexpectedly woven into the text thus spoiling the flow and logical progression. However, despite these criticisms, the work does contain several points of merit. Chapter 3 entitled "A Vernacular Art at its Zenith: the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" contains some 9 interesting observations on architectural details and developments during that period in relation to farmhouses in different parts of England. Chapter 4 entitled "A New Order" explores these observations further by· describing how the Georgian style of building created a fashion among wealthy farmers to convert existing farmhouses to conform with that style; and Chapter 5, "Rustic Homes for Rural Labourers", follows these ideas into the development of the model village and the 'picturesque' style of building thereby charting the break with tradition that eventually culminated in the end of the vernacular style of building. Finally, Edwin Smith's photographs, whilst not as aesthetically beautiful as those of Tony Evans in English Cottages, display closer attention to detail in the building materials used, and contain a mixture of farmhouses and cottages in good condition and those which are dilapidated, the latter often displaying the original structure to good effect. It is evident from reading only a few pages of the work that Olive Cook has a consuming interest in the history and development of farming methods, and to be fair, it is this aspect of rural life which influences the way in which she approaches the subject of English vernacular architecture. Unlike Evans and Lycett-Green, Cook does not use the English cottage as the sole source of English vernacular architecture but concentrates on the farmhouse together with its attendant buildings and then includes the cottage as a further source. This is probably because she has noted correctly that until the middle of the seventeenth century the cottage as a dwelling for peasants or tenants was a very crude affair, poorly constructed of earth, wood and straw and of which there are few remaining today except in a highly altered state. Following from this, Cook has also ascertained perceptively by close attention to 10 detail and design that surviving 'cottages' from this and earlier periods are often seen in pafrs and are really redundant farmhouses split into two halves. Moreover, this is particularly noticeable in village streets where many of the houses are of a period later than 1650 and any farmland would have been built over and the outbuildings destroyed. In consequence, according to Cook, the flowering of the humble cottage as vernacular architecture did not take place until the eighteenth century and there is much evidence in her English Cottages and Farmhouses to support this not least of which are Edwin smith's photographs. As a final comment on Olive Cook's English Farmhouses and Cottages it is fair to state that it does contain some very useful and worthwhile information for any student researching English vernacular architecture in the period 1600-1800. However, he or she will need to read the work very carefully in .order to extract the relevant details and could well find the structure haphazard and Olive Cook's attention to farming methods somewhat intense. The Pattern of English Building. (1987. 4th ed. First published in 1962.) The Pattern of English Building by Alec Clifton-Taylor is probably the most useful secondary source for a student researching English vernacular architecture in close relationship with the local building materials available. From the first chapter of this work, it becomes obvious that vernacular architecture plays such an important part in the creation of the immense variety in the English countryside, that the basically low-lying landscape which constitutes much of the Central, Southern and Eastern parts of the country would be almost devoid of interest without it. Unlike any of the other secondary sources reviewed, Clifton- 11 Taylor concentrates almost entirely on building materials as a basis for his study of vernacular building. This is an excellent tactic to employ since Olive Cook's otherwise unstructured discourse on building styles naturally developed an ordered pattern when in Chapter 3 she divided one of her sections into headings denoting local building materials. By its very nature, therefore a discussion on limestone buildings means that the research material is limited to certain areas of England where the stone is quarried and the geological belts across the country assist the researcher in forming his or her own structure. There is, after all, a pattern to English building as any geological map of the country will demonstrate and Alec Clifton-Taylor has put this to good use in combination with both the local and national history of the time together with geographical and forestry features. The Introduction immediately sets the tone of the work by its discussion of building materials to be found throughout England and how architecture constructed of these materials blends into the landscape. Clifton-Taylor also refers to a highly detailed geological map of the country which follows the Introduction and which indicates, as far as possible, all geological formations that contribute to the creation of effective building materials Whilst leaving aside boulder clays and other superficial deposits. He wisely suggests that the reader spends a few minutes perusing the map prior to studying the chapters since this will act as a guide to the location of each building material as it is discussed. In order to illustrate Clifton-Taylor's style with particular reference to his emphasis on the geology of England as a starting point to a book on vernacular architecture, I have quoted the first three paragraphs from his Introduction Which serve as a paraphrase 12 of the whole work. In the chapters which follow, he merely expands on this by providing a detailed discussion of each building material in turn; and the simplicity of this structure contributes to the excellence of the work which, although 400 pages in length, is clearly-worded and easy to read: "About an hour after leaving London, red brick gives place to stone, grey, yellow or golden brown. Whether we have set out from Paddington or Euston, from King's Cross or St. Pancras, whether we have followed the Great North Road, the Bath Road or Watling Street, we do not have to be very observant to notice the change. Sometimes it takes place quite suddenly; at others there is a moment of transition, as at Wheatley in Oxfordshire, where old buildings of grey stone are roofed with mellow red tiles, proclaiming the proximity of both stone and clay. But presently, in all these directions, the change occurs. The reason, of course, is that we have reached the limestone belt, that long and relatively narrow band which sweeps across England in an ogee curve from Portland Bill to the Humber and terminates in the Cleveland Hills of Yorkshire. On this belt lie the majority of our most famous stone quarries - Portland, Doulting and Bath, Painswick and Taynton, Weldon and Ketton, Barnack, Clipsham and Ancaster, Stonesfield and Collyweston, to mention only ,some of them. Their names are music to layers of stone; to those who care for English architecture in all its various phases the legacies of these quarries are subjects for continual thankfulness. Yet the limestone belt produces only One group of our native building materials. There is, it is true, a dearth of true marble in England; but to the north and west of the oolitic limestone the older geological formations yield plenty of stone of many qualities and colours, from the red, grey, brown and yellow sandstones of the West Midlands, some so tantalizingly friable, to the tough gritstones and carboniferous limestones of the North and the hard granites and slates of the Lake District and parts of Devon and Cornwall. We have every reason to be grateful for the complexity of our geological map; for it is because the changes in the character of the rocks are so numerous, more so indeed than in any other country in Europe of comparable size, that our landscape and our buildings, although not usually spectacular, offer so much variety within so small an area." (2) Each of the fifteen chapters which follow is devoted to a building material charting its geographical locations; geological origins; properties of the material, including problems for building 13 purposes; the history of its use in architecture; regional peculiarities in building styles; methods of construction, protection and renovation; and relevant examples of vernacular buildings. The ma.terials explored are stone,in general; limestone, including chalk and Kentish rags tone ; sandstone; granite; slate; marble; flint; brick; tiles; the unbaked earths; wood, including timber-framing, shingles and weatherboarding; thatch; plaster and other surface materials, including pargeting, roughcast and pebble dash, stucco, whitewash and colourwash; the metals; and glass. Clifton-Taylor makes good use of reference material to support his facts and these are provided as footnotes at the base of the appropriate page. He also makes use of a series of black and white photographs to illustrate some of his examples. These come from various sources but the majority were provided by Edwin Smith who supplied the illustrations for Olive Cook's English Farmhouses and Cottages, although these are, by and large, a different set of photographs. Generally, these illustrations are effective enough without being particularly glamorous; however, some are of a rather grainy nature and do not always effectively display what Clifton Taylor is attempting to illustrate due to their indistinct quality and lack of colour, which is a handicap bearing in mind Clifton Taylor's detailed exploration into the colours, textures and decorative artwork of the building materials concerned. However, as a further tribute to the organisation and structure of his work, Clifton-Taylor greatly assists the research student by providing a glossary of building terms, a bibliography listing general books on vernacular architecture followed by those which relate to the building materials described in the chapters, an appendix to supplement the footnotes for reference purposes, and a l4 place index listing examples discussed under the appropriate English counties (pre-1974). In The Pattern of English Building, Clifton-Taylor has something to say about every.building material.in England, whether or not it covers a major part of a county or region, or merely a small area of a few square miles. Furthermore, as part of .the general index, he refers to each English county in block capitals, listing the building materials found in each and referring to page numbers in his work. This is an invaluable referencing method which facilitates research into a complex subject that has often been handled superficially in many works on English vernacular architecture. The English Farmhouse and Cottage. (1987. pbk ed. First published in 1961.) The English Farmhouse and Cottage by M.W. Barley is a detailed account of the origins and development of vernacular architecture in relation to the smaller farmhouse and cottage. It explores a very similar field to that researched by Olive Cook in her English Farmhouses and Cottages but in considerably more depth and detail On the architectural.front. Like Cook, however, Barley relates architectural developments to the social history of the time, but unlike her, prefers not to concentrate on the details of farming methods and animal husbandry, showing instead how the development of the English farmhouse was strongly influenced by a combination of practical necessity, the desire to be fashionable and therefore socially acceptable, and the increasing search for comfort and, if it could be afforded, luxury. Because of the amount of architectural detail into which Barley ventures when describing the origins, development and regional 15 variations in relation to farmhouses and cottages, the book is not one which can be read with ease, chapter by chapter. However, it provides excellent reference material and, unlike Olive Cook's English Farmhouses and Cottages, is well-structured for this purpose. Combining the two aspects of social history and architectural development, Barley divides the work into five parts, each containing a group of chapters. The first part entitled "The Legacy of the Middle Ages" contains three chapters amalgamating the social history of the time with the development of the medieval house. The subseguent four parts then chart the periods of housing development under the titles: "First Phase of the Housing Revolution (1575-1615)": "Second Phase of the Housing Revolution (1615-1642)"; "The Vernacular Tradition Under Attack (1642-90)"; and 'The Death of the Vernacular Tradition". Each of these parts contains chapters which concentrate on regional developments relating to building styles, developments and peculiarities. One particular criticism I have on these chapters is that there is none of the detail relating to local building materials as there is in Clifton-Taylor's The Pattern of English Building and the information that does exist on the subject is not always easy to find. Nevertheless, Barley provides very detailed accounts on both the exteriors and the interiors of the houses and supplies detailed, if somewhat antiquated, black and white photographs that adequately illustrate the varied regional building styles. This is an excellent book for the architectural enthusiast who is interested in regional styles of vernacular building since it attempts to chart the development of every aspect of the farmhouse and cottage. Moreover, it is very useful to the student researching vernacular architecture from the period, 1600-1800, since its overall structure 16 pays careful attention to dates and its chapters are organised to cover regional variations and peculiarities. This work, together with Clifton-Taylor's The Pattern of English Building form essential reading material for any research of this. nature. Three works by R. W. Brunskill Traditional Buildings of Britain. (1981. ) Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture. (1970.) Brick Building in Britain. (1990. ) Dr R.W. Brunskill, Hon. Fellow and formerly Reader in Architecture in the University of Manchester, trained and practised as an architect, and drew on his many years of experience in the study of vernacular architecture and the historic use of building materials to produce a number of useful books on the subject. Many of these are designed to foster the educational development of the layman who has considerable interest in vernacular building but little or no architectural knowledge on the subject. Three of his books are reviewed here. They illustrate his range of teaching, from the introductory level to the specialist study. Traditional Buildings of Britain. (1981.) Subtitled, An Introduction to Vernacular Architecture, this book is a comprehensive gUide to the basic patterns of vernacular architecture in Britain, both general and regional. It is designed for the layman who is exploring the field for the first time and architectural terms are explained in detail and illustrated, either with Dr Brunskill's accurate diagrams, or with black and white photographs of buildings or architectural details on a building. 17 The Introduction contains an illustrated glossary of terms relating to buildings of stone, timber, and brick; barns; and a good example of a Georgian house at Macclesfield, Cheshire. Chapter 1 attempts to define what vernacular architecture is, a difficult enough task in itself, and Brunskill comes to the conclusion that the term has been adopted to define a type of building which has been deliberately constructed to stand permanently rather than temporarily, has been inspired architecturally by tradition rather than by academic influence, is practically suited to the needs and activities of ordinary ·folk and their daily work, utilises local building materials and is well adapted to the surrounding area, but which demonstrates aesthetic quality in its design rather than crude practicality. Chapter 2 explores the types of vernacular buildings which eXist, and Brunskill examines the concepts of houses and cottages, farm buildings, rural industrial buildings, and buildings designed for a social purpose. Chapter 3 explains where the different vernacular buildings are likely to be found, and Chapter 4 uses Brunskill's diagrams to illustrate some typical examples of vernacular buildings, together with plans and sections. Building materials are briefly described in Chapter 5 under common walling and roofing methods and materials, whilst Chapter 6 explores the basic concepts of architectural decoration, mainly in terms of doors and windows. Chapter 7 offers a general explanation as to how buildings develop and provides some clues as to how one can arrive at a date. The penultimate Chapter 8 charts the common regional variations in a very pictorial fashion, dividing Britain into eighteen regions and offering a photograph of a typical building of each region together with Brunskill's diagrams of other styles of building 18 commonly seen within the region. This is a most useful chapter for the layman researching regional styles of vernacular architecture since it is easy to understand at a glance. The final chapter offers ideas as to how the student can explore t~e s6bj~ct further. Brunskill's question and answer technique of imparting information may seem elementary, and perhaps a little patronising to some since it is rather like the technique used by teachers for instructing children on a field study course or visit to a museum. However, this simple approach allows an introduction to a highly complex subject to be easily assimilated and the book is, therefore, an excellent introduction for a serious researcher into vernacular architecture. Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture. (1970. ) Like Traditional Buildings of Britain, the Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture was prepared in order to assist those who have little previous knowledge on the subject of vernacular architecture. However, unlike the other work, the book does assume some architectural knowledge since it covers similar material but in greater depth, using more complex diagrams and photographs displaying details of building structures. Published approximately ten years earlier than Traditional Buildings of Britain, Brunskill intended it also to be used as a handbook for use in the field as a complement to the several excellent accounts of vernacular architecture, based regionally or nationally, which were available at the time of publication. The book is, therefore, designed in pairs of facing pages, one with a photograph and accompanying text on a particular aspect of vernacular architecture, for example, 19 timber walling with brick nogging; and the other with diagrams together with explanations of what may be seen on buildings regarding this particular aspect. After the Introduction which explores the various types of vernacular architecture, the first four chapters refer mainly to rural, domestic architecture exploring walling construction and materials, roofing shapes, construction and materials, plans and sections of buildings, and architectural details. Chapter 5 is on farm buildings, Chapter 6 is on urban vernacular and minor industrial buildings, and Chapter 7 pictorially maps out a distribution of building materials throughout England and Wales, discusses comparisons between English vernacular architecture and the Colonial style of North America, and concludes with the Vernacular Revival of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two appendices, one on how to study vernacular architecture, and the other containing glossary notes, conclude the work. Brick Building in Britain. (1990. ) Although this work is of a specialist nature, like the other works of Brunskill reviewed in this chapter, it is very easy to read. The study of brickwork in all its complexities is by no means an easy task and yet Brunskill's well formulated structure, ample photographs and informative diagrams clearly reveal that he is just as good at writing about specialist topics as he is on those of a more general and/or elementary nature. The book is divided into three parts. The first part outlines the making and use of bricks, tiles and terra cotta from medieval times until the present day and both text and illustrations chart the slow transformation of a skilled rural craft into a 20 predominantly mechanised industry. The second part is an illustrated glossary of terms relating to bricks, brickwork and brickmaking. The illustrations are particularly informative in the field of bonding ·which is a term used to describe_ the laying of bricks for the purposes of both strength and aesthetic quality. The third part is a chronological survey of brick buildings throughout the centuries incorporating medieval, Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Stuart, Queen Anne, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian and Modern. The appendices cover the brick tax, cavity walling and damp proof courses, and there is a note On brickwork in Scotland. The black and white photographs are remarkably clear, and this applies to photographs of complete buildings as well as those showing details of brickwork. There are also some colour plates, a group of which reveal some of the varied colours available in brickwork. Or Brunskill has produced many other books on vernacular architecture, all of which are extremely good reference sources which are comprehensive in their handling of a particular aspect of the subject as well as being both easy to read and to find information. Other titles include Timber Building in Britain (1985); Traditional Farm Buildings of Britain (1982); and Vernacular Architecture of the Lake Counties (1974). The Buildings of England. (1951-1974 approx. Series editor: N. pevsner.) The Buildings of England is a series of volumes which aims to describe, in detail, the architectural features of all ecclesiastical, secular, public, domestic, agricultural and industrial buildings and monuments of interest in each town and village in England. Each volume is devoted to a county (pre-1965), or part of one and also contains a selection of black and white 21 photographs of some of the most important items of architectural interest within the county concerned, as well as a glossary of architectural terms used in the text. Nikolaus Pevsner originated the series, and is the author of most of the volumes, the first of which were published in 1951. Many have since been comprehensively revised, often by other architectural historians and topographers. Even where Pevsner is not the author, he is the editor, thereby retaining overall supervision as to the consistency in both style and content of each volume. Furthermore, many of the volumes contain articles in the Introduction on building materials, geology, prehistory and other aspects relating to topographical features of a county, written by eminent reseachers in the field. Articles on building materials are, as often as not, written by Alec Clifton-Taylor. The Buildings of England is an essential source for anyone researching vernacular architecture of any period, since the amount of detailed research undertaken to produce information of this kind in every major settlement in England is phenominal and acts as a check list for accuracies when undertaking one's own personal research. Moreover, the fact that many of the revisions took place in the 1970s ensure that the material is relatively up-to-date, and therefore fairly reliable. As with many county guides, the towns and villages are arranged in alphabetical order, and, not surprisingly, much of the text under each place is devoted to the parish church since this is often considered to be the most important architectural monument of any English settlement. This is often followed by detailed descriptions of other vernacular buildings if they are considered worthy of mention, either by being good examples of their type with a few 22 well-preserved architectural features, or by having a unique quality. In cases where a town or village is of particular architectural merit, a perambulation of the streets and lanes is provided, listing and describing noteworthy buildings .. The style of writing is very factual and no florid or literary descriptions of places are provided as in some series of books on England in which the country is also surveyed county by county. The books are, therefore, not designed to be read from cover to cover, but to be used as reference material, except, perhaps, in the Introductions where the topographical articles are provided. Any review of noteworthy buildings throughout England is, by its very nature, composed of·a specially selected list of items personally chosen by the author. A student doing research of this kind will, therefore, inevitably find gaps when comparing his or her own research with the material in these volumes since it is impossible to review every building in England. Furthermore, opinions will differ, marginally, as to which building is worthy of review. This is possibly the only drawback to an excellent series which was originated and compiled by one of the most celebrated architectural historians in Britain. Publications by The Royal Commission On The Historical. Monuments of England (RCHME) The RCHME, which was established by Royal warrant in 1908, currently has two major functions which are, the creation and curation of a national archive of England's archaeological and architectural heritage; and the recording and evaluation of historic buildings and sites (3). In addition to this, the RCHME has acquired various other 23 duties over a number of years. These include the recording of listed buildings threatened with alteration or demolition; recording the historic fabric of London through the work of the Survey of London; providing archaeological information for publication on Ordnance Survey maps; funding and co-ordinating a national programme of aerial photography; and making available to the public through access to the records themselves and through publication, the corpus of information housed in the National Monuments Record (NMR) (4). Over the years, the RCHME has produced a large number of publications On vernacular architecture. These have included inventories and fascicules on counties as well as various works on particular buildings or monuments, vernacular architecture of a particular region, and perambulations of a particular city or town. Due to the size of the Commission, together with its wide range of duties and variety of research interests, the research work conducted for publication purposes, not surprisingly, suffers from personal selectivity to a much lesser extent than that prepared for The Buildings of England, reviewed earlier. However, there are large areas of the country which have, as yet, prompted little or no research for a publication for the RCHME. For example, only twenty three out of forty-two pre-1965 counties are reviewed in an inventory and/or a fascicule. Furthermore, some of these are incomplete, for example, the inventories on Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and Lincolnshire respectively only provide information on the cities of York and Oxford, and the town of Stamford; whereas others provide a complete coverage of a county in, for example, four volumes for Essex·and five for Dorset. A further problem concerns the dates of these publications, particularly the inventories which can range from as early as 1912 to as recent as 1985. Fortunately, all of the 24 fascicules were produced in 1986. However, since the work of the RCHME is on-going, many of the gaps in research are being remedied, for example, the present situation regarding the South-Eastern counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex is that there is very little published information on vernacular architecture in the whole of this region. However, research work for publication is presently being carried out on Kentish farmhouses, commencing with a review on a.Wealden house at West Peckham, and it is hoped that a RCHME publication in this field will be available in the not too distant future. I have decided to review, very briefly, a small selection of publications which attempt to reflect the range of work covered by the RCHME. Despite the many gaps in areas of research into vernacular architecture, it must be said that where research has been conducted for the purpose of publication, it is of a very thorough nature and if relating to a field of interest, should be consulted. The works chosen are as 'follows: An Inventory on the County of Dorset, 1970-75; The Town of Stamford: an Inventory of Historical Monuments, 1977; English Vernacular Houses: a Study of Traditional Farmhouses and Cottages, by Eric Mercer, 1975; Rural Houses of West Yorkshire, 1400-1830, by Colum Giles, 1986; Workers' Housing ln West Yorkshire, 1750-1920, by Lucy Caffyn, 1986; Beverley: An Archaeological and Architectural Study, by Keith Miller, John Robinson, Barbara English and Ivan Hall, 1982. 25 The Inventory on the County of Dorset is published in five volumes which date from the 1970s. These divide the county into west, south-east, central, north, and east; and contain very detailed and compreh~nsive accountsof the architectural features, building by building throughout each parish, together with any ancient and historical monuments eXisting within the parish. Full perambulations of each settlement are given together with historical details, where known; and the sectional preface to each volume contains accounts on the topography and geology of the region covered, together with general accounts on monuments and buildings commonly seen there. Detailed maps and plans are provided where necessary, together with a number of clear, black and white photographs. This inventory is essential for anyone researching architecture in Dorset and advances this kind of work several steps further than the Dorset volume of The Buildings of England. In much the same way, The Town of Stamford, published in 1977, is a highly detailed account of one of the most architecturally fascinating small towns in England. Built with the pearl grey limestone of the district and standing near a Roman site, the town prospered from the Middle Ages to the middle of the nineteenth century on the wool trade and contains a large number of good quality buildings ranging from medieval to Georgian, Regency and early Victorian as well as a number of interesting churches, the spires and towers of which rise above the tow~ creating an impression which is reminiscent of Oxford. This publication provides very detailed perambulations of every street, lane and square in Stamford together with a sectional preface which relates the topographical history and architectural development of the town. As with the Inventory On the County of Dorset, maps, diagrams and 26 black and white photographs are provided. Eric Mercer's English Vernacular Houses, published in 1975, reflects another aspect of the work of the RCHME since it is a product of the Commission's acceptance of responsibility.in 1955 for recording buildings of architectural and historic interest that were threatened with destruction. Like Maurice Barley's The English Farmhouse and Cottage, and Olive Cook's English Cottages and Farmhouses, the book attempts to relate changes in both the nature and architectural style of cottages and farmhouses to changing social relationships and developments in the countryside, whilst emphasising the effect that one has on the other. The book also provides detailed information on building materials coupled with methods of construction and is a successful blend of the information provided by Cook, Barley, Brunskill and Clifton-Taylor in the works previously reviewed. Moreover, Barley is on the list of commissioners which ·has been provided after the table of contents and Brunskill is listed in the acknowledgements. Once again, detailed, black and white photographs have been provided, many of which reveal the dilapidated condition of some of the buildings, whilst, at the same time, displaying the manner of construction. The final part of the book is a very detailed descriptive list or inventory of selected recorded monuments arranged in alphabetical order of village or town within county. In this part of the book may be found descriptions of a farmhouse at Chiddingstone in Kent, and one at West Lavington near Midhurst in Sussex, both of which are noW re-sited at the Weald and Downland Museum and are reviewed in Chapter 3 of this dissertation, entitled "Open Air Museums of Vernacular Architecture". Mercer's book also provides a photograph of these two buildings prior to their being re-sited. 27 Rural Houses of West Yorkshire, 1400-1830, by Colum Giles; and Workers' Housing in West Yorkshire, 1750-1920, by Lucy Caffyn, belong to a supplementary series of publications by the RCHME which was released in the 1980s. In terms of regional research.and content, they may be considered as volumes which complement one another; and a third volume entitled, Rural Houses in the Lancashire Pennines, 1560-1760, completes the review of houses of a similar type within the Central Pennines region. Both the volumes relating to houses 'in West Yorkshire have a similar style of writing which is easy to read and there are ample photographs in each. However, the structures of the two volumes differ considerably. Rural Houses of West Yorkshire, 1400-1830 adopts a similar structure to that of Mercer's English Vernacular Houses relating the detailed architectural development of the vernacular style of rural houses in this region to its social history. It reviews not only the exteriors but also the interiors of the houses together with the development of rooms within the houses, accompanied by plans and architectural drawings. Ample black and white photographs are also provided, and, once again, the last part of the volume is a detailed inventory of selected recorded buildings in alphabetical order of village or town within West Yorkshire. Workers' Housing in West Yorkshire, 1750-1920, is, by its very nature, a more straightforward and practical survey, again charting the historical development of this type of architecture alongside the social history of the region, providing plans where necessary but largely avoiding the architectural detail which is provided in the volume on rural houses. The final chapter is on local authority involvement and the origins of council housing, and the short inventory merely lists selected buildings, providing no architectural details. Both 28 volumes provide essential information to the student researching vernacular architecture in West Yorkshire, which, due to its somewhat specific nature, may be difficult to research thoroughly from other books or records. Finally, Beverley: An Archaeological and Architectural Study, which has been produced by four researchers, also belongs to the recent supplementary series published for the RCHME. Unlike the volume on Stamford, it does not provide the same detailed architectural survey on Beverley and tends to concentrate on the historical development of the town and its major monuments. It confines its survey on vernacular architecture, in the main, to the local building materials used to construct the town. A few photographs, plans, and maps are provided, but the volume is not as well-illustrated as the other RCHME publications reviewed. Nevertheless, it has an easy style of writing and provides some useful information on a town which tends to be somewhat neglected in architectural reviews, possibly because it lies away from tourist routes, whilst, at the same time, being overshadowed by the more celebrated cathedral or minster city of York. The wide variety of material provided by the RCHME indicates the wealth of research material that is available on English vernacular architecture. Despite the many gaps, a person researching vernacular architecture of any period or region would be advised to contact the RCHME in order to find out if any publications are available in the required field for, if there are, they are almost certainly bound to contain the results of the most detailed research available. 29 - The Victoria History of the Counties of England. (early 1900s onwards. ) The Victoria History of the Counties of England attempts to provide a listing of every English county except Northumberland. The series takes its title from Queen Victoria who accepted the dedication of the history. The first volumes on each county provide an account of its geology, palaeontology, botany, and various aspects of entymology and fauna before moving to sport, trade, agriculture, ecclesiastical history, religious and secular architecture, together with a translation of the relevant parts of Domesday Book. The later volumes then give an account, following a long-established pattern, of each parish within the county. Some attention is given to vernacular building, but the scope and detail vary considerably. By its very nature, the work would be of some use to a student researching vernacular architecture in that it provides a great deal of background information. The older volumes were reprinted in the 1970s for the University of London Institute of Historical Research, but were not revised. The photographs can be difficult to date but are often of surprisingly clear quality. However a detailed knowledge of some of the buildings represented tends to suggest that the photographs could well date from the time of publication, and are therefore of pre-World War 11 vintage oWing to the number of architectural changes that have since taken place. These volumes, form a good basis for general historical research and are of invaluable use to anyone researching local history, although, in the field of vernacular architecture, their value is rather limited. 30 Periodicals Whilst there are a number of periodicals that promote the noW fashionable subject of conservation, there are very few that are dedicated solely to vernacular architecture. In fact, the best of these, simply entitled Vernacular Architecture, is published annually by The Vernacular Architecture Group and consists of a number of articles by researchers into various aspects of the field, together with replies to articles from previous editions, or volumes, as they are entitled. It also contains results of tree ring dating exercises and reviews on the latest books. Several of the articles would be of interest to a student researching an aspect of vernacular architecture. Recent articles include one on timber-framed buildings by Richard Harris, an authority on the subject who has worked on research ,and reconstruction projects at Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, and is currently Research Director of the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. Both museums are reviewed in my Chapter 3. Volume 21, 1990, contains an article on jetties (5), in which Harris describes and illustrates various forms of jetty construction found in England and Wales. Other useful articles in this volume include Sylvia Calman's "Basic Cruck Usages in Suffolk" and C.R.J. Currie's "Archaic Roofs in Hereford and Worcester", In the section on book reviews, the latest works of Brunskill, Barley and Mercer frequently appear .among other works of both well known, and lesser-known authors in the field. These are sensitively reviewed, sometimes by each other. All in all, this is an extremely useful publication, which, although not well-illustrated, provides useful information for anyone researching vernacular architecture, and is particularly helpful to a student researching a 31 particular subject in depth. Moreover, reviews on the latest books are always of use, and the published results of the tree-ring exercises provide an indication as to what research work is being carried out, particularly by the RCHME. Other periodicals are useful but not to the same degree. Heritage Outlook, the journal of the Civic Trust, which is an organisation created for the protection and improvement of the built environment, sometimes has some interesting articles on vernacular architecture and is worth perusing. It is published every two months. However, due to its practical nature, its main interests are the environment where people live and work rather than the world of landscape, vernacular building styles and showpiece buildings or monuments. Even so, some of the information relating to the improvement and protection of townscapes could be of use to the researcher. Also of some use is the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, an American publication which is issued quarterly. This periodical reviews world architecture of all ages and tends to concentrate on large structures such as cathedrals and public buildings, rather than small vernacular buildings. However, the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain publishes a quarterly journal which contains articles and a quarterly newsletter containing book reviews. English Heritage and The National Trust, organisations which do much to make the vernacular environment available to the public, also pro"duce annual reports and quarterly magazines which are worth a quick glance, although these, in the main, tend to be of a glossy nature and provide poetic and descriptive reviews of buildings, gardens and landscapes within their care, and usually 32 produce their most interesting articles on the architecture of their new acquisitions. Cone lusion This completes the review of my selection of secondary sources on English vernacular architecture and the use of local building materials. It is by no means comprehensive but attempts to provide a survey of what is available in the field, with a particular emphasis on essential material produced by researchers who are authorities on the subject. In Part Two, I have provided the results of my own research on primary sources, Chapter 3 being devoted to buildings re-erected at open air museums, and Chapter 4 reviewing vernacular buildings and building styles in three broad regions in England, chosen specifically in order to indicate the variety of architectural styles and building materials available in such a small country. REFERENCES 1. COOK, Olive, & Edwin SMITH. English Cottages and Farmhouses. 1982, p. 57. 2. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, Alec. The Pattern of English Building. 4th ed. 1987, p. 21. 3. ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF ENGLAND. Annual Report, 1989-90. 1990, inside cover. 4. Ibid., inside cover. 5. HARRIS, Richard. Jetties. Vernacular Architecture. 1990, 21, 33. 33 PART II REVIEW OF PRIMARY SOURCES 34 Chapter 3 OPEN AIR MUSEUMS OF VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE Since the 1950s many European countries have attracted a large number of tourists and sightseers, both from their own population as well as from overseas, through the setting up of folk museums consisting of reconstructed vernacular buildings from different parts of the country furnished in period style and seeking to illustrate the social history of one or more regions by way of costumes, local industries and crafts. Examples of these that have been in existence for at least thirty years are The Spanish Village near Barcelona, and numerous folk museums in Scandinavian and East European countries. Not until the mid 1960s did England attempt to open museums of this kind and, even then, the primary purpose for doing so was not to attract tourists from overseas but to save vernacular buildings from destruction by fostering an awareness of the importance of England's architectural heritage in the populace as a whole. The motivating factors for this are many and varied. Certainly, people in England, spurred on by foreign travel, were also travelling more widely within their own country and a rapidly increasing number of country houses was being opened to the public either through acquisition by the National Trust or the Ministry of Works, or simply by the owner 's decision to do so. Furthermore, the highly successful Welsh Folk Museum at St. Fagans near Cardiff, with its extensive collection of vernacular buildings from all over wales, must certainly have had some influence in England on both conservationists and those in the business of tourism. However, it must be noted that the period from the late 1970s onwards has seen a growing awareness in the importance of 35 architectural conservation, whether demonstrated by the opening of an industrial museum to preserve a city's past; the pedestianisation and architectural cleaning programme put to work in an old town whose buildings have suffered the ravages of fifty or so years of ceaseless traffic noise and dirt; or the gentrification by middle- class occupants of a row of working-class terraced houses in an industrial town. This has not always been so. The 1950s and particularly the 1960s saw a wanton destruction of vast numbers of buildings from the medieval period onwards much of which was merely replaced by inadequate road systems, inharmonious structures and jerry-built housing. The new age of freedom and prosperity that had emerged since World war 11 had somehow become confused in the minds of town planners and officials with the need to destroy the buildings of the past if they were redundant, in poor repair or simply in the way of a new road scheme or shopping centre. It is this kind of action that went a long way towards the creation from the late 1960s onwards of open air museums. Two of the most important museums with regard to regional vernacular architecture support this viewpoint in their guide book introductions: "The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum was launched in 1967 by a small group of enthusiasts led by the Museum's founder, Mr. J.R. Armstrong, MBE. The principal aim of the founding group was to establish a centre that could rescue representative examples of vernacular buildings from the South East of England, and thereby to generate an increased public awareness of the built environment. The Museum's foundation coincided with a growing national interest in historic buildings and this has resulted in strong support for the Museum from its inception. The Museum authorities strongly believe that buildings should not be removed from their original sites unless there is no alternative." (1) "The primary aim of this open air museum (Avoncroft) is to rescue buildings from destruction. It differs from the 36 Scandinavian Folk Museum tradition, continued at St. Fagans, Cardiff and Cultra Manor, Belfast, which seeks the social history of a community. Visitors should not expect, therefore, to find all the answers here from carpentry to costume. It is hoped that their visit will stimulate an interest in some aspect of the buildings and that this will result in follow-up visiti to other museums with specialist collections, and· in·· active participation in the conservation of historic buildings. The museum was conceived after efforts to prevent the destruction of a merchant's house in Bromsgrove had failed and the timbers were, at the last minute, rescued and stored. The repair and re-erection of that building was completed in 1967 and it was opened immediately." (2) Having decided that the main purpose of the creation of open air museums of vernacular architecture is one of conservation and that the touristic element is secondary, and having explored the possible reasons for this, it is now important to evaluate a selection of the main museums themselves in.order to ascertain how successful they are as primary sources on vernacular architecture from the period 1600-1800 as collections of well-conserved examples of period buildings relating to the region in which the museum is situated. The museums I have chosen to evaluate are as follows: The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton, Sussex. Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, Stoke Heath, Worcestershire. The Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, Yorkshire. Chiltern Open Air Museum, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire. Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, Sheffield, Yorkshire. The Black Country Museum, near Dudley, Staffordshire. Blists Hill, Ironbridge, Shropshire. Acton Scott Working Farm Museum, Acton Scott, Shropshire. Many open air museums consist mainly of Victorian architecture. This is probably due to the fact that during the last fifteen or so years there has been a growing awareness of the importance of conservation with regard to buildings reflecting the onset of the Industrial Revolution since so much from this period had been destroyed during the 1960s. The other period of importance displayed by open air museums is 37 the late medieval period which is poorly represented throughout the country since so many buildings of this type have been renovated in the styles of later periods. However, the methods of construction - - . ._- regarding these houses are important since they form -the ·foundation· for the styles of vernacular building from 1600-1800 both in design and in the local building materials employed for construction purposes. The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum This museum, set in approximately 50 acres of down land on the edge of West Dean park near Chichester in West Sussex, houses a wide selection of vernacular buildings ranging from the fourteenth to the earlY,twentieth centuries. The emphasis is on rural architecture as demonstrated by the inclusion of a large number of farm buildings, and yeoman's houses within the 35 re-erected buildings. From the point of view of the student researching domestic architecture of the period 1600-1800 in relation to the regional materials available, this open air museum is by far the best of its kind in England since there is a heavy concentration on vernacular architecture of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries coupled with a strong bias towards the importance of local building materials in all of its reconstructions which are taken from the South-Eastern counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire. The museum opened in 1967 with a handful of buildings. This has gradually grown in 25 years to the impressive collection seen today, and it is still acquiring new exhibits. Furthermore, over the last 10 years, the museum has also been collecting artefacts representing rural crafts and industries, the building trades and 38 agriculture, some of which have been used as inte~ior furnishings for the buildings themselves whilst others are used as exhibits and demonstration pieces. It is important to note at this stage that the eXhlbits relatirigto-the -buDding- trade are of extreme interest to the local building materials enthusiast and, moreover, seek to place South-Eastern England in the context of the rest of the country in relation to building materials .. The first port of call is an enormous, eighteenth century oak timber-framed barn, weatherboarded in elm, with a sweeping thatched roof and high barn door, from Hambrook in West Sussex. It is typical of many such barns found in the coastal plain areas of West Sussex and East Hampshire, the most characteristic feature being an aisle which continues round the perimeter of the inside of the barn encompassing both the sides as well as the ends of the building. The effect gained on walking into the building is that of entering a marquee due mainly to the high pitch of the roof with the eaves standing a few feet from the ground affording interior space that is wide in proportion to its length. Consequently, it is the best building in the museum for housing the introductory exhibition. However, barns of this type were constructed with high doors to allow the wagons loaded high with straw and hay to enter and the continuous aisle allowed a central working area used for threshing whilst the side bays with their ample space in the sides and corners of the building were used for storage. All of this indicates that the barn was the most important building of the farmstead. Tenoned purlins and rafters were used for constructing the roof. A similar structure is to be found at the other end of the museum site. This barn comes from Lee-.on-Solent in East Hampshire and shares the same basic characteristics as the Hambrook barn. It 39 is interesting, at this stage, to compare them with the barns from the Weald where the arable acreages were smaller. An example of this type of barn from cowfold in West Sussex has also been erected on the museum site and is-a-much-smaller building_ witD_ no aisles and which had the main purpose of storage and threshing of arable crops, or as an animal shelter. The exhibition inside the Hambrook barn contains a detailed display of regional building materials and methods of construction. It begins by charting the development in techniques of constructing both domestic and farm buildings in the Weald and Downland areas of South-East England stating that until the seventeenth century the majority of these buildings were of timber construction with wattle and daub being used for external walls prior to the sixteenth century, whilst stone and brick gradually replaced both timber, and wattle and daub after that period. one of the main reasons for the extensive use of timber in the South-East as a building material in the Middle Ages was the proliferation of oak throughout the thickly forested areas of the Weald. Indeed, it was still used for floors and roofs well into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when brick and stone were more fashionable as external materials. A model displays typical jOints and the construction of a cross-frame and roof truss of a traditional timber-framed building from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Mention is also made of jettying which was introduced into the area in the fourteenth century and by the time the Tudor period had been reached, most houses of any pretension were of this type since it gave more space in the house whilst retaining space in the street or farmyard. By about 1650, however, jettying had disappeared. Since timber was an important material for construction throughout South-East England, 40 much of the exhibition is devoted to it by means of photographs, prints, sketches and models. However, the period of architectural development from about -1650 onwards is taken up by the increasing variety of local stone, . ------.--. --- -- brick and tiles that were becoming popular for use in building. Examples of local stone displayed include flint from Amberley in the South Downs area of West Sussex, Kentish rags tone from Offham on the Greensand Ridge near Maidstone, sandstone from the Lower Greensand outcrops in the Weald near Midhurst in West Sussex, chalk from Singleton nearby and firestone from sandstone outcrops near Reigate in Surrey. There are also examples of stone from other parts of the country including Cotswold oolitic limestone, carboniferous limestone from the Yorkshire Dales and gritstone from the Pennines. Examples of local roofing materials include the large slabs of Horsham slate found in the sandstone outcrops of the Weald and tiny Kent and Sussex peg tiles from numerous brick and tile works also in the Weald. Examples of roofing materials from other regions include Welsh slates; sandstone roofing from Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Herefordshire; and pantiles from East Anglia. Many Wealden tile works also manufactured a thinner, flatter sort of tile that became increasingly popular throughout the seventeenth century in the South-East for cladding the external walls of the buildings as did certain types of brick tiles. Varieties of brick include Kent or London yellow stock from clays near the Thames, Staffordshire blue brick, and seventeenth century red brick from Worcestershire. A display of crown glass and broad glass showing the two methods of manufacture together with lead and iron for roofs, windows and doors completes the exhibition. However, the reseacher may be interested to know that a relief map of South-East England showing the 41 geological structure is exhibited in the Cowfold barn. Across a stretch of greensward from the exhibition barn stands a toll cottage orignally constructed -in 1807 at Beeding near Shoreham in Mid-Sussex. Although this building falls just outside the period reviewed, it is worth mentioning since it relates to the eighteenth century in architectural style being a single-storeyed, white weatherboard construction with a tiled roof. Weatherboard was a material commonly used in the South-East both for constructing and fronting buildings in the eighteenth century, and although most commonly seen in the Weald of Kent and the neighbouring areas of East Sussex, the style is in evidence in other areas. In fact, this particular toll cottage is characteristic in style of toll cottages in the Worthing, Horsham, Shoreham triangle, but is the last surviving building of its kind since all the others have been demolished for road improvement. It was dismantled and moved to the museum in 1968 and the large central brick chimney stack which is a feature of buildings of this type was already demolished before dismantling occurred and had to be reconstructed. Nearby is an apparently seventeenth century South Downs house of local flint and brick with thatched roof from walderton in West Sussex. In fact, the seventeenth century framework encases one half of a medieval timber-framed building with an open hall and the interior of the house reveals that the museum has reconstructed the medieval part in a style traditional to the period with no ceiling dividing the lower and upper storeys; merely a wooden staircase running at the side of the hall linking it to a chamber above, and with an open fireplace in the hall sending the smoke out through a hole in the roof and revealing blackened timbers. The seventeenth century part is constructed more conventionally with low-ceilinged ""42 rooms both upstairs and downstairs and the contrast between the two parts of the house strikingly displays the internal changes that took place in building construction between 1400 and 1650. More -importantly, however ,wi th regar_d _to_the use of local building materials, the interior of the medieval part displays the wattle and daub infilling and the post and truss construction; and the exterior framework of brick and flint portrays the fashion from 1650 onwards not only to build with stone or brick but also to reface earlier buildings with either or both of these materials in order to hide the primitive appearance of the wattle and daub. The brick chimney stack also displays post-me-dieval trends since these became essential features of any house of importance from about 1600 onwards. The external walls of flint were quarried locally from the chalk of the South Downs with brick being used only for essential purposes to strengthen and bind the corners of the walls and to provide a frame for the windows, being probably transported from a Wealden brickworks a few miles away and possibly too expensive for the construction of the whole house at this particular period, particularly when flint was so easily available. AS with most buildings of the period, the thatch is probably wheat and reed mixed with straw, again obtained locally. It will now be important for the researcher to consider two Wealden farmhouses, the second of which, "Pendean", was reviewed by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments of England (RCHME) as a threatened building prior to its removal to the museum in the mid- 1970s. (3) The first of these, "Bay leaf" from Chiddingstone in West Kent, is a timber-framed hall house with a jettied upper-storey dating from the early fifteenth century. Although outside the period for 43 this review, the characteristic barn-like roof hipped at both ends to conceal completely a recessed hall with solars at either wings is a style peculiar to Kent and East Sussex, being developed in yeoman's -houses from -the fourteenth century and_carried on as a roofing style ------.- into the eighteenth. The small Kent peg tiles create a billowing effect and are of the warm red colour produced by the tile and brick works of the Eastern Weald, even today. The guide-book photograph (4) shows the building before it was dismantled and_it is .interesting to note the typical later additions from 1600 onwards of a decorated central chimney stack together with one at the side of the house as well as tile-hanging on the side of the building and brick facing on the lower storey at the front, both fashionable methods employed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to hide the wattle and daub, again using local materials. However, the building itself was reconstructed without these additions, the most characteristic feature in its walling structure being the recessed front wall of the hall creating a break in the jetty, emphasising the grandeur of the hall on the outside and giving the indication with its double window that the hall would-extend upwards through both storeys of the house. The second of these Wealden houses is the "Pendean" farmhouse from West Lavington near Midhurst in west Sussex (Plate 1) which was begun- in the early seventeenth century and modified with slight alterations in later periods. As indicated earlier it was reviewed by the RCHME which supplied the photograph for the guidebook of the building as it was before dismantling (5), being taken from Mercer's English Vernacular Houses (6). A particular feature of this house which distinguishes it from those in the Wealden areas of Kent and East Sussex lies in the style of-timber-framing. The "Pendean" 44 Plate 1. "Pendean" farmhouse, Weald and Downland Museum. Plate 2. "Market Place", Weald and Downland Museum. 45 farmhouse is constructed in a method known as 'small' or 'square framing' which is recognised by its beamed arrangement of regular rectangular squares, a style which predominates in Herefordshire and ------parts--of the_ West. Midlands, _and_also in __ the Tham,£s vapey,___ Wi~t~hire __ and Hampshire, just creeping into West Sussex, thereby indicating geographically that the building originates from an area to the West of London. Styles of timbering common in Kent and East Sussex are the East Anglian 'close studding' or the more widely spread 'large framing' style as used on the "Bayleaf" Wealden house, and also on the "Winkhurst Farm" house which is reviewed later. Mercer (7) states that the fact that sizeable buildings used 'small framing' indicates that, as in the Middle Ages, it was by no means an inferior method of construction and that by the seventeenth century the vast majority of houses in most of the timber-framed regions were framed in this way. He uses the word 'most' to cover for the fact that 'small framing' is not seen in Eastern England (an area which from my observations would also include Kent and East Sussex) and this fact is supported by Richard Harris, Research Director of the Weald and Downland Museum. (8) The building was re-erected at the museum with little alteration to its structure, simply representing a typical seventeenth century farmhouse of the Western Weald. In complete contrast to a similar house built during the medieval period, for example, the "Bayleaf" farmhouse, it has no open hall, but instead has two downstairs and two upstairs rooms with a central, decorated chimney stack servicing three of these rooms and leading down to back-ta-back inglenooks which were a feature of this type of farmhouse during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Before dismantling, the walls between the timbers were brick-nogged and 46 whitewashed to give the appearance of plaster, a characteristic of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when brick was so well-established as a building material that the appearance of ------'black -a:nd whi t,,' building-s once- again- becamepieasing-t"o the -~ye - and it became fashionable to recreate them wherever possible. A further characteristic development during this period was the splitting of a farmhouse into cottages due to the redundancy of a number of older farms during the Agricultural Revolution and the growing need for tenants to live in solidly built structures. "Pendean" went through this transition before returning to the status of a small farm in the present century, prior to being dismantled. Beyond "Pendean" are a couple of small medieval structures of simple construction with thatched roofs. One is a cruck-framed, wattle and daub hall from Boarhunt in Hampshire and the other is a thirteenth century cottage with flint walls from Hangleton in the South Downs of Mid-Sussex. These need only be given a cursory glance for their use of local materials since they fall outside the period for review. "Winkhurst Farm", nearby, however, is worth reviewing for despite the fact that only the medieval hall part of the house has been re-erected, the photograph of the farmhouse complete with its seventeenth century wing with brick encasing between the large timber-frames, and eighteenth century tile-hanging appears in the guidebook (9) and is once again reviewed by the RCHME (10) in Mercer's English Vernacular Houses which contains the or iginal photograph (11). As in the case of "Bayleaf", "Winkhurst" also comes from Chiddingstone in West Kent, both buildings having been rescued following the construction of the Bough Beech reservoir which now 47 occupies the area in which they stood. The medieval hall now stands in the museum grounds complete with its crown-post roof supporting a typical post and truss, 'large frame' construction. The walls are - --all ·wattleand~ daub,- exactly as-they ~would ~have_been when the hall was first constructed, and all traces of later brickwork and tile- hanging have been removed. The marks left by the later addition of the seventeenth century wing with its chimney stack and additional staircase can still be seen on the timbers on the East and South sides of the hall. The next area of major importance is a prominent group of buildings which stand in the heart of the museum and known as the "Market Place" (plate 2) because it consists of a group of mainly medieval town houses grouped around a seventeenth century market hall. The Weald and Downland Museum guidebook (12) states that the group incorporates most of the building materials to be found in the whole of the South-East region and although this is an over- simplification of the facts, the museum has endeavoured to represent the variety that is available. The market hall from Titchfield in Hampshire (Plate 3) , although not a domestic building, is typical of many vernacular buildings of its type in the South-East built during the seventeenth century, being timber-framed, supported on wooden pillars under which was housed a market or licensed trading place, and having an external staircase leading to a first floor town council chamber. The upper-storey is built of 'close studding' which is more typical of Kent, East Sussex, or East Anglia than Hampshire but the infilling of brick known as brick nogging is a characteristic of many seventeenth century buildings of the East and south of England at the time when timber-framing was still popular but wattle and 48 Plate 3. Titchfield Market Hall , Weald and Downland Museum. Plate 4. Horsham slates, Weald and Downland Museum. 49 daub had gone out of fashion. Moreover, the herringbone pattern of the brickwork is a style often seen in Hampshire and other south of England counties. The buildings lining the "Market Place" are all medieval but are interesting from the point of view of the building materials used. They are a shop from Horsham and an upper hall from Crawley, both in West Sussex; and a hall house from North Cray in the London dormitary area of Kent. Both the Horsham and the Crawley buildings are roofed with large sandstone slabs known as Horsham slates (Plate 4), an example of which is displayed in the exhibition, as already mentioned. This sandstone which has a heavy laminated and durable quality is found only in the Weald clay in the Eastern part of West Sussex, in an area bounded by Horsham and Crawley in the North and Steyning on the edge of the South Downs. It was quarried extensively in this area between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries and most buildings of solid structure were roofed with it during this period. Both buildings are jettied, displaying 'large framing' with wattle and daub infilling. The house from North Cray, also fifteenth century, is also jettied, but only at the sides, and displays the Wealden farmhouse characteristics of the peg tile roof covering the whole of the building sweeping over the front and back, and also down the sides in the form of a gablet, as in the "Bayleaf" and "Pendean" farmhouses. Since it is medieval, however, there is no chimney stack but the 'large frame' timbering displays a style also shared by the "Bayleaf" which is typically Kentish and continued into the seventeenth century when it was used on cottages as well as farmhouses. This style is characterised by a central window set between a pair of curved down timber braces and is particularly -50- noticeable on the North Cray house which has one window only on each storey at the unusually large expanse of the sides thereby setting off the timber pattern sharply against the white of the wattle and dismantling, the timber framing .was infilled with brick on one side and encased with white painted weatherboard elsewhere, again in typically Kentish tradition, probably during the seventeenth or even the eighteenth century when white weatherboarded buildings became characteristic to that county. The seventeenth century also saw the construction of a large central chimney stack and others were added at the side during a later period. Prior to being dismantled, the front of the building was used as a grocer's shop with the rest divided into two small cottages possibly during the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century as with "Pendean" and possibly for the same reasons, ie. to accommodate the rapidly increasing population. The medieval house was reconstructed in its original state with solars at each wing displaying rooms at both ground and first floor levels opening onto a central hall extending upwards through both storeys. Behind the "Market Place" among a group of nineteenth century workshops from different parts of Surrey and Sussex stand two seventeenth century buildings of note. The first is a four-storeyed house extension from Reigate in Surrey which was built as a rear extension to a medieval building in the High Street of that town and has been skilfully reconstructed to back onto the upper hall from Crawley by virtue of the stair tower from the latter building being attached to the remains of one in the Reigate extension. The extension contains two main rooms, one on each floor, with a basement and an attic. It was reconstructed with the original 'small framing' with infilling of wattle and daub possibly to match the main medieval building, but' a rear chimney was added and this together with the basement was built of Reigate stone which had ------deteriorated so _badly_that only a little of it could be used in the - -~- - --- _._------~ ------reconstruction, other similar sandstone from the Upper Greensand having been used to make up the right quantity, possibly Kentish Rag. The interior of the extension displays decorated plasterwork on the ceiling and carved sandstone fireplaces both of which indicate that the occupiers were wealthy. The seventeenth century house from Lavant in west Sussex nOW. houses the museum's shop and therefore has a modern interior. It is a good example of early 'English bond' brickwork, using bricks made from the local clays of the Weald nearby, and this together with the mullioned windows of moulded brick and the solid brick chimney stack suggest that the original owners were of considerable importance in the society of the time. In fact, the house was attached to a local manor and the large upper room covering the length of the building suggests that it may have had some important civic function at one time. Having moved away from the "Market Place", it is important to now consider, collectively, various small farm and agricultural buildings which fall into the period for review. The most important feature of all of them is the simple use of local materials for practical purposes. The schoolhouse from West Wittering in west Sussex comes from an area close to the South Downs and is a single- storeyed, flint and brick building with a tiled roof which originated as an eighteenth century cart-shed, being converted to a schoolhouse in the nineteenth century when various charities were set up to consider the education of village children. The seventeenth century watermill from Lurgashall in West Sussex is built of Petworth stone from the Lower Greensand. The eighteenth century granary from Littlehampton, also in West Sussex, is brick - - and timbered with a thatch-ed -roof but its most-typical features are the mushroom-shaped stone straddles on which it stands. These started to appear from the eighteenth century onwards along with purpose-built granaries to keep the damp and the vermin away from the store. Finally, it should be mentioned that not all farm buildings were daubed after having been wattled between the timber frames since a simple shelter was all that was required from some of them. An example of this is a seventeenth century tread-wheel from Catherington in Hampshire. With the exception of a few nineteenth century buildings and some early medieval ones this completes the review of the Weald and Downland Museum which in number, date and quality is by far the most important open air museum for any researcher into vernacular architecture of the period 1600-1800. Avoncroft Museum of Buildings The Avoncroft Museum is considerably smaller in size than the Weald and OOwnland Museum but since its 21 buildings are set in only 15 acres, the items of interest are much closer together and therefore easier both for visiting and reviewing purposes. The museum was set up in 1967 for reasons that are explained in_ the opening paragraphs of this chapter. Since the location is the outskirts of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, the reconstructed buildings come from the West Midland counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire, with two items from Wales. From the point of view of the researcher, the 53 _museum therefore displays different_vernacular styles from those of the South-East but since the area represented is again a fairly low lying, agricultural area thick with oak woods and containing good ______quali ty -clays -forbr ick s- i ntersper sed -wHh- out-cr-op-" -6 f -sands-to-n-", there are certain basic similarities to note. The shop at the entrance is housed in a large, post and truss, timber-framed town house from Shrewsbury known as the 'String of Horses" since it served as an inn in the eighteenth century (Plate 5). It displays late sixteenth or early seventeenth century 'close studding' of a typical West Midlands style with the timbers spaced more widely apart than those on East Anglian or Kentish, 'close studded' houses. The patterned layout of the timbers on the gable end, the use of barley-sugar moulding, incised quatrefoils, and the various cross beams contribute to the strikingly decorative effect of timbered buildings in this part of England (plate 6) and also indicate the wealth of the original owner. As with most town houses of the period, the upper storey is characteristically jettied. Nearby are two rectangular buildings which merit attention. The first is a seventeenth century dovecot from Haselour Hall, Harlaston in Staffordshire. This was originally a timber-framed structure which was encased during the eighteenth century in bluish brown Staffordshire brick probably from the tough clays of the coalfields nearby and it was reconstructed at Avoncroft in its later form complete with a roof of dull, reddish-brown Midland tiles and topped with a glazed lantern like a miniature gazebo which was built for the doves to enter and leave the building. The second is an eighteenth century cockpit from Bridgnorth in Shropshire which in the nineteenth century was used as a coach house and later as a garage for an inn. It has a large, pyramidal roof of 54 Plate 5. 'The String of Horses' , Avoncroft Museum. Plate 6. Detail on 'The String of Horses', Avoncroft Museum. 55 Midland tiles and walls of the pinkish-red brick that is commonly seen throughout Worcestershire and South-East Shropshire. Apparently, the brick walls of the building were altered during the ------last cen-turY-b-tif-probablysti-l}.came--from_.local _bftc~"!.~r~,,-.__ ~ ------"--- particular feature of the building is the fine interior timber- framing of the eighteenth century roof which spans 40 square feet and at the centre of which is a huge king post connecting a horizontal labrynth of beams to the apex. Alongside the cockpit is a small, eighteenth century, cylindrical brick ice house with a domed roof from Tong Castle in Shropshire which is a typical, early example of its kind, since, during the eighteenth century, ice was stored by the very rich for preserving perishable food and cooling rooms as well as for numerous other purposes taken for granted today. The toll house nearby which was brought from Little Malvern in Worcestershire is similar to the one at the Weald and Downland Museum dating from the early nineteenth century and with a single brick chimney stack. The building is of Worcestershire brick and is unusual in that it is ·two-storeyed. The many-sided shape is also typical of the design of a number of toll houses, the possible objective being that if a vehicle ran into it the glancing blow would presumably cause less damage than if impact had been direct. It also gives an all-round view of traffic, just in case anyone should slip past without paying. Round the corner from the toll house is a late fifteenth century, post and truss, timber-framed merchant's house from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire (Plate 7). Like similar ones at the Weald and Downland Museum, it has been reconstructed to look as it might have done when first built, following the plan of a medieval 56 Plate 7 . Merchant's House , Avoncroft Museum. Plate 8. "Forge Cottage ", Avoncroft Museum. 57 hall house with a staircase-connected chamber at one end and an open hall reaching up through both storeys at the other, the smoke from the open fireplace escaping through a hole in the roof. What ~------~~--~distinguishes~~this-building~fr~olTlc"i!!lil~r p_nes_in the_ we~ld is the large gable jutting from the front of the house and bearing a jettied upper storey; also the 'large framing' with particularly decorative timber patterning on the upper part of the gable as in the "String of Horses", again indicating that this is a characteristic common to West Midlands, timber-framed houses of quality. Moreover, the timber-framing is infilled with white plaster and the oak is well-seasoned giving the 'black and white' effect common to buildings along the west side of England. The roof is also less steeply pitched than those on buildings of a similar type in South-East England. The penultimate.group of items to be reviewed are mainly farm buildings and consist of a perry mill from Hunt Green near Redditch, a wagon shed from Hanbury, a stable from Wychbold and a granary from Temple Broughton, all af which are in Worcestershire; a barn from Cholstrey, Herefordshire; and an earth closet from the garden of a large house in Leominster, Herefordshire. As with the farm. buildings at the Weald and Downland Museum, the~main interest lies in the use of local materials for the construction of utilitarian buildings. The perry mill is a late eighteenth century, two-storeyed building with walls of local pink brick and a tiled roof with hipped ends that gave ample space for storage upstairs whilst the press was housed below. The eighteenth century wagon shed is a wooden building, again with hipped gable ends to provide maximum storage for farm vehicles and is notable for the high standard of its 58 carpentry having queen post trusses at each end whilst a king post supports the two middle trusses. The late eighteenth century stable is a post and truss building with brick infilling and weatherboarded --gable-ends -with -a-tiled.ro,of,_a SOlidly built structure of the best - ~------,--._-- craftsmanship to shelter horses which were the most prized possession on farms during this period on account of the many jobs they could perform. The granary was built during the same period but unlike the one at the Weald and Downland Museum, it does not rest on straddle stones since the upper storey was for grain storage whilst the vast space underneath, again ,provided by the hipped roof, acted as a cart shed. The brick pillars on plinths again displayed the wealth of the farmer and the increasing use of brick as a material for all buildings. The barn is similar in style to the two large barns at the Weald and Downland Museum, having a large, thatched roof and high barn door. However, it is of an earlier period, being sixteenth century and like most barns in Herefordshire, and many small bUildings in that county dating from 1500-1750, is cruck-framed, with four pairs of crucks dividing the barn into three bays, the two side ones for storage and the central one for threshing. The eighteenth century earth closet is worth mentioning simply because its Georgian elegance mirrors the house to which it was attached, having sash windows and fine brickwork to display the wealth of the owners which was even lavished on a building of this fUnction! The final building to be reviewed is "Forge Cottage" from Wellington in Herefordshire (Plate 8). It is an eighteenth century 'small framed' house, a style of timbering commOn on cottages in that county. Unfortunately, it is not open for viewing and the forge attached has an orange pantiled roof which would look more at home in Eastern England rather than here. This completes the review of all relevant buildings at the .-~------.- AVoncr oft:- M;';s-;;um. ---Pi rst-l.mpress ion-s -gained-weretha t-i-t--;'s- sI ightly. inferior in quality to the Weald and Downland Museum but then it should be noted that West Midlands vernacular architecture is considerably simpler in design than that of the South-East, and although fewer buildings are displayed, the variety is greater. It is also interesting to note that both the Avoncroft and the Weald and Downland museums display farm buildings mainly of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries since the rapid development of farming methods during that period meant that more purpose-built farm buildings were being constructed to accommodate the new methods and ideas. The Ryedale Folk Museum Set in a modest 3 acres of pasture in the North York Moors village of Hutton-le-Hole which is, in itself, a beauty spot, the Ryedale Folk Museum houses a collection of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century craftshops from the region together with a group of domestic buildings which display the development of the North- East Yorkshire cruck-framed style which extended into the 'long house' farm so often seen in the North of England. The museum opened in 1964 as a village museum complete with the land which was bequeathed by a wealthy local family. Its 16 re-erected structures are set closely together and grouped as in a settlement with the central part containing the cruck houses widening to a village green. For the purpose of this short review, the concentration will be on the domestic houses mentioned. All buildings are local. 60 The eighteenth century farm.cottage which forms the entrance to the museum and the various single-storeyed craftshops encountered on first entering the open air site are all built of the hard -- --TubbTe-stcine--oT-th-e--oolltic--limestonebelt- which- under-lies- the-North- York Moors. The buildings are all roofed with the orange pantiles commonly seen on the East side of England and Scotland from the seventeenth century onwards when trade with Holland from the East coast ports brought a regular import of these items (14). The combination of the golden walls and the orange roofs provide a style and appearance that is characteristic of domestic architecture in North-East Yorkshire. The cruck-framed buildings show the development of the North East Yorkshire variation of this type of domestic architecture from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The basic principle was that the large pair of curved oak beams which formed the cruck was linked by the ridge tree post at the top to form the basic framework of the building with two linked pairs of crucks to form a bay, and the length of the building was extended by another pair of crucks as and when necessary. All the weight of the roof would be borne by the crucks and the walls could simply be added. It was from this principle that the 'long house' developed where the family occupied the first two bays, the fodder was housed in the third and the animals in the fourth as in the case-of many hill farms all over the North of England. The four cruck houses on display at the museum all have wheat straw thatched roofs with limestone walls since thatch was common in the area until the early nineteenth century. Only the occasional thatched building can be seen in the North York Moors area today. The Stangend cruck house (Plate 9) is a good example of a cruck -- 61 - Plate 9. Stangend cruck house , Ryedale Museum. Plate la . Harome cruck house, Ryedale Museum. 62 cottage of fifteenth century origins but with alterations in limestone made in the seventeenth century which involved the encasing of the wattle and daub walls, with the exception of the - - -- -gable ends-;--wh11st-tnechTmn-"y-sca-ck, -mu-llioned -windows ,and--door------ posts with lintel were added in 1759. The doorway leads to a cross passage under the central cruck beam which divides the house into the living quarters and the animal quarters. The furnishings are very primitive and there is a bare, flagstone floor throughout. This is in considerable contrast to the Harome cottage, nearby (Plate 10), which is similar in design but, since it was thoroughly modernised in the late eighteenth century with period cottage furniture and rugs on the floors, looks more homely. Of greater importance with regard to the period changes to the building are the lime-coated walls, a characteristic of both the North and South-West of England together with large areas of Scotland and Wales for protection against the harsh weather; and the brick chimney stacks, since rubble stone is less effective than brick for building good chimneys and the clays of the Vales of York and Pickering are not far away. The Yorkshire sash windows which open horizontally and not vertically are also an eighteenth century addition. The "Manor House" built in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is of similar construction to the other two buildings but on a much larger scale. It is furnished in late medieval style with an open hall and two rooms at one -end on the upper storey overlooking the hall in minstrel gallery fashion. The crucks used in the con~truction of this building are reputedly the largest in North-East Yorkshire. With the exception of a medieval crofter's cottage of primitive design, this completes the review of the cruck-framed buildings in 63- the museum. However, the glasshouse nearby houses a display of local tiles and slates which include both brown and white York bricks, local sandstone roofing tiles, Byland peg tiles which are a ____ . _____forlT\-'"f_local pantile, and limestone dressed by the herringbone, ------scutched, bulleted and axed methods, all of which are common throughout the limestone and sandstone belts of England. The Ryedale Folk Museum, although small, displays excellent examples of a regional style of building which has almost disappeared and which provides a basis for a style of architecture peculiar to the upland regions of Britain. The Chiltern Open-Air Museum Unlike the other museums so far reviewed which opened in the 1960s, this museum has only been in existence since 1976 and is consequently in the process of reconstruction ~s regards many of its acquisitions. Nevertheless, it aims to be the equivalent of Avoncroft and the Weald and Downland Museum regarding vernacular architecture of the Northern Home Counties and its 45 acre site should set it well on the way to achieving this. Located near Chalfont St Giles in South-East Bucks, the museum was founded with the aim of rescuing buildings Which would have otherwise been demolished but, like the Avoncroft and Weald and Downland museums, it will only accept a building if a decision to demolish it has already been taken, preferring to see a building remain in its original setting. The Chiltern Open Air Museum has rescued buildings from Buckinghamshire, South Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex. Many of the 20 reconstructed buildings are of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, there is an interesting 64 collection of bUildings from 1600-1800 together with an Iron Age house and a Saxon bake-house. The Northolt barn (Plate 11) dates from about 1600 and is a -~typical -queen_post _and _tru"s__ C:2n!'~..ruction set on a brick plinth . -~- - ---._------_.------'-_.- wall. The barn is roofed with the warm red~tiles that are characteristic of the Chiltern area. and was used for storing hay from fields that are now covered with housing estates. Of considerable interest but, unfortunately, not yet erected are a pair of eighteenth century cottages from Leagrave in Bedfordshire. The framework~is in store and is of post and truss construction revised from an earlier building of about 1700, possibly a barn, and the use of nails in the assembly of the roof timbers suggests that the earlier building was converted into back- to-back, one-room cottages about 1770-80 when a brick chimney stack was built to separate the two dwellings (15). The roof was thatched and the building had the eighteenth century characteristic of lath and plaster walls between the timber frames, a style which replaced wattle and daub during this period. The building is to be reconstructed in this manner. The "Hill Farm" barn (Plate 12) from Chalfont st Peter, nearby, is·a typical example of a large, Chiltern barn of about 1800 roofed with the same kind of' red tiles as used on the Northolt barn and with black,tarred weatherboard walls encasing the timber-framed structure of five bays with a high cart porch jutting into the stockyard. The black and red appearance of the barn is typical of many such buildings seen in the Chilterns, although it is suspected that tarring only became fashionable in this region during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. With its large size and number of bays, this was an all-purpose farm building. 65 rnI! 11 11 Plate 11. Northolt barn , Chiltern Museum. Plate 12. "Hill Farm" barn , Chiltern Museum. 66 There are two granaries on the site; the "Rossway" granary of. 1802 from Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire and the more conventional Haversham granary (Plate 13) of about 1750 from North Buckinghamshire. The "Rossway" building is of two storeys, white ------'-- ---_. ---- -,------_. weatherboard construction with a slate roof. In both style and design it does not belong to the Chiltern region. The Haversham granary is similar in design to both of the granaries reconstructed at the Avoncroft and Weald and Downland museums and is of a similar period, being single-storeyed and timber-framed with brick infilling. Both granaries are set on straddle stones. Finally, the High Wycombe Toll House of 1826 (Plate 14) bears many eighteenth century characteristics often seen on town houses in the Chiltern area of which the most notable are the prominent brick parapet, church windows and clustered brick chimneys. Industrial Museums A large number of open air museums in existence today were conceived for the purpose of displaying both life and relics of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the 1970s, this period was considered by many to be one to forget and many late eighteenth and nineteenth century reminders were mercilessly destroyed. Although the period 1600-1800 only touches the fringes of this era, it is important to consider what light industrial museums throw on the continuation or otherwise of vernacular styles and also what, if anything, is preserved of buildings from the last quarter of the eighteenth century when the Revolution started underway: Three museums shed a little light on this period. They are the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet at Sheffield, The Black Country Museum at Dudley, and Blists Hill at Ironbridge, Shropshire. Plate 13. Haversham granary, Chiltern Museum. Plate 14. High Wycombe Toll House, Chiltern Museum. 68 The Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet definitely has the most to offer, being a renovated industrial steel-making settlement 'in situ' that has been open to the public since 1970 after having been .----~-~--~------~---~- restored to working order by theCouncIT (or the -ConservalTon--6f Sheffield Antiquities and developed as a museum by the City of Sheffield Museums Department. The hamlet dates from the l780s and contains workers' cottages of that date (Plate 15), together with a grinding works and a tilt forge (Plate l~). All the other buildings including several workshops, the manager's house, a counting house, warehouse and stables, are early nineteenth century and the hamlet site occupies 3 acres out of a 7 acre site, the rest being taken up by a lake and a dam which provided the power to drive the machinery. The buildings are chiefly built of local, South Yorkshire sandstone known as York stone quarried mainly from the lower slopes of the Pennines between Sheffield and Barnsley. The roofs are of limestone slates probably from the Derbyshire hills to the South of the city. Both the industrial and the domestic buildings are solidly built and broad in width, a characteristic of Pennine buildings and one which is most noticeable at the gable ends. All in all, the museum illustrates that the Industrial Revolution began in small settlements and that large scale industries had their birth in workshops and cottages with local craftsmen to manufacture the goods. Like Abbeydale, the Black Country Museum and Blists Hill also contain industrial settlements but in both cases they consist of buildings brought to the site and reconstructed. Unfortunately, many of these are mid to late nineteenth century: however, both museums contain interesting earlier examples. The Black Country Museum contains a row of late eighteenth 69 Plate 15. Workers ' cottages , Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet. Plate 16. Tilt forge and workshops, Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet. 70 century cottages of pink, Worcestershire brick and dark tiled roofs (Plate 17) which contrast sharply with the smooth, bright red, machine-made bricks of the other Victorian houses which were either ------imported from Lancashi re o~- p-ro-duced-locany from--t:h-e-working-coa-l- measures. Also of interest is an early nineteenth century cottage with eighteenth century square-proportioned characteristics accentuated by the sash windows and white painted window and door frames. It is called "The Tilted Cottage" because, like so many buildings in the Black Country, it became victim to subsidence due to the shallow mining from early pits. Blists Hill is almost entirely nineteenth century but does have one surprising gem from an earlier period. It is a timber-framed building dating from the early seventeenth century, with typical, West Midlands 'small framing' and cruck construction (Plate 18). The reconstruction shows the wattle and daub in the top half of the building and the brick in the lower half when the wattle and daub was encased in the eighteenth century. Acton Scott Working Farm Museum This museum, located near Church Stretton in the Shropshire hills, is worthy of mention since it contains a group of farm buildings dated 1769, one of which displays an interesting half-cruck timber roof, tile covered (Plate 19); and all of which show good use of local brick and sandstone in their construction. The diamond-shaped and linear groups of vent-holes on these buildings are characteristic of many brick-built farm buildings throughout the Midlands (Plates 20 and 21). 71 Plate 17. Eighteenth century cottages, Black Country Museum. Plate 18. Timber-framed cottage, Blists Hill. 72 Plate 19. Half-cruck timber roof , Acton scott Working Farm Museum. Plate 20. Diamond-shaped vent-holes on post and truss barn, Acton Scott Working Farm Museum. 73 Plate 21 . Linear vent-holes on barn , Acton Scott Working Farm Museum. 74 Conclusion The museums reviewed do not constitute a complete list of open air ______museums in Eng land. However, they are the most interesting and ------~- ---- .------~------useful in terms of displaying vernacular architecture from--1-600---- 1800. Each museum contains buildings which demonstrate the architectural styles and characteristics of the region concerned, together with the use of local building materials. Furthermore, it is evident from many of the reconstructed buildings viewed, that much research has been carried out as to how these buildings must have looked when first erected, as well as to the changes that have taken place in their appearance throughout the centuries. These museums therefore offer a rare opportunity to study an old building closely, carefully noting its history and development. This type of research cannot easily be accomplished in the same depth whilst observing buildings in towns and villages throughout England. However, despite this fact, it is important to note that in order to conduct a thorough research into the various regional styles of vernacular architecture together with the use of local building materials, a survey of the towns, villages and countryside must be made. In dOing this, one observes the way in which the buildings harmonize with the landscape and how the regional styles adapt accordingly to geographical, geological, agricultural and industrial surroundings, as well as reflecting a social history of the region or regions concerned. Chapter 4 explores these ideas in some depth by means of a review of the vernacular architecture from 1600-1800 of three regions in England, each of which is broadly- based to cover as wide a range of building styles and materials as possible. 75 REFERENCES 1. HARRIS, Richard, ed. Weald and Down1and Open Air Museum Guidebook. 1987, p. 1. 2. SAVINE, Gerald.· Avoncroft Museum of Buildings :_.!:.?~.inside ------cover. 3. MERCER, Eric. English Vernacular Houses: A Study of Traditional Farmhouses and Cottages. 1975, p. 212. 4. HARRIS, reL 1, p. 13. 5. Ibid., p. 18. 6. MERCER, reL 3i plate 81. 7. Ibid., p. 123. 8. HARRIS, Richard. Discovering Timber-framed Buildings. 2nd ed. 1979, p. 25. 9. HARRIS, reL 1, p. 29. 10. MERCER, reL 3, p. 173. 11. Ibid ., plate 76. 12. HARRIS, reL 1, p. 56. 13. Ibid., p. 36. 14. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, A1ec. The Pattern of English Building. 4th ed. 1987, pp. 275-276. 15. CASTLE, Stephen A. A Timber-framed Building in Leagrave. Bedfordshire Archaeology. 1988, 18, 86. ------._- ---_. ------76- Chapter 4 BUILDINGS IN A LANDSCAPE ----~------Introduction Having studied vernacular buildings from 1600-1800 that have been reconstructed and preserved in open air museums, it is now important to evaluate what England has to offer throughout its towns, villages and countryside in terms of examples that relate to this period and display the use of local building materials. To cover the country on this basis would be a formidable task due to the immense variety of architectural styles and local materials that are present in a country as small as England. For this reason, therefore, I have chosen to limit my evaluation to three broad regions whilst mentioning areas that overlap in order to create a general understanding of how building materials and styles form a pattern that ties in with both the geography and geology.of the country. The regions chosen for this purpose are South and South East England; the Central Pennines and adjacent areas; and East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk). South and South-East England This review will broadly examine vernacular architecture from the Weald of Kent in the east to central Dorset in the west, and mOVing north to the Thames valley and Chiltern areas. Leaving aside Romney Marsh, Kent is divided into approximately four geographical areas producing different building materials. They traverse the county from East to west like the layers of a 77 cake. From north to south there are the alluvial clays of the Thames estuary, the chalk of the North Downs, the rags tone of the Greensand Ridge, and the brown and blue clays of the Weald. However, because these areas are fairly near at hand, a journey across Kent being no more than thirty miles from north to south, and the excellence of the wealden clays for producing fine bricks, wall tiles and roofing tiles, the Wealden style of architecture tends to cover the county as a whole as regards buildings from 1600-1800. Clifton-Taylor (1) mentions that the Wealden clays produce some of the loveliest red bricks of all, a brickworks near Frittenden still producing hand-made, finely textured facing bricks and roofing tiles; and Kentish tiled roofs sweep up in a rippling manner to centrally placed chimney stacks, and down to within a few feet of the ground forming the 'catslide' (Plate 22). That is not to say that the alluvial clays did not produce good red bricks as well but they are less easily obtained, the most common brick from this area being the less attractive, yellow stock often used from 1800 onwards for workers' cottages, and south London terraces. However, it is the Weald which is the source of good Kentish building, not only for the bricks but also for the oak woods which produced timber for framing from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries and weatherboarding from the seventeenth century onwards. Almost every town and village in the Kentish Weald contains houses with elegantly tiled roofs, seventeenth and eighteenth century tile-hung walls, solid yet ornate, many-flued chimney stacks, white weatherboarding recalling the delicacy of a doll's house, and both 'large frame' and 'close studded' oak timbering with infilling of plaster or wattle and daub; but the best example that produces all of these varieties within a very small area is Smarden Plate 22. 'catslide' roofs at Goudhurst, Kent. Plate 23. ftOragon House ft at Smarden, Kent. 79 in the Eastern Weald between Tenterden and Ashford. It was a Wealden market town licensed by Edward III in 1332 but never grew bigger than a village (2). Consequently, its abs~nce of cluttered streets and buildings of 1800 onwards does much to enhance its beauty. ------~--- ~------~------~- "Dragon House" (Plate 23) in the main street is 'close studded' on the right, 'large framed' on the overhanging gable to the left in the Kentish style with a central window set between a pair of curved down-braces, and tile-hung on the upper part of the gable, possibly during the eighteenth century. The most remarkable features of this house are the double overhang on the gable and the seventeenth century dragon frieze on the upper overhang (3). Houses in Smarden are too numerous to evaluate separately but the styles described, together with the jettied storeys and hipped roofs covering the whole building are all represented in this village (Plates 24-26), and the high quality bricks and tiles probably came from the brickfields at Pluckley, three miles to the north. Before venturing further into the Weald, it is useful to mention that the Kentish ragstone from the Greensand Ridge is also used for house building, although, as with the yellow stock brick, this became more common from 1800 onwards and tended to be closely restricted to the Ridge itself. A good example of the crazy-paving quality of ragstone work On an eighteenth century house with earlier origins can be seen at Chilmington Green near Ashford (Plate 27). The nearby Wealden villages of Headcorn and Biddenden display houses and cottages of similar character to those of Smarden, the latter having in its main street a long row of timber-framed hall houses which slope down at the back to create what is reputedly the longest 'catslide' roof in the country. Unfortunately, it is not easy to photograph on account of the high, board fence which 80 Plate 24. Weatherboard and tile-hanging at Smarden , Kent . Plate 25. Farmhouse with typical Wealden roof at Smarden, Kent. 81 Plate 26. Wealden farmhouse and ragstone wall at Smarden, Kent. Plate 27. Farmhouse of rags tone at Chilmington Green, Kent. 82 encircles the gardens from the back. Not all the buildings in these Wealden villages are as old as they appear. At Brenchley in the Western Weald, near Tonbridge, the most strikingly picturesque item - - ---is- the -"Qld-Pa-lace "--{-Plate_28) ,_ a_lo_ng row of timber-framed ------buildings with jet tied upper-sto.reys, at first glance dating fro.m anything between 1500 and 1650. In fact, barely a timber is o.ld and the gables were added c. 1890 (4), and o.n clo.ser inspectio.n, the perfect pro.po.rtio.ns o.f the bargebo.ards and the timber-framing reveal that it is basically a fake despite the good quality o.f the peg ti les. Mo.ving o.n into. Sussex, which is bro.adly divided into. two. main areas fo.r building purpo.ses, the clays and sandsto.nes o.f the Weald and the chalk o.f the So.uth Do.wns, it is sufficient for this brief survey to. state that the Wealden architecture o.f East Sussex do.es no.t differ markedly fro.m that o.f Kent. Ho.wever, there are some excellent examples o.f brick and tilewo.rk, no.tably "Rampyndene", an elegant, William and Mary style ho.use at Burwash (Plate 29). Apparently this was built in 1699 by a timber merchant and is timbe~-framed, the brick masking this fro.m the o.utside (5) as was fashio.nable in the case o.f rich men's ho.uses built fro.m about 1650 o.nwards. The chimney stacks excellently display the transfo.rmatio.n o.f the curved clusters o.f many flues that were popular in earlier periods to. a rectangular and mo.re elegant design, with lo.ng sunk panels and a bo.ldly pro.jecting co.rnice. Flint is to. be fo.und in the buildings of the South Downs in East Sussex, although the proximity of good brickworks at Lower Dicker and Uckfield is indicated by the Wealden style tiled roofs that still predominate even here. Cottages at Glynde, near Lewes display walls of flint and a roof of Kent/Sussex peg tiles (Plate 30). 83 Plate 28. "Old Palace" at Brenchley, Kent. Plate 29. "Rampyndene" at Burwash, East Sussex. 84 • Plate 30. Flint cottages at Glynde . East Sussex. Plate 31. Flint buildings at Lewes. East Sussex. 85 This brings me to Lewes, the county town of East Sussex and one of the most architecturally varied towns in the whole of England. Lying among the South Downs and with streets sloping steeply down to ------bothS-ldes~~()C~tne-Rive r-OuseT-i~ts-hHly-char actecs~e_tLi ------ts bui Id ings------off to good advantage. Flint, timber-framing, a varied assortment of many-hued bricks and tiles, slates, plaster fronting and Regency stucco are all represented in this small town of 15,000 inhabitants (Plates 31-35). The overall effect is Georgian but there are some good examples of seventeenth century and earlier buildings, many with jetties, whilst the bow windows and curved dimensions of the Regency period (early 1800s) fronting older buildings possibly reveal the town's fashion consciousness, with Brighton lying only eight miles to the south-west (Plate 36). Brick tiles were a Georgian invention and Lewes probably has more than any town in England (Plate 37), the coastal regions of Sussex and Kent being the areas where they are most commonly seen (6). Moreover, they were not particularly cheap, their chief purpose being to keep up with fashion (7) and not to avoid the Brick Tax of 1784, to which they were also liable (8). Furthermore, the attractive, black-glazed tiles of both Lewes and Brighton which were developed at the end of the eighteenth century were abandoned for stucco a few years later (9). The domestic architecture of West Sussex differs somewhat from that of East Sussex in both the Weald and the South Downs regions. Horsham slabs and reed thatch are common roofing materials, the former being used in Wealden areas close to the borders with East Sussex. My account of the "Market Place" at the Weald and Downland Museum in Chapter 3 refers. Thatch is common in almost every down land village, along with flint, chalk lump, and sandstone; 86 Plate 32. Grey and red brickwork at Lewes, East Sussex. plate 33. Slate-hanging at Lewes, East Sussex. 87 Plate 34. Half-timbering and plaster fronts at Lewes , East Sussex . Plate 35 . Regency stucco and bow windows at Lewes , East sussex. 88 Plate 36. Bow windows among the shop fronts at Lewes , East Sussex. Plate 37. Black-glazed tiles at Lewes , East Sussex. 89 whilst 'small' or 'square' timber-framing begins to appear as one travels westwards, either in the South Downs or the Weald. "Pendean", also at the aforementioned museum is a good example of this. The villages of Burpham and Amberley, near Arundel, which lie in the South Downs close to the Weald, display good exampies of west Sussex architecture revealing a marked difference from that of Kent and East Sussex both in Wealden type (Plates 38 and 39) where the roofs are less sweeping, and in downland cottages (Plates 40-43) which display the variety of stone beneath the surface in this part of Sussex. A large crop of sandstone lies in the Petworth/Midhurst areas a few miles to the north-west. Finally, note the design of a number of chimney stacks in these photographs. As with 'small framing', the brick encasing with square holes on the chimney stacks for the smoke to escape is a design commonly seen in the South and West of England; not in the East or South-East. It is yet another sign that one is travelling west of London, these chimneys being a feature of many Dorset, Wiltshire and Devon villages. In Hampshire the brick is almost as red as that of some areas of the West Midlands, the excellent clays around Southampton Water supplying the local brickworks (10), notably at Southampton and Fareham, with raw material from Elizabethan times onwards. Good, red brick, Georgian architecture exists in many towns, of which the county town of Winchester is a good example (Plate 44). Elsewhere, the most characteristic building material is thatch and to illustrate this, I have chosen the Test valley area near Andover rather than ·the more celebrated New Forest since the latter area ., rather. falsifies its vernacular styles to a 'chocolate box' effect. Wherwell has some of the most characteristic examples of Hampshire's wheat straw thatching _and ..also displays some .good _'sJIlal1 framing' .as 90 Pl ate 38 . Wealden hou s e near Burpham , West Sussex . Plate 39 . Wealden house with thatched roof and ' large framing' at Amberley , West Sussex. 91 Plate 40. Cottage of sandstone at Amberley, West Sussex. Plate 41. Chalk lump, brick and 'small framing' at Amberley, West Sussex. 92 Plate 42. Flint and chalk lump at Amberley , West Sussex. Plate 43 . Thatch , flint and sandstone at Amberley , West Sussex. 93 Plate 44. Georgian red brick at Winchester , Hants . Plate 45. Thatch at Wherwell, Hants. 94 well (Plates 45 and 46). Apart from the clays of the coastal plain, and the sandy areas of the north-east and the New Forest in the south-west, much of Hampshire consi'st'S-of-cha-l-k-downJ.and_whic.h fans out across the county from the North and South Downs in the east to Salisbury Plain in the west. Flint from the chalk is a common building material but since it is used in conjunction with brick, it is not as noticeable here as in the South Downs, However, a journey westwards to Salisbury plain and along the Wylye valley in Wiltshire to the villages of Steeple Langford and Hanging Langford reveals an increasing use of flint as a building material displaying some attractive patterning in linear or chequerboard fashions alternating with the local limestone which is creeping in from the main oolitic belt a few miles to the west. Moreover, since brick from the clays.is only a few miles back to the east, this area display a striking combination of all of these materials, chalk lump or clunch also being used for building purposes (Plates 47-49), The villages of Wylye and Codford St.Peter are a few miles further west up the valley and display good use of the oolite (Plates 50· and 51) which probably came from the once famous quarries of Chilmark, five miles to the south-west which yielded oolites with a finely-grained, sandy texture (11), Wiltshire is geologically very complex, not only in the Wylye valley but throughout the county with the jurassic/oolitic limestone belt running vertically down its western fringes, clays in the east and far north, whilst chalk crosses the central area vertically with a small belt of greensand., and again horizontally over the northern areas in the form of the Marlborough Downs which also harbours boulders of a strange ·sarid~tone known as 'sarsens' which are_also 95 Plate 46. Thatch and ' small framing ' at Wherwell , Hants. Plate 47. Linear patterning in flint and stone at Hanging Langford , Wilts. 96 Plate 48. Chequer board patterning in flint and stone at Steeple Langford , Wilts. •J Plate 49. Cottages of stone , brick and chalk lump at Hanging Langford, Wilts. 97 Plate 50. Oolite limestone at Wylye , Wilts. Plate 51. Thatch and oolite at Codford St. Peter , Wilts. 98 used for building purposes in this area. Their primary claim to fame, however, is their use in stone circles, notably Avebury Ring and some of the stones which make up Stonehenge (12). ------'I-f-Wt-l·&sh.i.r;e-.is_g.e9log~y complex, Dor set is even more so, with the belts of limestone, sandstone and chalk running very close together, the Purbeck limestone in the south-east yielding marble and gypsum, and also oil from the cliffs at Kimmeridge Bay! Added to this; there are also clay deposits in the east and unworked coal measures in the west. The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME), which has so far provided little with regard to vernacular architecture on any of the counties reviewed in this survey of South and South-east England, with the exception of a volume on the city of Salisbury and a review of certain buildings of this region in Mercer's English Vernacular Architecture, has produced five excellent volumes on Dorset. Unfortunately, time and space do not permit a thorough research of this county. I will therefore limit my survey to the town of Shaftesbury in the north, and the villages of Winterbourne Stick land and Milton Abbas in the central area. Many of the buildings in the High Street of Shaftesbury date only from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and some of the shop fronts are Victorian, masking earlier buildings (Plates 52 and 53). Even the much photographed cottages on Gold Hill (Plate 54) date only from the eighteenth century and are two-storeyed, mainly with rubblestone walls and tiled roofs (13). Stone slates appear on the roof of the third and fourth cottages whilst that of the ninth is thatched, and some of the walls are lime-washed. Shaftesbury stands on the edge of the limestone belt in North Dorset and although the view down Gold Hi1lover the Vale of Blackmore is 99 Plate 52. Nineteenth century shop fronts at Shaftesbury, Dorset. Plate 53. Eighteenth and nineteenth century shop fronts at Shaftesbury, Dorset. 100 Plate 54. Cottages on Gold Hill , Shaftesbury , Dorset . Plate 55. Thatched cottages of flint, brick and cob at Winterbourne Stickland , Dorset. 101 picturesque, few of the buildings here or elsewhere in the town are of any particular architectural merit or show distinctive examples of the building materials hereabouts. ------__~W~n~~~bouLn~~Lickland lies about twenty miles south of Shaftesbury in a predominantly chalk region between Dorchester and Blandford Forum in Central Dorset. Good clays lie a few miles to the east and south and there are reed beds that are suitable to provide the raw material for thatching at Radipole (14) about fifteen miles to the southwest. All of this provides the ingredients for a typical Dorset village of thatch-roofed cottages with cob walls made from unbaked earth mixed with chalk to provide a strong base (15) and Winterbourne Stickland is no exception (Plate 55). Dorset is a small county and the Devon border is not too far to the west at this pOint, South Devon having an extremely large number of thatch and cob bUildings. Some cottages in the village are of flint and brick which relates to both the chalk and the clays hereabouts, and also creates a domestic style of building which bears a resemblance to that of Wiltshire, Hampshire, and even Sussex (Plate 55). It is villages like this that indicate to the traveller that he or she is on the border of Southern England and the West Country. Three miles further west lies the eighteenth century estate village of Milton Abbas which materialised from one of the most blatant acts of aristocratic self-indulgence upon record. Alongside the Benedictine abbey of Milton, a small town had developed. In the 1770s, Lord Milton, who later became the Earl of Dorchester, decided to build himself a mansion alongside the abbey church and to destroy the town piecemeal as the leases on the houses ran out. In its place, ~e created-an·-ornamental park .and pleasure grounds whilst his 102 architect planned a model village nearby (16). It was built in 1780 and consists of two rows of two-storeyed, thatch-roofed, cob-walled cottages equally spaced along a village street with broad grass verges, and set i"rra-wQ()ded-\la-l-le¥--(.!Ua~5.6J_. Each cottage is of a rectangular plan with front elevations comprising a central doorway with a transomed two-light casement window on each side, and three two-light windows on the first floor (17) (Plate 57). Despite the manner of its creation, however, the effect is most pleasing, not least because of the setting, and the use of local materials in the vernacular style of Dorset. Since any journey west of here would lead out of the South of England and into the West Country, it now remains for the traveller to head back north-eastwards across Wiltshire and into the Thames valley basin in Berkshire and South Oxfordshire, an area which is generally devoid of good building stone despite the chalk down land thereabouts. However, it is in this region that one encounters a most attractive type of brickwork which consists of a blend of warm red and silvery grey bricks which grace many eighteenth century buildings in towns such as Newbury, Wallingford and Abingdon. Newbury is an interesting example, for although it was very nearly ruined when it became an overspill town for London in the 1970s, care seems to have been taken in many places to preserve its Georgian atmosphere and good examples of. this style of brickwork are to be seen above the modern shop fronts (Plates 58 and 59). Apparently, the grey bricks are produced in varying quantities in different parts of Southern England but are seen at their best in Berkshire and Oxfordshire where examples may be encountered from Thame to Hungerford (18). Between Newbury and O~ford ~re a succession of villages. 103 Plate 56. The eighteenth century estate village of Milton Abbas , Dorset. Plate 57 . Cottages at Milton Abbas , Dorset . 104 Plate 58. Grey and red brickwork at Newbury , Berks . Plate 59. Eighteenth century brickwork above modern shops at Newbury , Berks. 105 displaying excellent examples of 'small' or 'square' timber-framing alternating with good plasterwork or brick-nogging,. and also tile hanging. One of the best of these is East Hagbourne (Plates 60-62), former ly in Berkslfrre-bu·t-now-i-nGorcpoLated_into the new oxfordshire. The village also displays a well-restored example of brick-nogging in the 'herringbone' style (Plate 62). A few miles north of here and just south of Oxford lies another estate village which had similar origins to that of Milton Abbas. It was built in 1764 by the first Lord Harcourt, a prodigious builder who thought nothing of pulling down the old village of Newnham Courtenay which was too close to the manor house which he occupied. He demolished both and re-designed his new house in park like surroundings (19). The village, which was renamed Nuneham Courtenay, is composed of two rows of evenly-spaced, red brick, dormered cottages, complete with trees and grass verges (plate 63). As with Milton Abbas, the vernacular style of the region is acknowledged, but unlike that village, the setting is spoiled by the loud, unending traffic of the main road from Reading to Oxford despite the apparent serenity of the scene in my photograph! Dormered cottages abound in the Thames valley region and extend into the wooded Chilterns in Buckinghamshire where, again, the bricks and tiles are of good quality from the clays that intermingle with the chalk and there is much half-timbering, as at Little Missenden (Plates 64 and 65), whilst the Georgian elegance is again reflected in the main streets of local towns such as Amersham (Plate 66) . The Central Pennines and adjacent areas The review of the Central Pennines will concentrate on vernacular 106 Plate 60 . ' Small framing ' at East Hagbourne , Berks. --- Plate 61. Tile-hanging , ' small framing' and thatch at East Hagbourne , Berks . 107 Plate 62. ' Herringbone' style of brick-nogging at East Hagbourne, Berks. Plate 63. The eighteenth century estate village of Nuneham Courtenay, Oxon. 108 Plate 64. Half-timbered cottages with dormer windows at Little Missenden, Bucks. Plate 65. Brick cottages with dormer windows at Little Missenden, Bucks. 109 Plate 66. Georgian elegance at Amersham , Bucks. Plate 67. House built of York stone near HUddersfield, W. R. Yorks. 110 architecture in the gritstone moors of the West Riding before moving up beyond the Aire gap to the carboniferous limestone areas of the Yorkshire Dales in the West and North Ridings. Areas to the east of this general region will also be briefly mentioned as and when necessary, and the whole of this section will be in Yorkshire. The yellowish-white sandstone known as York stone comes from the coal measures which lie in the foothills to the east of the Pennines and can be seen in architecture of all ages over much of the West Riding south of the Aire Gap, particularly in the area bounded by Bradford to the north, Sheffield to the south, Halifax to the west and Barnsley to the east. York stone is much sought after as a building material on account of its hardness and durability for walls. For roofing, however, it is less suitable since it holds too much moisture (20). However, its solid quality was seen to resist chimney smoke and petrol fumes and ensured its continued use from the nineteenth century onwards. It was used in the building of the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet at Sheffield (Chapter 3 refers), and is particularly noticeable in the Huddersfield area (Plate 67). It is quarried extensively from just south of Leeds to Chesterfield in North Derbyshire. A rash of smooth, red, manufactured bricks dominates the urban scene in the Leeds and Wakefield area"s despite the choice of good building stone nearby. This was a product of nineteenth century industrialisation and much of South Lancashire and the North-east suffered the same fate. However, to the west of Halifax, the York stone is replaced by millstone grit which was used to build the Pennine farms and cottages prior to the Industrial Revolution and the mill towns of this part of the West Riding, East Lancashire, and also the High Peak of Derbyshire from the late eighteenth century 111 onwards. It is in these areas, particularly, that the Industrial Revolution did not force a break with vernacular building styles. The early years of the Industrial Revolution had Ittle effect ------on-Heploons.t;all-whiclLLs an excellently preserved example of a Pennine textile village before the factory system took over. The village began to decline from the early 1800s when mills were built along the valley of the Calder below the village and the settlements of Hebden Bridge and Sowerby Bridge began to develop as industrial communities. There are a number of eighteenth century weavers' cottages in the village which are characterised by the provision of a large window area, since good lighting was an essential feature of a workroom. From about 1750 onwards, narrow, multi-light and grouped windows were provided, not only in the clothiers' houses and workshops but also in the small cottages. These are characteristic in the Colne, Holme and Calder valleys (21) (Plates 68 and 69). The dark grey gritstone used for building is characterised by the solid rectangular quality of each slab, thereby creating a uniformity in the architecture of the district. Back-to-back houses are also a feature of Heptonstall and the surrounding area, and some of the extended ledges at the gable ends have embellishments (Plate 70) whilst other cottages have Venetian windows, one of the hall-marks of Palladian architecture (Plate 71). Even as early as 1750, some workers' houses were built with four or more storeys, although none in Heptonstall are like this. Many of the tenement buildings of this type tend to lie in the valley areas, as at Luddenden (Plate 72) and Hebden Bridge. Also in Luddenden is "Kershaw House" (Plate 73), dated 1650, an exceptionally good example of its date, gabled with transomed windows of·manylights, grouped .. in threes j22) with embellishments 112 Plate 68. Grouped multi-light windows on workers ' cottages at Heptonstall , W. R. Yorks. Plate 69. Workers' cottages at Heptonstall, W. R. Yorks. 113 Plate 70 . Embellishment on a gable end at Heptonstal l , W. R. Yorks. Plate 71. Venetian windows at Heptonsta11 , W. R. Yorks. 114 Plate 72. Tenements at Luddenden, W. R. Yorks. Plate 73. "Kershaw House" at Luddenden, W. R. Yorks. 115 on the gables, a characteristic of the Pennine areas of Yorkshire and Lancashire south of the Aire Gap, and also of many sixteenth and seventeenth century noblemen's houses in the Peak District of Derbysnl~r~e'.~------______ Many Pennine hill farms are good examples of the 'long house' encountered at the Ryedale Folk Museum (Chapter 3 refers). A good example of one on the moors between Hebden Bridge and Haworth clearly displays the living quarters in one half whilst the other half is reserved for the housing of animals and the storage of crops and hay as indicated by the high, arched door (plate 74). Between Keighley and Skipton, the Aire Gap separates the millstone grit Pennines from the carboniferous limestone Pennines which compose the Yorkshire Dales. Here, the dark, gritstone buildings are replaced by the light, bluish-grey, limestone buildings that are characteristic of the Dales. As with the millstone grit, this stone is good for building the complete house including the roof and chimney stacks, although, unlike that material, it does not readily lend itself to ornamentation since its resistance to the chisel makes undercutting difficult and detailed carving out of character (23). Whereas the sometimes intricate detail of the dark, gritstone buildings lends character to the bleakness of the pennine moorlands around Haworth and Heptonstall, the unadorned, grey, limestone buildings of the Yorkshire Dales blend in with the ubiquitous, bare, stone crags from which they were fashioned. Prior to the eighteenth century, most farmsteads in the Dales followed the traditional," North Country 'long house' style of building with the barns or 'shippons', as they are known in this region, forming part of the farmhouse. After that period, however, 116 Plate 74. Pennine hill farm in the ' long house ' style near Haworth , W. R. Yorks. Plate 75. Georgian farmhouse at Starbotton, Wharfedale, W. R. Yorks. 117 many farmhouses took on a distinctively Georgian appearance with high, square fronts, sash windows, semi-circular windows above the doors and ashlar stone blocks as weatherproofing around the doors ______and windows (Plate 75). Some of the larger ones have a tall, arched window either above the door and facing the stairway (Plate 76) or as a source of light at the side of the building and this characteristic is also found in other parts of Yorkshire. The simple elegance of these buildings adds charm and distinction to the wildness of the landscape and the enormous breadth of their structure lends a solid appearance which is characteristic of North Country buildings. The barns were separate from these farmhouses and followed a distinctive design which is characteristic of all Dales barns. These are detached stone buildings in the fields which provide winter accommodation for a small number of- cows and younger stock. Hay for their feed was stored in the loft above, rationed out daily and the cows milked daily at the barn. Manure was returned to the nearby fields which yielded the hay (24). The barns developed as solid structures with sweeping roofs and slightly overhanging eaves giving an Alpine appearance (Plates 77 and 78) which, on some, is further emphasised by a barn door in the shape of a.flattened arch. This characteristic is also found on some farmhouses and other farm buildings (Plate 79) whilst another feature that is peculiar to this region and also reinforces the continental appearance is the flight of steps up to a hayloft and forming a quaSi gallery to the house itself (Plate 80) although this becomes far more common as one travels westwards from here into the Lakeland region where this type of gallery forms a traditional part of the 'long house' pattern. The Yorkshire Dales form .one.. of England~s.tourist re.gion_s and ll8 Plate 76. Arched window on a farmhouse at Keld , Swaledale , N. R. Yorks. Plate 77. Typical barn of the Yorkshire Dales. 119 Plate 78. Close-up of a Dales barn. Plate 79. Barn door on a farmhouse at Askrigg , Wensleydale , N. R. Yorks. 120 Plate 80. Courtyard showing flight of steps to hayloft at Starbotton , Wharfedale , W. R. Yorks . Plate 81 . Lime-washed building at Starbotton , Wharfedale , W. R. Yorks. 121 its distinctive architecture is preserved in the same way as that of the Cotswolds by the local authorities not allowing buildings that are out of character with the environment to be constructed, or indeed, any glaringly bad restoration of existing buildings. Local building materials must therefore be used, and in some parts of the Dales, particularly the Northern areas, these include a local, carboniferous sandstone which is similar in appearance to the limestone, but has a slightly rougher hewn quality. Consequently, this area is particularly rich in rural architecture that is generally typical of the uplands of the North of England and gives a good general overview of the period 1600-1800 within this particular type. Similar styles are also found in the Pennines further north in Durham and Northumberland, although the building material of these regions is mainly a hard, carboniferous sandstone which is slightly darker and much greyer than the limestone of the Dales. White, lime-washed walls, apparently a deliberate policy on the Raby estates, appear on some of the more important buildings in the Dales villages, mainly the inns and hotels, (Plate 81) probably to distinguish them from the other buildings as well as to provide further insulation against damp and cold. Again, this characteristic is seen more frequently in the Lakeland region where it occurs.on buildings of all types and different colour washes are sometimes used. Perhaps the relative proximity of the Yorkshire Dales to the wetter regions of the west coast may account for this custom since it is also applied in Lancashire, Cheshire, North Wales and West Scotland. The market town of Richmond at the eastern end of Swaledale in the North Riding lies close to several geographical regions and .. accordingly.displays ..a vax..iety o(.pui~cling materials within its , 122 architecture which, as with many prosperous rural towns, is again mainly Georgian. Its enormous cartwheel of a market place displays a wide range of buildings, although the details of many .are masked under modern shop fronts and there are a few Victorian and twentieth century additions, albeit sensitive ones. However, this is a most picturesque and interesting town with a fascinating roofscape seen at its best from the castle or from the church tower, both of which were closed when I arrived.' The view from some of the higher areas of the town gives some impression of its variety (Plate 82) despite some bad restoration, and the view from the bridge indicates something of the range of regional building materials that exist in the town (Plate 83). Autumnal colours are displayed in the roofing patterns of sandstone slabs from the Northern Dales and West Durham Moors; red pantiles from the Vale of York, East Riding and the North York Moors; and Welsh slates obviously imported in the nineteenth century, and indicating that the industrial areas of Darlington and Teeside are not too far away. A similar colour blending is created with walls of local, grey sandstone; limewashed walls from the Dales and the North-west; and the occasional wall of red or brown brick from the Vale of York. TO travel much further north from Richmond would mean leaving Yorkshire and entering Durham. Westwards from the town lie the Dales, and eastwards, the low, undulating country of the Vale of York followed by the chalk hills of the Wolds which reach the coast at Flamborough Head. Moving from Richmond into the Vale, we cross the intangible divide that runs from the Northern Home Counties to Perthshire in Scotland, east of which the pantile reigns supreme as the most common roofing material. Architecture to the north-east, ...in .the North. York. Moor.s.region .display.s )ohese roofs to_good. ef~ect. 123 Plate 82. Roofs at Richmond, Swaledale, N. R. Yorks. Plate 83. Houses at Richmond, Swaledale, N. R. Yorks. 124 Plate 84. Pantiled roofs and stone walls at Thornton-Ie-Dale , N. R. Yorks. Plate 85. Hill farm on the North York Moors. 125 in contrast with walls of golden limestone (Plate 84) in similar vein to the workshops at the Ryedale Folk.Museum (Chapter 3 refers); whilst some hill farms still display the original roofing material of thatch which brings the cruck-framed 'long houses' of the Museum to mind (Plate 85). Further south in the Wolds, the architecture is surprisingly varied for although brown, York brick, plaster and limewashed fronts and red, pantiled roofs dominate the scene, the main limestone belt of England which is invisible in these high, chalk hills brings itself to notice in the architecture of occasional villages such as Langton (Plate 86); whilst the nearby village of Warter displays a Home Counties style of plaster walls and thatched roofs with dormer windows (Plate 87), although I suspect that these are early nineteenth century and belong to the 'picturesque' period of vernacular revival from 1750-1850 which had a tendency to ignore local building styles. Finally, the area of the East Riding which lies south of the Wolds displays the Eastern England characteristics of flat landscapes and wide fields. Brick for walls and red pantiles for roofs are the main building materials hereabouts and the villages and small towns display a Georgian elegance that is similarly witnessed in Eastern counties such as Lincolnshire and Norfolk (Plate 88). East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk) East Anglia is separated from the Midlands by the vast areas·of fenland which constitute much of South Lincolnshire and North Cambridgeshire, and from the northern Home Counties by the range of chalk hills coming up from the South of England across the" Tham"s" 126 Plate 86. Limestone cottages at Langton , E. R. Yorks. Plate 87. Thatched cottages at Warter , E. R. Yorks. 127 Plate 88. Georgian elegance at Howden , E. R. Yorks. Plate 89. Dutch gables at King ' s Lynn , Norfolk. 128 valley and over the Chilterns. After the billiard board ~latness of the Fens and the marshes around the Wash, the eastern parts of which are in Norfolk, the country rises a little beyond King's Lynn as it reaches the far north-eastern point of the chalk belt known as the East Anglian Heights which consist of gently undulating country of a plateau nature rather than hills as such. This landscape makes up much of northern and western Norfolk and merges almost imperceptibly with the clays and alluvia of the central and eastern parts of the county. The review of vernacular architecture of Norfolk will need to be selective due to its huge size (seventy miles from east to west and fifty miles from north to south), but although there is a wide variety of architectural styles within its boundaries, the review will concentrate on the basic patterns of domestic building which are not too numerous to relate here. Starting from the west" therefore, I will begin with the decayed seaport of King's Lynn and then review the architecture of the western, central and southern regions using a selection of villages and small towns in these areas. The once prosperous port of King's Lynn declined in importance during the early years of the Industrial Revolution, having been one of England's busiest ports serving the Ouse and its tributaries with wine, coal, timber from Norway and whale-oil from Greenland in exchange for the export of wool and cloth. It is predominantly of Georgian brick and contains some unique buildings of that period together with a sprinkling of well-preserved examples of buildings from earlier periods. Like many towns of Eastern England, its architecture has been influenced by that of the Low Countries which 129 century. The ornate Dutch gables with their sweeps and curves, and the crow-stepped Flemish gables pay witness to this (Plates 89 and 90) . Some buildings in King's Lynn have features rarely seen in England, for example, the Georgian-fronted "Clifton House" has a portal decorated with barley-sugar columns (Plate 91). However, the most distinctive building in the town is the Customs House of 1683. Designed by Henry Bell, it was originally built as a Corn Exchange. It is constructed of stone which probably came from the limestone belt near Peterborough, about forty miles to the west, and stands on its own by the quay in splendid isolation. Its mathematical elegance is created with five by four bays with two orders of pilasters, Doric below, ionic above. The hipped roof with dormer windows carry alternating triangular and segmental pediments. There is a top balustrade surmounted by a tall lantern, cruciform below, with pedimented, arched little openings, octagonal above. The ground floor is partly arched, and was originally open to the street (25) (Plate 92). The jurassic clays around the Fens have probably provided King's Lynn with much of the brick and roofing tiles used for its buildings. Elsewhere in Norfolk, the primary roofing material is the ubiquitous pantile which although usually orange in colour, can also appear in black, brown, red or even yellow. In England, building styles have usually been determined by geology, but other factors have also influenced these. Trade with Holland brought a regular import of pantiles from the seventeenth century onwards. Eventually, pantiles began to be made in England and the first company to do so was at Tilbury in Essex at the turn of the __ eighteenth_ century_J26J_. The fashion for them grew along the east 130 Plate 90. Crow-stepped, Flemish gables at King ' s Lynn , Norfolk. Plate 91. "Clifton House" at King's Lynn, Norfolk. 131 I Plate 92. The Customs House at King ' s Lynn , Norfolk. Plate 93 . Cottages of carstone , flint and brick at Flitcham, Norfolk. l 132 side of Britain during the Georgian period, particularly in Norfolk where they are seen at their best. East of King's Lynn, the domestic architecture is one of flint- ______-.:waJledbui ldings with roofs of orange pantiles. The chalk belt provides the flint and after a few miles crosses a narrow belt of Lower Greensand which produces the peculiar 'gingerbread' carstone which is seen on some of the buildings in the Sandringham and Hunstanton areas. Cottages at Flitcham (Plate 93) display flint, brick and carstone with pantiled roofs. A few miles to the west of Fakenham lies yet another estate village built in the same linear pattern as Milton Abbas in Dorset and Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire. The village of New Houghton was one of the first of its kind to be built and was designed for Sir Robert Walpole's tenants in 1729 (27). At first Sight, the houses do not appear to have any links with the vernacular architecture of Norfolk. However, the black roofs are of pantiles and the buildings have a vaguely Georgian appearance although only their severely square shape and high fronts pay witness to this. The roofs are pyramidal surmounted by large chimney stacks of brick, painted white. The walls are similarly attired (Plate 94). All in all, East Houghton is not the best example of an estate village which retains vernacular features in common with the local region, but having said that, it does not constitute a complete break with local style. If flint dominates the architecture of North and West Norfolk, mellow red brick and white plaster are the most noticeable building materials in the centre of the county, east of Swaffham and around Dereham, as the country gently slides away from the chalk. Georgian ···fronts-predominate. in this. region.and_ t]1e .attrac_tiv~ little town of 133 Plate 94. The eighteenth century estate village of New Houghton, Nor folk. Plate 95. Georgian houses at Hingham, Norfolk. 134 Hingham displays these to good effect (Plate 95). Those buildings to the east of the Green known as the-·Market Place" are especially fine (Plate 96). The red brick "Beaconsfield House" is early Georgian, of three bays with giant pilasters and a parapet, "Admiral's House" has embattled wings, and the plaster-fronted "Quorn House" is of fi ve bays, wi th a one-bay pediment and a Tuscan porch (28). Elegantly curved Dutch gables adorn some of the houses in the town (Plate 97) and much Flemish bond brickwork is displayed. To the south and east of this area as one approaches the Suffolk border, the plaster fronts display colour wash in some brightly coloured tints, and thatch-roofed cottages and small farmhouses begin to appear on. the scene. Georgian buildings are still very common but buildings from earlier periods grace the villages and towns whilst some of the farmhouses have elaborate chimney stacks. All of these features are more characteristic of Suffolk than of Norfolk and become more apparent upon moving southwards through that county. Suffolk, like Norfolk, has the chalk belt covering much of the western part of the county, leaving the clays and alluvia to the east. Not surprisingly, flint from the chalk is used in vernacular building, particularly in the Breckland areas around Brandon, a flint-knapping centre that goes back centuries. However, in Suffolk, flint buildings are not as widespread, numerous or varied in their patterning as _they are in Norfolk and a number of other materials, for example, white bricks from the gault clays around Woolpit in Central Suffolk, red/orange bricks from the Stour valley and a variety of plaster fronting and colour-wash diffuses the effect of the flint. Timber-framing is considerably more noticeable _in Suffolk than_in _Norfolk.; an. 135 Plate 96. "Beaconsfield House", "Admiral's House" and "Quorn House" (right to left) at Hingham, Norfolk. Plate 97. Dutch gables at Hingham, Norfolk. 136 proportion of thatched roofs than any other English county (29). With this information alone, it may be ascertained that, as far as vernacular architecture is concerned, Suffolk is a far more varied county than Norfolk, and indeed that is the case, for what has been briefly discussed here is merely the tip of an iceberg. Although Suffolk has relatively few natural building materials to hand, and almost no local stone, its vernacular architecture ranks as one of the most' varied, picturesque, and intricately detailed in the whole of Britain. As one would expect, however, this characteristic does not make itself immediately apparent upon entering the northern part of the county from Norfolk. Villages and small towns in North Suffolk still have a large number of mellow, red brick, Georgian houses with pantiled roofs, and several with plaster fronts and flint dressings. As one approaches the middle of the county, however, the variety increases and small towns such as Debenham (plates 98-100) display a wide variety of architectural styles raging from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. There is a greater variety of colours on the plaster fronts, jettied storeys from the sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries begin to break the uniformity of the Georgian streets of a few miles further north, whilst the orange blaze of pantiles which is a regular part of the Norfolk scene is subdued by the increasing appearance of small, mellow roofing tiles of a kind not unlike the Kent/Sussex peg tile. The steep pitch of some of the roofs indicates that they were once thatched and the inhabitants of a seventeenth century farmhouse with a pantiled roof at Pettaugh, nearby; (Plate 101) have a painting of their house which was done during the nineteenth century and shows that the roof was thatChed . . .Theevidence _fQrthis~ more ~ppar~nt when viewed from the back for 137 Plate 98. Pantiles and peg tiles at Debenham, Suffolk Plate 99. Houses at Debenham, Suffolk. 138 Plate 100. Colour wash at Debenham, Suffolk. Plate 101. Front view of a farmhouse at Pettaugh, Suffolk. 139 this aspect reveals a quasi detached chimney with external flue, and a steeply pitched roof approaching the 'catslide' variety (Plate 102). South of Stowmarket, the beauty and variety of the domestic architecture really comes into its own, and the southern half of the county along with North Essex, South-East Cambridgeshire and East Hertfordshire contain some of the most architecturally pictureque villages and small towns in the whole of the country. Good Georgian building is still in evidence, as at Bildeston, where, On the east. side of the market square, there is a red brick house of seven bays with an open pediment over the door and a venetian window immediately above on the second storey (Plate 103). This contrasts sharply but not unpleasantly with the green, plaster-fronted house with a gable end and a dog tooth form of gothic decoration under the eaves, and the clustered chimney stack of the the next building, both of which appear to date· from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Contrasts of colour and texture which blend beautifully together appear everywhere in this part of the county and streets of both village and town frequently display a rainbow of colours that is unequalled in any other part of the country, as at Kersey (Plate 104) and Lavenham (Plate 105). Along the country lanes and in the cornfields, thatched cottages of all shapes and ages appear in surprisingly large numbers and their plaster fronts display varying shades of pink, yellow, peach, cream and coffee, to mention some of the more popular colours (Plates 106-108). Both wheat straw and reed are used, with the numerous fields, river valleys and tidal estuaries supplying these materials, although I suspect that much of the reed comes from the Norfolk Broads. This is considered to be 140 Plate 102. Rear view of the same farmhouse at Pettaugh, Suffolk. Plate 103. Georgian red brick and green plaster-fronting at Bildeston, Suffolk. 141 Plate 104. Colour washed plaster over timber-framing at Kersey, Suffolk. r Plate 105. Colour washed plaster over timber-framing at Lavenham, Suffolk. 142 Plate 106. Thatch and colour wash at Chelsworth, Suffolk. III 1IIII Plate 107. Thatch and colour wash at Chelsworth, Suffolk. 143 Plate 108 . Thatch and colour wash at Brent Eleigh , Suffolk. Plate 109. Merchant's houses at Lavenham, Suffolk. 144 ------ the best quality material for thatching and if well and closely laid it lasts sixty, eighty and, in a few rare cases, even as much as a hundred years (30). It is difficult to ascertain when colour wash became fashionable in Suffolk. Certainly, during the period, 1600-1800, it would have been easily produced by mixing water with lime from the chalk thereabouts in order to create limewash. The colours would then have been obtained by applying various chemicals from the soil, which are nowadays commercially produced. As with the Weald of Kent and 'Sussex, ·the large number of oak trees provided a good source of material for timber-framing during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and with the wide variety of good quality bricks that became available from Tudor times onwards, much timber framing was faced over during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is also possible that colour wash, along with brick, also became fashionable during this time when wealthy owners may have wished to update the appearance of their property along with that of the homes of their tenants. Nevertheless, the intricate richness and variety of the architecture in this region has its origins in the Suffolk wool trade Which developed during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to decline by the eighteenth. It.was based in the south of the county in the villages of Kersey, Lavenham and Long Melford, to name but three places. Consequently these villages have a large number of sixteenth and seventeenth century merchant's houses, many of which with their 'close studded' timbered fronts, sweeping peg tiled roofs and large chimney stacks would not look out of place in the Wealden villages of the South-East (Plate 109), only here, the timbering is thinner, the colour wash brighter and more varied, and 145 there are many more gables and dormers projecting over the street fronts. Brick nogging in 'herringbone' pattern is also seen in this area and is well displayed at Brent Eleigh Hall (Plate 110). Two further points of architectural interest concern this area as regards the period of architecture from 1600-1800. Returning to the East Anglian custom of plaster fronting, in this part of Suffolk and also in North Essex and adjacent areas, the seventeenth century custom of pargeting is common. This is a term that is used to describe ornamental designs in the plaster made either by using a stick or a comb to prick out or incise patterns (Plates III and 112), or by using real plaster craftsmen to create a raised pattern in the plaster (Plate 113). The final pOint of interest concerns Suffolk chimney stacks. The county has some of the finest Tudor brickwork in England and there are a number of large houses of this period which illustrate this. However, the elaborate Tudor style, many-flued chimneys continued to appear on houses throughout the seventeenth century. "The Cliftons" at Clare (Plate 114) is late Tudor (31) and very decorative. Moreover, this style paved the way for many varieties of clustered chimneys which embellished houses of all types from the farmhouse and the town house to the cottage (Plates 115-117). Much more could be said about the vernacular architecture of this interesting county but there is nO more space here to do so. A journey south of here would lead into Essex which shares much of Suffolk's features in its architecture. However, here, weatherboarding is almost as common as in the Weald of Kent. Since Kent is the next county to the south, it.would seem that the architecture of Essex would naturally link up with that 9f Kent. Sadly, this is not the case for the area from a few miles south of 146 Plate 110. Brent Eleigh Hall, Suffolk. Plate Ill. Incised pargeting at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk. 147 Plate 112. Close-up of incised pargeting at Lavenham, Suffolk. Plate 113. Raised pargeting at Clare, Suffolk. 148 Plate 114. Tudor chimney on "The Cliftons" at Clare , Suffolk. Plate 115. Elaborate chimneys and colour wash at Clare, Suffolk. 149 Plate 116. Elaborate chimney on a farmhouse with pantiled roof at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk. Plate 117. Elaborate chimney on a gate-keeper's cottage at Glemsford, Suffolk. 150 Chelmsford to the. Thames estuary is taken up by so much 'bad building, of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that good vernacular architecture of the period 1600-1800 is hard to find. Only the yellow stock brick buildings originating from the London clays of South Essex lead us back into North Kent which furnished some of the material for the first region evaluated. Conclusion The review that I have conducted of three regions of England serves to illustrate the wealth and variety of vernacular architecture that is to be seen in England today. A review of other regions would reveal a similar variety of styles, so~e ·of which would differ from those mentioned in this chapter. on account of the geological and geographical characteristics that are peculiar to the region reviewed, together with any related historical factors. For example, the Cotswold areas of Gloucestershire and West Oxfordshire display elegant bUildings of honey-coloured, oolitic limestone that largely differ from the majority of those buildings reviewed in this chapter, as would the elaborately timbered buildings of Shropshire and Cheshire, the slate-hung cottages with .groated roofs of Cornish fishing villages, and the red sandstone cottages of the Pennine areas of Westmorland and Cumberland. Moreover, these building styles mentioned relate, in the main, to the period 1600-1800. A survey of nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings would reveal a largely different pattern in English architecture, which, although not a complete break from basic vernacular styles, would in many regions constitute a departure from the use of local building materials. An example to illustrate this point would be the area of South Lancashire, from 151 the Mersey to the Ribble, which, prior to the early l800s made use of local sandstone, timber, plaster and a warm red brick for the construction of its buildings. A visitor to South Lancashire today will need to look very carefully for evidence of this, since so much of the area is taken up with largely nineteenth century industrial towns and villages consisting of streets of terraced houses and factories built of bright -red manufactured bricks known collectively as 'Accrington Bloods' even though the town which presumably gave the brick its name is largely built of gritstone from the Pennines. England is such an architecturally complex country that it would take a lifetime to discover all that there is to see and know. REFERENCES 1. NEWMAN, John. West Kent and the Weald. 1969, pp. 23-24. 2. Ibid., p. 510. 3. Ibid., p. 511. 4. Ibid., p. 174. 5. NAIRN, Ian, & Nikolaus PEVSNER. Sussex. 1965, pp. 463-464. 6. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, Alec. The Pattern of English Building. 4th ed. 1987, p. 285. 7. Ibid., p. 282. 8. CLIFTON TAYLOR, Alec. Six More English Towns. 1981, p. 120. 9. NAIRN & PEVSNER, ref. 5, p. 17. 10. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, ref. 6, p. 218. 11. Ibid. ,_ p. 71. 12. Ibid., p. 112. 13. ROYAL COMMISSION ON HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF ENGLAND. County of Dorset. vol. 4. 1972, p. 69. 14. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, ref. 6, p. 338. 15. Ibid., p. 287. 152 16. GRIGSON, Geoffrey. English Villages in Colour. 1958, p. 34. 17. ROYAL COMMISSION ON HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF ENGLAND. County of Dorset. vo1. 3. 1970, p. 197. 18. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, ref. 6, p. 235. 19. SHERWOOD, Jennifer, & Nikolaus PEVSNER. Oxfordshire. 1974, p. 725. 20. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, reE. 6, p. 134. 21. CAFFYN, LUcy. Workers' Housing in West Yorkshire, 1750-1920. 1986, p. 13. 22. PEVSNER, Nikolaus. Yorkshire: The West Riding. 1967, p. 237. 23. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, ref. 6, p. 96. 24. WOOD, Donna, ed. AA Ordnance Survey Leisure Guide: Yorkshire Dales. 1985, p. 38. 25. PEVSNER, Nikolaus. North-West and South Norfolk. 1962, p. 231. 26. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, ref. 6, pp. 275-276. 27. COOK, Olive, & Edwin SMITH. English Cottages and Farmhouses. 1982, p. 168. 28. PEVSNER, reL 25, p. 197 29. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, ref. 6, p. 343. 30. Ibid, p. 338. 31. PEVSNER, Nikolaus. Suffolk. 2nd ed., 1974, p. 169. 153 PART III 154 Chapter 5 CONCLUSION This dissertation is an attempt to both reveal and provide an explanation for the wide variety of vernacular architecture that exists in England. It also endeavours to illustrate the fact that vernacular architecture of the.period, 1600-1800, provides a greater indication of regional styles of building than any other period of English .architecture. For the benefit of the student, or indeed of anyone wishing to. research the subject further, a critical review of a wide selection of secondary sources on English vernacular architecture and the use of local building materials has been provided in Part I. Although by no means comprehensive, it.attempts to survey a number of books containing essential material that have been produced by such well known. writers on the subject as Clifton-Taylor, Pevsner, Barley and Brunskill, together with an overview of the publications of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) and the main periodicals related to the subject, both of which contain published works that provide evidence of high quality research on English vernacular architecture. It also examines the usefulness in terms of information provided, structure, level of writing, and illustrations for those wishing to research the subject for themselves. In Part 11, I have conducted a review of primary sources, beginning with a survey of the various open air museums of vernacular architecture, examining buildings and other items relevant to the period studied. I have then focus sed my attention on three, broadly-based regions of England in an attempt to relate 155 the landscape, geology, and social history of the areas within each region to their particular style of vernacular architecture. A large number of photographs has been included in order to bring the review of primary sources to life and to provide a visual representation of architectural styles and details for the student to note when conducting an independent survey. For the person who knows little or nothing about the subject, it is hoped that the photographs, in conjunction with the text, will reveal to him or her the beauty of the styles, ~olours and variety of vernacular architecture in England, in addition to the excellent craftsmanship employed in creating these buildings. It is important, here, to mention the excellent work that is being carried out by the open air museums in this country with regard to both conservation and educational research. I have reviewed only those which relate in some way to the period, 1600- 1800, and out of these, the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum is , at present, the best of its kind in England, not only in terms of the number and quality of the buildings preserved there, but also with regard to the large number of buildings dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, thereby providing the student exploring vernacular architecture of the period, 1600-1800, with plenty of research material~ However, there are two other museums, not reviewed here, which deserve a mention since they convey the contrasting life-styles of nineteenth century communities in different parts of the country, in addition to different vernacular styles of building which still persisted in some regions until well into the nineteenth century. These are the North of England Open Air Museum at Beamish, in County Durham; and a museum that has been created out of the decayed river port of Morwellham, near Tavistock 156 in Devon, which prospered as a result of the nineteenth century tin and copper mining industries in West Devon and East Cornwall. More museums reflecting the various aspects of community life and distinctive regional styles of architecture are required in England in order to create an awareness in the population as a whole of the social history of England and its effect upon the development of vernacular architecture within the context of each region or locality. The review of the three regions of England not only attempts to reveal the immense variety of English vernacular architecture, but also endeavours to discuss a selection of the main building materials used in the. construction of buildings throughout England between 1600 and 1800. A number of examples of stone, brick, the use of timber, roofing and wall cladding are encountered and discussed in Chapter 4. Moreover, the review examines both urban and rural dwellings; industrial and agricultural buildings; farms in remote, hillside settings and those surrounded by rich, agricultural landscapes; and planned estate villages which can be both compared and contrasted with the traditional-village or small town. Furthermore, the review attempts to contrast the intricate architectural styles of the South and East of England with the plainer and more practical architectural styles of the North of the country as displayed by the solid structure of the farms and .cottages, the simple design of the 'long house' and the serried rows of workers' houses in the West Riding of Yorkshire .. It.is true that embellishments occur on these buildings as well, and the text of my review indicates this, but they are simple in comparison with the decorations on the buildings in a Suffolk village like Lavenham or a Kentish village like Smarden, whilst ancient towns such as Lewes and 157 King's Lynn reveal buildings which display even greater architectural complexities and/or variety. Other regions of England also have their oWn distinctive characteristics and neither time nor space permits a study of these. The Cotswolds, Lakeland, and 'the Peak District reveal the virtues of the many varieties of stone in their own styles of vernacular building; and the West Country displays an immense variety of regional characteristics using the countless building materials available within this small area. Finally, mention must be made of the work of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME). Apart from its many excellent publications, some of which were reviewed in Part I, it maintains a national archive of the archaeological and architectural heritage of England, providing both documentary and photographic records of listed buildings threatened with alteration Or demolition, thereby complementing the work of the open air museums as well as prov~ding public access to information housed in the National Monuments Record, and thereby enabling the student exploring English vernacular architecture to further his or her own research. 158 BIBLIOGRAPHY ACTON SCOTT WORKING FARM MUSEUM. Acton Scott Working Farm Museum Guide. Shrewsbury: Shropshire Leisure Services, 1989. ALLEN BROWN, R. East Anglia in Colour. London: Batsford, 1957. BARLEY, M.W. The English Farmhouse and Cottage. pbk ed. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1987. BLACK COUNTRY MUSEUM. Black Country Museum Guide. Manchester: A.B. Publishing & Publicity Services, 1983. BLACK COUNTRY MUSEUM. 'Jerushah': A Pit-Pulled Cottage from Gornalwood. Dudley: Black Country Museum, 1990. BORSAY, Peter, ed. The Eighteenth Century Town: A Reader in English Urban History, 1688-1820. London: Longman, 1990. BOUMPHREY, Geoffrey, ed. The Shell Guide to Britain and Northern Ireland. London: Ebury Press, 1967. BRUNSKILL, R.W. Brick Building in Britain. London: Victor' Gollancz, 1990. BRUNSKILL, R.W. Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture. London: Faber & Faber, 1970. BRUNSKILL, R.W. Traditional Buildings of Britain: An Introduction to Vernacular Architecture. London: Victor Gollancz, 1981. CAFFYN, LUcy. Workers' Housing in West Yorkshire, 1750-1920. London: HMSO, 1986. (Supplementary Series of The Royal commission on the Historical Monuments of England, vol. 9). CASTLE, Stephen A. A Timber-Framed Building in Leagrave. Bedfordshire Archaeology. 1988, 18, 86-93. CHILTERN OPEN AIR MUSEUM. The Chiltern Open Air Museum Guide Book. St. Ives: Beric Tempest, 1990. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, Alec. Bui Idings of Delight. London: Victor Gollancz, 1986. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, Alec. The Pattern of English Building. 4th ed. London: Faber & Faber, 1987. CLIFTON-TAYLOR, Alec. Six More English Towns. London: BBC, 1981. COOK, Olive, & Edwin SMITH. English Cottages and Farmhouses. London: Thames and Hudson, 1982. DRIVE PUBLICATIONS LTD., ed. AA Illustrated Guide to Britain. London: Drive Publications, 1974. 159 EVANS, Tony, & Candida LYCETT GREEN. English Cottages. pbk ed. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983. GILES, Colum. Rural Houses of West Yorkshire, 1400-1830. London: HMSO, 1986. (Supplementary Series of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, vol. 8). GRIGSON, Geoffrey. English Villages in Colour. London: Batsford, 1958. HADFIELD, John, ed. The Shell Book of English Villages. London: George Rainbird, 1980. HARRIS, Richard. Discovering Timber-framed Buildings. 2nd ed. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications, 1979. (Discovering Series, No. 242). HARRIS, .Richard, ed. Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Guidebook. Chichester: Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, 1987. HARRIS, Richard. Jetties. Vernacular Archi tecture. 1990, 21, 33- 36. IRONBRIDGE GORGE MUSEUM TRUST. Blists Hill Guide. Telford: Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, 1990. JESSUP, Ronald F. Kent. 7th ed. London: Methuen, 1950. (The Little Guides). JONES, Sidney R. The Village Homes of England. 2nd ed. London: Bracken Books, 1985. MERCER, Eric. English vernacular Houses: A Study of Traditional Farmhouses and Cottages. London: HMSO, 1975. (The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England). MILLER, Keith, et al. Beverley: An Archaeological and Architectural Survey. London: HMSO, 1982. (Supplementary Series of the Royal Commission 'on the Historical Monuments of England, vol. 4). MITCHELL BEAZLEY INTERNATIONAL LTD. Britain Discovered: A Pictorial Atlas of our Land and Heritage. London: Book Club Associates, 1983. NAIRN, Ian, & Nikolaus PEVSNER. Sussex. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965. (The Buildings of England). NEWMAN, John, & Nikolaus PEVSNER. Dorset. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. (The Buildings of England). NEWMAN, John. North-East and East Kent. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. (The Buildings of England). NEWMAN, John. West Kent and the Weald. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. (The Buildings of England). 160 PAGE, William, ed. A History of the County of Sussex. vol. 2. London: Archibald Constable, 1907. (The Victoria History of the Counties of England). Reprinted in 1973 for the University of London Institute of Historical Research by Dawsons of Pall Mall, Folkestone. PARKER, vanessa. The Making of King's Lynn: Secular Buildings from the 11th to the 17th century. Chichester: Phillimore, ,197l. (King's Lynn Archaeological Survey, vol. 1). PERRY, Clay, et al. Old English Villages. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986. PEVSNER, Nikolaus. Berkshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966. (The Buildings of England). PEVSNER, Nikolaus, & David LLOYD. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967. (The Buildings of England). PEVSNER, Nikolaus. North-West and South Norfolk. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962. (The Buildings of England). PEVSNER, Nikolaus, & Enid RADCLIFFE. Suffolk. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. (The Buildings of England). PEVSNER, Nikolaus. Wiltshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963. (The Buildings of England). PEVSNER, Nikolaus. Yorkshire: The North Riding. Penguin, 1966. (The Buildings of England). PEVSNER, Nikolaus, & Enid RADCLIFFE. Yorkshire: The West Riding. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967. (The Buildings of England) . QUINEY, Anthony, & Robin MORRISON. The English Country Town. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987. READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION LTD., ed. AA Book of British Towns. London: Drive Publications Ltd, 1979. READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION LTD., ed. AA Book of British Villages. London: Drive Publications Ltd, 1980. READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION LTD., ed. AA Illustrated Guide to Country Towns and Villages of Britain. London: Drive Publications, 1985. REED, Michael A. The Age of Exuberance. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. REED, Michael A. The Georgian Triumph. London: Routledge'& Kegan Paul, 1983. ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF ENGLAND. Annual Report, 1989/90. London: RCHME, 1990. 161 ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF ENGLAND. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset: Central Dorset, vol. 3, part 2. London: HMSO, 1970. (RCHME Inventor ies). ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF ENGLAND. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset: North Dorset, vol. 4. London: HMSO, 1972. (RCHME Inventories). ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF ENGLAND. An Inventory of Historic Monuments in the Town of Stamford.--London: HMSO, 1977. (RCHME Inventories). RYEDALE FOLK MUSEUM. Ryedale Folk Museum Tour Guide and Souvenir Brochure. Hutton le Hole: Ryedale Folk Museum. SALZMAN, L.F. ed. A History of the County of Sussex. vol. 7. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940. (The victoria History of the Counties of England). Reprinted in 1973 for the University of London Institute of Historical Research by Dawsons of Pall Mall, Folkestone. SAVINE, Gerald. Avoncroft Museum of Buildings. Tewkesbury: Gerald Savine, 1990. SHEFFIELD CITY MUSEUMS. Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet Guide. 2nd ed. Sheffield: Sheffield City Museums, 1985. SHERWOOD, Jennifer, & Niko1aus PEVSNER. Oxfordshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. (The Buildings of England). SMITH Edwin, & Geoffrey GRIGSON. England. London: Thames and Hudson, 1957. WOOD, Donna, ed. AA Ordnance Survey Leisure Guide to the Yorkshire Dales. London: Guild Publishing, 1985. 162 j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j