Book round-up 1

 

Christmas is coming and with this in mind I am reviewing three recent books that will appeal to many who are interested in historic buildings. First, a book that debunks a number of historic buildings-related myths, while also taking pleasure in the stories that people tell about castles, churches, pubs, houses, and more...

James Wright, Historic Buildings Mythbusting

Published by The History Press

As I travel around looking at old buildings, I meet many people who tell me about the history of the places where they live, or shop, or worship. I’m always grateful to them and I often learn a lot from those with local knowledge. But every now and then a a story emerges which makes me sceptical. ‘There’s a secret tunnel that links the manor house with the abbey,’ they’ll say. Or, ‘This house was built using old ship’s timbers.’ Or, ‘Of course, this is the oldest pub in England.’ Why do I doubt such tales? Because I have known other places with similar stories where the evidence, once examined, is either non-existent or extremely flimsy. James Wright’s HISTORIC BUILDINGS MYTHBUSTING tackles several of these recurring stores head-on, looks closely at the evidence, and demonstrates why they’re more myth than reality.

Wright tackles ten or so myths and tests them against the available evidence. ‘Secret passages’ often turn out to be drains, ruined cellars, ice houses, wells, and the like. Many of the alleged tunnels are very long and would have to go beneath rivers, very unlikely given the engineering difficulties.

Spiral staircases in castles are the focus of another myth. They turn clockwise, it’s said, making it easier for a defender to swing his sword arm. Yet many turn the opposite way. The theory that the latter were built for left-handed castle owners seems wrong – in some castles there are examples of both types. Spiral staircases, Wright believes, are more important as signs of status: poorer people got to higher floors using wooden ladders. The very idea that spiral staircases were a defensive feature seems to date back only 100 years.

A small cluster of myths concern ancient churches. Rude carvings which upset the Victorians and intrigue us today, could not, as has been suggested, have been made by stonemasons cocking a covert snook at the clergy. The clergy took a close part in church building, collectiing the money and overseeing the work, and would have known what was being carved. A mason would probably not have dared to go against the wishes of priest or bishop and if they did, would have been made to redo the work. Another church mystery is stones in the walls that have horizontal grooves worn into them. These have been said to be the result of archers practising in the churchyard and sharpening their arrows on the church wall. There are many reasons why this cannot be true – most churchyards were too small for archery practice, portable whetstones were very common, and the ‘practice arrowheads’ used did not need sharpening anyway. Wright similarly disposes of stories about windows allowing lepers to see into church or from one part of the church into another, and ideas that blocked north doors in churches are ‘devil’s doors’, designed to keep Satan out.

Houses built of ‘old ship’s timbers’? Interestingly, Wright concedes that in a few cases this might be true. But it’s unlikely that the demands of the Tudor navy and ironworking, both often said to be responsible for a timber shortage in the 16th and 17th centuries, were the cause. Landscape historians seem to agree that the timber shortage came later, in the 18th century.

The suggestion that one public house or another is ‘England’s oldest’ is remarkably widespread. Wright comes up with a dozen pubs that are often claimed to be the oldest, six of which are said to date from before the Norman conquest in 1066. In each case, there simply is not the evidence that either the buildings as they stand are anywhere near as old as that, nor that they have been in continuous use as pubs for that length of time. Wright comes up with an alternative list of 12 with much better claims, the oldest of which go back to the 14th century.

In conclusion, Wright makes a good case for dismissing a selection of historic buildings myths. He argues that many of them have arisen out of patriotism or imperialism (England’s intrepid archers practising before winning such battles as Creçy and Agincourt), bolstered by local pride (our local’s the oldest pub), and upheld in popular films or social media. The result is a thought-provoking, entertaining, and sometimes very funny book that’s based on the scholarly research of a buildings archaeologist with deep knowledge of his subject.