Edward Roberts

W. G. Hoskins's 'Great Rebuilding' and Dendrochronology in Hampshire

Abstract W. G. Hoskinss seminal essay on the rebuilding of rural England sought to demonstrate a surge in building activity between 1570 and 1640 and to relate this to the replacement of the medieval open-hall house by the house with a continuous upper floor. This replacement was achieved either by rebuilding a new house substantially from the ground up or by the insertion of a floor in the open hall of an old house, both processes occurring during the same period. This thesis is tested against the results of recent tree-ring dating in Hampshire and, in conclusion, some suggestions are made for further research.

A Sixteenth-Century Inn Lodging Range at Alton, Hampshire

Abstract English medieval inns survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and were generally a complex of buildings set around a courtyard. These buildings often comprised a gatehouse, a hall where guests were entertained, a fine suite of rooms for superior guests and a lodging range to accommodate lesser guests. A recently discovered example of a lodging range at 23 High Street, Alton, Hampshire has been ascribed a tree-ring date of 1501.

Early Hay Barns in the South of England: A Sixteenth-Century Example?

Abstract Although work has been published on the importance of hay barns in the Midlands and the north of England during the eighteenth century and later, southern hay barns have been relatively neglected. This paper seeks to restore the balance by discussing three southern hay barns of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Then attention is drawn to a rich source of information on medieval hay barns in the south. Finally arguments are advanced for believing that an extraordinary early-sixteenth-century farm building in Hampshire was built as a hay barn.

The late-medieval remodelling of early roofs

Abstract The thirteenth-century roof of the refectory at Romsey Abbey, Hampshire was later stabilised by the insertion of purlins supported by jointed principals with curved feet. The recent dating of this insertion prompts an examination of similar examples of the late-medieval remodelling of early roofs. When were they occurring, what form did they take, and was stabilisation always the primary concern?

The Old Manor, Ashley, Hampshire - Tree Ring Dated to 1521, 1529/30 and 1605/06

In spite of its present name, The Old Manor, Ashley was not, historically, a manor house. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was home to members of the Linney family who were wealthy yeomen 1. The house is composed of two timber-framed structures, formerly detached from each other but now linked by a small brick range in which a chalk stone bears the date 1702 (fig. 1). The two timber-framed buildings comprise a house dated 1529/30, and what is at present a storehouse standing behind the house and dated to 1521. The storehouse is a three-bay structure with a claspedpurlin and queen-post roof (fig. 2). The end bay nearer to the house (W-X on plan) was originally open and has heavy sooting on its rafters~ The two remaining bays were floored with unchamfered, axial joists some of which survive while others are attested by void mortices in the faces of transverse beams. This building is interpreted as a detached kitchen and is similar to examples discovered in Sussex by David Martin (see this vol. 85-91). The two floored bays (X-Y-Z) may have been used for storage or for the accommodation of servants or elderly members of the family. The house was built in 1529/30, nearly a decade after the supposed kitchen. Its parlour bay and hall (A-B-C) survive, although the service area has been rebuilt. Once again, the roof is of clasped-purlin construction with queen posts; the standard roof for smaller houses in central Hampshire at this time. The central bay was clearly intended as an open hall, for axial joists from the parlour project into the high end to create an internal jetty. However, the roof above, which also dates to 1529/30, is unsooted except for one small section within a second-phase timber chimney. The hall was not floored until 1605/6 when an axial spine beam with transverse joists was inserted. This spine beam bears a deep chamfer which runs onto the transverse beam enclosing the timber chimney. This structural evidence strongly implies that the timber chimney was built at the same time as the insertion of the hall floor. The succession of tree ring dates for one complex raises some interesting and important questions. Why, for instance, was the hall left open but apparently unheated for over 70 years? It would seem as if, having built a brand new detached kitchen, it was unnecessary to cook in the hall and any heating may have been provided by a charcoal brazier. Even so, one wonders why the hall was not floored over from the start, for floored halls were already widespread by 1529/30. Was the builder a traditionalist, or had open halls a social prestige derived from their existence in great houses? Finally, the hall floor, with heavy spine beam and transverse joists, was not inserted until 1605/06. Is this a date at which one would expect a wealthy yeoman in prosperous southern England to floor his hall? Further tree ring dating of inserted floors would help to answer this question, although the evidence from 73-77 Winchester Street, Overton (see p. 120-121) is that some men were converting open halls much earlier.