Wealden hall house
The Wealden hall house is a type of vernacular medieval timber-framed hall house traditional in the south east of England. Typically built for a yeoman, it is most common in Kent (hence "Wealden" for the once densely forested Weald) and the east of Sussex but has also been built elsewhere.[1] Kent has one of the highest concentrations of such surviving medieval timber-framed buildings in Europe.[2]
The original
cross passage.[3] The open hearth was later moved towards the cross passage and became a fireplace with chimney, sometimes the chimney pile even blocking the cross passage, which had soon been screened off the main hall. Beyond the cross passage the outer bay at the "screens end" or "lower end" of the hall, usually contained two rooms commonly called buttery and pantry, while the rooms in the bay at the other end, the "upper end", were called parlours. The end bays each had an upper floor containing solars, which did not communicate with each other, as the hall rose to the rafters between them. The upper stories on both ends typically extended beyond the lower outer wall being jettied
on at least one side of the building. As the main hall had no upper floor the outer wall ran straight up without jettying, and thus the central bays appeared recessed.
The early buildings had infilling between timbers, sometimes leading to a complete replacement of the outer walls of the basement with solid stone walls.
Examples
Examples are the "
Stalisfield Green, the Old Punch Bowl[5] and the Ancient Priors[6] at Crawley, the Pattyndenne Manor in Kent and the Monks' Barn in Newport, Essex, Hole Cottage near Cowden (operated by Landmark Trust) and The Old Bakery, in Hamstreet, Kent.[7] The northernmost examples are in York, and include the Wealden Hall on Goodramgate.[8]
References
- ISBN 978-0-415-11915-3. at Google books
- ISBN 0-540-01173-8.
- ISBN 978-0-575-07122-3. (Plans may be viewed online at google books here.)
- ^ Description of the Bayleaf farmhouse at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum,
- ^ Historic England (2007). "No 101 (National Westminster Bank) (formerly listed as The Punch Bowl), High Street (east side), Crawley, West Sussex (1187086)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
- ^ Historic England (2007). "No 49 and No 51 The Ancient Priors (Minters Restaurant a Louis Coiffeur) (formerly listed as No 47, The Square), High Street (east side), Crawley, West Sussex (1207420)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
- ^ Historic England. "THE OLD BAKERY (1071197)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2017-01-16.
- ^ "Wealden Hall, 49 & 51 Goodramgate". York Conservation Trust. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wealden hall houses.