This one's much older than Anna Sewell's house and much of the structure still dates from the original 1380s great hall.
This would have been the hall of a local landowner grown rich from the wool trade. It sits opposite the church and would have originally been surrounded by the mud and dung-built hovels of the rest of us.
It would have been one big room, open to the roof, with a central open hearth, smoke holes in the gables and a maybe a small window or two, with real glazing, unlike the hovels. A timber panel to one end would have housed the solar, where the owners slept. Cooking and crapping was done outside.
Sometime in the 1500s the roof was raised and a second floor put in, together with a large brick chimney and much larger windows (the two vertical panels to the left would have been a window).
In the eighteenth century, the 'lord of the manor' who lived here moved out into his newly built, elegant brick house at the head of the market square on the other side of the church (it's still there, though now it houses a restaurant), and this house was split into three homes. Even later, it had Victorian casement windows inserted and the old windows filled in and a brick outshot was built on to the side.
And much more recently someone moved in who clearly has no colour sense whatsoever.
Very few old buildings look anything like they did when they were built.
Much like the rest of us, really …
Hey ho.
7 comments:
Not sure about the blue window paint yuk...
I see what you mean about no colour sense and I agree with your Mother!!
Actually ... I kinda like the blue windows. I've tried to imagine them any other color and they would have been even worse (Chartreuse? Bright yellow?). Only alternative would have been brown. This sure as heck takes the romance out of all those bodice-ripping romance novels, doesn't it?
I get the impression that the people saw wealth in being able to provide a snug, warm and safe shelter, complete with windows -- easier to heat with crowded bodies and livestock than with peat, coal or wood. By the way, how much of this was influenced by the deforestation of England/Europe for fuel and construction? The buildings wouldn't be very large due to shortage of resources, would they, so the richer guys got brick, then stone? Possible? (Pardon my blithering; I'm typing out loud, so to speak.)
I really enjoy the historical perspective you give us. I can imagine it through the ages.
And now it has blue-framed windows that remind me of pieces from a Lego set. Ah, the indignities of age....
Me neither, Mum.
Mme, I think we should all get together and go knock on that door and offer to repaint it for them.
Speedway, Britain was deforested thousands of years before this was built. The wealth was all in the hands of a very few (just as today) and the rest of the population were virtual slave labourers. They lived in hovels or huts built from straw and dung because that's all they had to build with; everything belonged to the lord of the manor, much like the bankers today.
Ms.M. ah, the indignities of age is the perfect phrase for both the building and the way I feel about my saggy paunch and shiny pate.
At least nobody's painted me blue - yet.
Sigh …
Don't worry, Dive, when I buy it I'll restore it to its respectable colors. --I mean colours.
Petrea, it deserves an owner like you.
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