Around the house
I have posted before about some of the timber-framed buildings of the western counties of England, an area that has many wonderful buildings of this kind. Here's one of the best, in my opinion. It stands in the middle of Evesham, and even long ago when Evesham was as full of black and white as a flock of magpies,* it must have stood out. It dates to the 15th century, and the framing is very much as it would have been then – lovely, quite close-studded woodwork, jetties (overhangs) to both upper floors, and all. The windows are later – they're in fact fairly recent replacements made mostly along the lines of the 19th-century windows that were there before the building was restored in the 1960s. Other post-medieval additions include the massive props to the left-hand side, which were put there to stop a pronounced westward lean becoming terminal. They worked, and we are the beneficiaries.
But what is it, this glorious, big building? It was built by someone prosperous, that is for sure – the ample timber work and jetties suggest that. Its usual name, the Round House, seems rather perverse, and fails to give the game away. Although it's not literally round, the building's exterior on its island site in the market place, can be walked around, so that's presumably the excuse for the name. There's another name, the Booth Hall, which suggests it's a market building. But the authors of the Pevsner Worcestershire volume doubt that its lower floor ever housed booths, and there's no sign of any traces the open arches that would have allowed this. Pevsner thinks it may have begun life as an inn. That's possible. It certainly had pole position in the middle of the town. And its architecture raises the spirits now, just as its hospitality may once have done.
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*But not literally. These buildings are probably 'black and white' because of post-medieval colouring. Grey and off-white would have been more likely.
12 comments:
Is that right? - that the buildings are black and white because of post-medieval colouring. Grey and off-white would have been more likely.
When do you think the black and white first became popular?
Hels: Yes. 'Black and white' is mostly a 19th-century fashion. There's a lot more to say about this but, briefly, it seems to have been common to let oak timbers weather naturally (so they'd go grey) and to colour the infill panels with some natural pigment - maybe an earth colour or sometimes with the addition of blood to make a pinkish hue. Just as common would be to render or coats of limewash over the whole lot, so that the framework became invisible.
Hi Philip. Sometimes my mock-Tudor suburban house is an embarrassment but then I recall that it's an homage to the genuine English style so exquisitely shown here and then I don't feel so bad!
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That's interesting. There's a mock tudor pub near me that used to be classic black and white, and was repainted grey and off-white last year. I personally don't like how it looks, but didn't realise it was more "authentic".
Hels: I found a reference to artificially blackening the timbers in 1790, but it was quite unusual then. It's said to be mainly Victorian.
Bazza: No need to be embarrassed! Did you see the review I did of a book about Tudoresque architecture – just over a year ago I think? If not, it's here: http://englishbuildings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/dont-mock-tudor.html
Anna: Yes, I've seen one or two of these grey paint jobs recently. They're not that great – the original idea of the grey was that it was just untreated oak that had been allowed to season and harden. Like on the outside of the Globe Theatre on the South Bank, which, if I remember rightly, has been left au naturel.
I recall many years ago on a visit to the Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick that it was possible to traces of a red ochre on the timber in less exposed areas of the woodwork. But this would have been a high status building so possibly not a common treatment.
Is it correct that the practice of plastering over the timber frame helped to protect the timber. Evidence for the plastering can be seen in the nail holes for the lathes which supported the plasterin the timber frame.
Wrong but romantic - "authentic" but boring: give me magpie black and white any day: this is an artistic effect which can be achieved with half-timber (Sorry "timber-framed", to be authentic!) and to go for brownish and off-white is sheer pedantry.Whitewash is very ancient - houses in Wales called "ty gwyn" if of stone and whitewashed, "ty du" if of turf and left dark. And then there was Candida Casa on the Isle of Whithorn. I don't know about the half-timber areas in Sussex and East Anglia, but in the Midlands and Montgomeryshire, please let's have "magpie" and all the works! I believe the pink walls were done with oxblood: lots of these in Essex and Suffolk, and even on the massive stonework on the Geraldine castle at Maynooth, Co. Kildare. But pink on Midlands half timber?
There's another point, too. If the blackening is later, as seems likely, it's still part of the history of the building. Why do we always want to strip buildings back to their 'original' state? Even when we can never be sure exactly what that state was?
Apropos, I was looking at some late-19th and early-20th century photos of The White Hart on Holywell Hill in St Albans recently (a local history society put on a display in the Abbey during the "Residents First" weekend).
Parts of the building date from the 1500s, but the current black-and-white "half-timbered" effect was created more recently than the photos, less than 100 years ago. The photos show a rendered building, with (presuambly fake) quoins on the corners. See http://www.salbani.co.uk/Pubs/WhiteHartWeb/the_white_hart.htm
I see your house sometimes when I walk by
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