Bosbury, Herefordshire

On-street irregular

In contrast to the rather grand timber-framed houses in my previous posts, here's a more modest example from Herefordshire. This pair of houses in Bosbury are probably 17th century, although they have been much altered (for example, with the fitting of new window frames) in the 20th century. They have white-painted brick infill between the timbers of the rather irregular frame and the somewhat rustic-looking irregularity, with a frame consisting of different sized rectangles, timbers of varying widths, and features such as half-dormers, adds up to a kind of building quite often seen among the villages and farms of Herefordshire and the west of England more generally.

Another common feature of the timber-framed houses in this part of England is the large stone chimney stack at the end of the building, positioned to keep the heat of the fire away from the vulnerable timbers. It would perhaps originally have contained a very large fireplace but now, of all things, there's a window in one side of the stack and there must be a relatively small fireplace with a diagonal shaft running up to the brick chimney above.