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AN HISTORIC ASSESSMENT REPORT For AN HISTORIC ASSESSMENT REPORT for CROPTON HALL, HEYDON, NORFOLK with regards to Dormer Windows Alan Greening, AADip, RIBA, AABC Chartered Architect and registered Architect, Architect Accredited in Building Conservation, Post-Graduate Master in Building Conservation, 10, Queen Street, Southwold, Suffolk, IP18 6EQ Phone: 01502 722473 [email protected] Cropton Hall Dormer Windows; Context This second report on the property has been commissioned to respond to requests for further information with regards to the proposals for inserting dormer windows in the roofs of the property and to investigate the evidence for their former existence as reported by Mr. Bob Wadlow, the builder previously the Heydon Estate contractor who lived in the West entrance gate lodge for 25 years and has an intimate knowledge of the area. The history of the property in previous ownerships has been mixed and there are reports of two earlier roof fires, the first one minor and the second one major, when the property was a hotel that completely destroyed the south roof from the main chimney stacks to the gable and required the rebuilding of some of the eaves brickwork. The building was Listed in 1952 and again visited in 1977 by Edwin Rose, the Records Officer of the Norfolk Archaeological Unit, now part of Gressenhall Museum. The property was described as below, but there are no references to interiors, so it is assumed that entry was not made. Brick, south gable shaped, with a pair of windows on the ground and first floors, above them a very small blocked pair, then apparently a central false window. Pair of later octagonal chimneys on top. Large brick plinth. Probably early 17th century. South end of west wall of same build, chequerwork, also south end of east wall, though windows have been hacked in this and blocked again. Remainder of west wall is a façade of about 1700, two storeys, five bays upper and three lower, separated by string course; windows have wooden mullions and transomes. Brick pilastered and pedimented door. Dentilled cornice which breaks into older south end of wall (though string course does not). Wing at right angles running west in identical style, three bays,two storeys with arch of old basement window visible. String course, moulded, continues onto west gable of this wing. East side of main block has string course; windows all blocked; 17th century brickwork appears to have been reused. Masked by recent additions. At north end of house a block of three octagonal chimneys: then adjoining separate north wing with shaped gable dated 1702 in clamp irons; next to it another with plain gable dated 1730. Of this date are brick farm buildings, including a range between two towers. In the garden is a well-preserved air raid shelter, concrete with buried corrugated iron roof. E. Rose (NAU), 18 August 1977. Roof destroyed by fire after a lightning strike. Building in use as hotel. See press cutting (S1) in file. Listing (S2) notes a good 17th century staircase. E. Rose (NAU), 28 June 1985. But source [1] states that this was burnt in the 1985 fire. The interior is now totally modern except for the smaller projection E. Rose (NLA), 12 December 1996. On the initial inspection for an Historic-Assessment Report the author viewed the roofs and noted the complete rebuilding of the south portion of the main roof, but that the north section has survived, as well as that over the later west range. As reported: Roofs The roof construction over the main part of the in-line north-south roof was burned down in 1985 and re-built in modern softwood form. The roof-space over the 1702 extension is used as a bedroom and the original roof construction is as a two- tier, butt and chamfered-end, side-purlin roof with straight and arched wind braces and undiminished principal rafters. Collar-ties, where seen, are modern. End purlins are built into the brick gable. The construction is good, but some scantlings have wany-edge, particularly the braces. Timbers are adzed and the purlins are chamfered down to fit the depth of the principal rafters. All are painted. 1702 attic Butt-purlin construction The roof over the 1730 east-west wing is of similar construction to that of the 1702 extension, but with collar- ties set between the two tiers of purlins and single straight-arch wind-braces. The roof of the early-C19 north addition is visible and its brick stack. 1730 roof space C19-addition roof and brick stack The south section of the main roof is of modern softwood construction with raking struts, reportedly formed by Mr. Bob Wadlow, the Heydon-Estate builder. On this inspection, this roof was again visited and the details of the construction noted including the modern ceiling joists and the foil-backed plasterboard to the ceilings below. All is completely modern in construction and no evidence of earlier form or materials survives. The rear section, described previously is as recorded, as is the roof over the later west addition. The floor boards have been removed and all the surface laid with thickly-laid mineral-wool insulation. A closer investigation to the surviving historic roof construction was made (with the author precariously perched on timbers, trying not to fall through the ceiling) and as shown in the above photograph of the previous report a bricked-up fireplace exists in the attic gable, showing that this attic space had been occupied and heated. The gable wall to the sides of the fireplace appear to be in C17 or C18 brickwork, but the internal chimney stack and fireplace opening are in C19 bricks part laid in English Bond of the C19. Importantly, the construction was inspected as close as possible and anomalies observed in top surfaces of the lower purlins to the south slope looking into the entrance courtyard area. Straight, diagonal up-brace were seen in the fourth and third bay’s in from the gable, as reported previously, and that in the third bay the brace is set-out in the mid thickness of the principal-rafter and secured with three pegs. This is mirrored on the rear slope. There is a similar brace, mirrored, in the fourth bay with common rafters pegged to it as elsewhere in the roof, but a cut-out brace is seen on the other side of this fourth bay, the other side of the principal rafter could not be observed. The end of the south slope to the west wing appears blank and filled in with modern joinery, no doubt from the reported fire. Next, going west, is the fourth bay and in this can be seen that an extra mortice had been cut into the top of the lower purlin and that the top outer surface of this lower purlin had been cut out and made flat. Both these details would correspond to a new inserted side dormer trimmer, in the plane of the roof and of a lower sill member of a dormer window cut into the top out surface of the purlin. All consistence with an inserted dormer window as a second-phase alteration. In the third bay the top-outer surface of the lower purlin has been chamfered flat and cut into on the other side of the principal rafter to bay four and rafters renewed in this area. In the second bay, all rafters have been renewed above the lower purlin and two below. It can be seen that dormer windows had existed in this south-facing slope. This reinforces the reported painting seen in the Heydon-Hall Estate archives, Mr. Bob… the estate builder, when a researcher came to inspect the archive. He reports that in his memory there were three dormers set in the roof slope above the main entrance door to the property and two to the side west range. Architectural style Given that there is physical-fabric evidence for the dormers to this and by association the burned-out roof slopes, the question arises as to the relevant architecture for any renewed dormers. The second-phase brickwork to the main front-entrance elevation is late-C17, excluding the earlier south gable, is later-C17 in the “Restoration-Style” associated with the return to England of King Charles11 and of the Anglo-Dutch domestic architecture of the period evoked by Sir Christopher Wren and in particularly developed by Roger Pratt. On the adjoining west elevation, the brickwork is later and the roof gable and chimney stack rebuilt in the C19. Roger Pratt and others developed a domestic aesthetic of Anglo-Dutch influenced building styles with roof, roof-top and roof-dormer features. Pratt was born to a landed Norfolk family in 1620 and in 1639 was admitted to the Inner Temple, London. The following year he inherited his father's property in Ryston, Norfolk, but opted to leave the country to avoid the English Civil War, which broke out in 1642. He travelled in France, Italy, Flanders and Holland, studying architecture, and befriending the writer John Evelyn in Rome. In the 1650s he became involved in the rebuilding of Coleshill House, Berkshire (c.1658–62; dem. 1952), the home of his cousin, Sir George Pratt. A mix of Italian, French, Dutch and English architectural ideas and includes features such as the rooftop platform and cupola, dormered attics. Inigo Jones’s Palladian details are evident in the windows and cornices. Following his knighthood in 1668, and his marriage the same year Pratt opted to retire to his family property in Norfolk. The rebuilding of Ryston Hall was his last work, and he afterwards concentrated on agricultural improvement.
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