Vernacular architecture
The mass of the population before the Industrial Revolution worked the land. Until c.1500 most lived in houses not expected to last more than a lifetime. Few small houses date back to the Middle Ages. Styles vary by region, reflecting local materials and and needs. Timber was the usual material for small and medium-sized houses in areas where good timber was available. Dating timber buildings is notoriously difficult. Since the same techniques were used for centuries, the safest approach is to get a dendro-date for a main timber that does not appear to be reused. General bibliography for vernacular building in Britain and Ireland.
Earth building
Mud or
turf provided the cheapest kind of walling. Cob - unbaked clay with organic
material to bind it - is durable if plastered over and kept from damp at top
and bottom. The earliest standing examples in the British Isles date from
around 1300, but these are exceptional. Earth houses generally have a life-span
of 150-200 years, though this could be prolonged by casing the walls later in
brick. Cob was popular in Devon up to the 19th century and also used in
Cumbria, the East Midlands, Hampshire and Ireland. The flexibility of the
material permitted rounded corners. Another clue to cob construction is the
thickness of the walls.
- Jennings, N., Clay Dabbins: Vernacular Buildings of the Solway Plain, (Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Extra Series volume 30, 2003). On the mud buildings of Cumbria.
- Books on cob building.
Cruck-framing
Cruck building starts from a simple principle seen in many parts of the
world. Pairs of timbers - straight or curved - prop each other up, when tied
together with wall
plates and a ridge-piece
at the apex. Over that main frame can be laid purlins,
rafters
and thatch on the roof, and timber panels filled with wattle and
daub for the walls. (For a simpler predecessor in Britain, we can look to
the Saxon Sunken
Featured Building.)
Crucks were most used for houses and barns no more than 6m (20ft) wide, put up for smallholders, parsons and, most of all, peasants. The earliest survivals date from the 13th century and most must have been built before 1600, when the rising demand for two full storeys made crucks obsolete. They are found mainly in Wales, western England and Devon.
- Alcock, N. W., Cruck Construction: an introduction and catalogue, CBA Research Report No 42 (1981). The catalogue has been updated in the online Cruck Database.
- Alcock, N. and Miles, D., The Medieval Peasant House in Midland England (Oxbow 2012).
Box-framing
The
box-frame overtook the cruck in popularity, for it permitted two (or three)
full storeys. Another advantage was the easy addition of wings. The term
'box-frame' is pretty well self-explanatory: the main vertical posts are held
in place by horizontal beams. The upper storeys often overhang the lower; this
is called 'jettying', and can be seen in the Wealden house below.
Piling storey upon storey, with upper storeys jettied, made the most of the limited space in town centres. A good example is the Merchant's House at Plymouth.
Wealden house
This striking type of box-framed house was revolutionary in the high quality of its construction. A hall ran through the centre of the house from ground to roof. At either side were two stories, jettied all round. Large brackets supported the eaves over the hall. The whole is covered by a hipped, tiled roof.
These sturdy late medieval and early Tudor homes were built by yeomen, emulating the plan of the manor house. In the prosperous south-east of England even comparatively small farms provided the means to build houses of comfort and craftsmanship. Having evolved the type in the Weald of Kent and Sussex, carpenters carried it to counties north of the Thames, though with gabled rather than hipped roofs, and to Coventry, Newark and York.
- Pearson, S., The Medieval Houses of Kent: An Historical Analysis (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments 1994).
- Quiney, A., English Domestic Architecture: Kent Houses (1993).
Long house
The long house sheltered animals at one end and
their owners at the other. This arrangement suited a peasant or smallholder
with a few animals in a climate with long, hard winters. Long houses
were common in the Middle Ages over much of the British Isles, but the poor
survival rate of peasant housing, combined with the rising affluence and
enclosures that led to more complex farm
buildings in the English lowlands, means that surviving examples were
mainly built c.1650-c.1750. They are found in Cumbria, Dartmoor, the Hebrides,
Northern and Western Ireland and South Wales. The Welsh version is the ty-hir. Surviving examples are all byre-houses,
where the agricultural end sheltered cattle.
Cotswold house
The
twisted spine of southern England - the Jurassic limestone belt running from
the Lincoln Edge south-west along the Cotswolds - yields an abundance of
easily-worked building stone. There masonry building flourished in the 17th
century.
Walls are of ashlar or coursed rubble, while roofs are of local stone slate. Door-frames and mullioned windows are cut to mouldings. Over the windows are hood-moulds to throw off the rain.
- Hall, L., The Rural Houses in North Avon and South Gloucestershire (1983) provides examples of the Cotswold style.
- Moriaty, D., Buildings of the Cotswolds (1989) is a selective gazetteer, based on the notes of Alec Clifton-Taylor.
Bibliographies
- Hall, R. de Zouche, A Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture (1972).
- Michelmore, D.J.H., (ed.), A Current Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture Vol. 1: 1970-1976 (Vernacular Architecture Group 1979).
- Pattison, I.R., Pattison, D.S., and Alcock, N.W. (eds.), A Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture Vol. 3: 1977- 1989 (Vernacular Architecture Group 1992).
- Pattison, I.R., Pattison, D.S., and Alcock, N.W. (eds.), A Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture Vol. 4: 1990-1994 (Vernacular Architecture Group 1999).
- The searchable online version of vols. 1-4 of the Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture and additions up to 2006 is available from the Archaeology Data Service.
Studies
- Alcock, N. and Miles, D., The Medieval Peasant House in Midland England (Oxbow 2012).
- Ayres, J., The Shell Book of the Home in Britain: Decoration, design and construction of vernacular interiors 1500-1850 (1981).
- Barley, M.W., The English Farmhouse and Cottage (1961).
- Beacham, P., Devon Building: An introduction to local traditions (2001).
- Brunskill, R. W., Houses and Cottages of Britain: Origins and Development of Traditional Buildings, new edn. (2000).
- Brunskill, R.W., Vernacular Architecture: an illustrated handbook, 4th edn. (2000).
- Brunskill, R.W., Traditional Buildings of Britain, (1981, 1992, 3rd edn. 2004).
- Brunskill, R.W., Traditional Buildings of Cumbria (1972, rev. edn. 2002).
- Chesher, V. and Chesher, F.J., Cornishman's House: An introduction to the history of traditional domestic architecture in Cornwall (1968).
- Cousins, R., Lincolnshire Buildings in the Mud and Stud Tradition (Heritage of Lincolnshire 2000).
- Danachair, C., Ireland's Vernacular Architecture (1975).
- Fenton, A. and Walker, B., The Rural Architecture of Scotland (1981).
- Gailey, A., Rural Houses of the North of Ireland (1984).
- Historic Scotland, Scotland's Traditional Houses: From cottage to tower-house (1997).
- Johnson, M., English Houses 1300-1800: Vernacular architecture, social life (2010). Includes the Great Rebuilding.
- Moran, M., Vernacular Buildings of Shropshire (2003). Includes an illustrated gazetteer.
- Pearson, S. and Meeson, B., Vernacular Buildings in a Changing World: understanding, recording and conservation, CBA Research Report No 126 (2001).
- Penoyre, J., Traditional Buildings of Somerset (2005).
- Smith, P., Houses of the Welsh Countryside (Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales 1975; 2nd edn. 1988).
- Suggett, R., Houses & History in the March of Wales Radnorshire 1400 - 1800 (Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales 2005).
- Oliver, P., Dwellings: The vernacular home worldwide (2003).
- Quiney, A., The Traditional Buildings of England (1990).
- Rice, M., Village Buildings of Britain (1991). Covers England, Scotland and Wales.
- The Scottish Vernacular Buildings Working Group publishes studies and a journal: contents listed online.
- Vernacular Architecture (journal published by the Vernacular Architecture Group).
- Wiliam, E., The Welsh Cottage: Building traditions of the rural poor, 1750-1900 (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales 2010).
Also see villages, dating, recording and interpreting fabric and materials.