‘My Painted Chamber' and Other Rooms: Stephen Hulkes and the History of Calico House, Newnham

‘My painted chamber’ and other rooms: Stephen Hulkes and the history of Calico House, Newnham

rupert austin and sheila sweetinburgh

Nestling in one of the many valleys that cut into the North Downs, Calico House in Newnham, a grade II* listed building, is one of the estimated 2,500 medieval houses thought to survive in Kent.¹ The original, perhaps late fourteenth-century house, was neither large nor grand, but was probably fairly typical of the houses built by the increasing number of yeoman farmers in the aftermath of the Black Death. Over the subsequent centuries the house was subject to considerable rebuilding and alterations culminating in the extensive restoration programme that has been completed recently. However, this article will only discuss the first two centuries after its initial construction, that is up to the point when the Hulkes (or later Hulse) family sold Calico House. The reasons for selecting Calico House are fivefold: a detailed survey of the building has been completed recently by Rupert Austin of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust; within its structure the house contains a number of interesting features; it comes within Kent Archaeological Society’s new project area; the documentary sources are particularly good for the seventeenth-century building, and lastly the development of the house, especially under the Hulkes, provides a valuable case study of the rise of those who would join Kent’s lesser gentry as a consequence of the social, political, economic and religious changes of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.²

At the heart of this article is Stephen Hulkes’ house because it is his actions at the beginning of the seventeenth century that in many ways created the defining features of the house as it is today. Even though his descendants during the next hundred years added further improvements, much of the house remained the same including the names of several of the rooms. And in terms of its antecedents, Stephen referred to Calico House as his ‘new’ house which was in some ways true as a result of the considerable changes he had introduced. Nevertheless, certain parts of the extant building predate Stephen, providing evidence of several earlier structures and how he adapted these to establish his new dwelling. As a consequence, the article is divided chronologically into three main sections: pre-c.1600; c.1600 to 1618, and 1618 to 1720, and within each of these there is first a description of the salient features of the house and then a history of ownership.³

Calico House: pre-c.1600

The early house

Sited on ‘The Street’ in Newnham, the only extant section of the first timber-framed house is a single bay at the east end of the main range, and this too has been heavily rebuilt (Figs 1-5). Few dateable features survive from its construction but those that do seemingly indicate a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century date. Close inspection of its timber-frame reveals the original house to have been of Wealden form, a style of medieval dwelling that was very common in Kent.⁴ The bay was floored from the outset, and the features within it point to its having been at the low-end of the building, that is service rooms on the ground floor with a chamber above. Assuming it was a typical medieval house, to the west of this bay would have been an open hall, and to the west again (the high-end) would have been a two-storey bay, the parlour on the ground floor and the solar above.⁵

Looking in detail at this east-end bay, the west wall (the east wall of the now ‘lost’ open-hall) comprises one side of a cross passage that runs through the building between the front and rear doors of the property.⁶ There is evidence of three doorways having initially cut through this wall on the ground floor (Fig. 3, section B-B).⁷ Near the centre, and still extant, are two side-by-side doorways, though only the northernmost retains its original door head: a simple, pointed, two-centred door head of durn type.⁸ This door head is an important survival, as it is one of the few dateable features within the wing, possibly indicating a late fourteenth-century date. The presence of holes for iron pins on the east faces of the door posts, upon which door hinges hung, shows that the missing doors opened into the wing. The two rooms these doors entered would have been used for storing food and drink (pantry and buttery respectively).⁹

Interestingly there are no empty stave mortices for the partition that once lay between the rooms, on the soffit of the central joist, indicating it was planted (nailed) in place and not an integral part of the timber-frame.¹⁰ In contrast to the central doors, the evidence indicates that the third door (now blocked) would have opened away from the wing, the rectangular doorway providing access to a set of stairs leading to the wing’s upper chamber.

Having been rebuilt at a later date, the single chamber above the service rooms contains very little evidence of its original structure; however, one feature, more often seen over the high-end solar, was at one time present here: an east-west tie-beam which had crossed the chamber at eaves level. Though unnecessary in structural terms, such ‘gratuitous’ tie-beams might occasionally support a crown-post and were presumably included for visual effect because the room would have been open to the roof, their presence intended to give the chamber the appearance of comprising two bays.

The upper floor is significantly lower in this bay than elsewhere, a difference which usefully distinguishes it from the later parts of the house (Fig. 5). The bay was once jettied to the south and east (both jetties have now been underpinned in brick), as shown by the presence of a short diagonal dragon-beam in the south-east corner of the bay, the joists and beams being exposed above the ground-floor room. The common joists are undecorated, and of fairly substantial section, being laid flat in a typical medieval manner.

From the fragmentary evidence it appears that the wing’s original elevations comprised large panel framing, with long curved braces, rather than the close-studding that is mostly present today.¹¹ The positions of certain windows can also be determined. An original unglazed¹² single-light window, with two diamond mullions, survives in the rear wall at first-floor level, and within the front (south) wall of the wing there is evidence for a similarly unglazed two-light window at ground level: a shutter groove and window post mortices on the soffit of the jetty-plate.¹³ Unfortunately nothing survives to indicate the form of the wing’s original roof, though the most likely is a crown-post roof.¹⁴

Moving to the west where once the open-hall would have been located, the building provides evidence of several stages in its development. Inspection suggests that the original open-hall, which must have been small, was demolished and replaced not by the ground-floor hall and chambers that are present today, but by a second, larger open-hall. All that survives of this intervening structure is the cross-frame that formed its high-end wall.¹⁵

The timbers of this frame are of medieval appearance, and include a wide central post flanked by a pair of large curved down-braces (Plate I). There is also evidence of a dais bench from the peg holes seen at about 0.36m above the ground-plate, and of the original parlour door towards the front of the hall (Fig. 3, section C-C) – a simple but now blocked rectangular opening (a second door to the rear is a later insertion, contemporaneous with the seventeenth-century wing to the west). The length of the later hall suggests it comprised two bays, like the extant floored hall that replaces it.

Before describing its replacement, it is worth noting the presence of what was once a detached, two-storey, fully timber-framed building just to the rear of the west end of the main range (see below for its incorporation into the house), for this seems to have been built whilst the later open-hall remained in use. The detached building was two bays in length, floored in both bays, jettied on two sides – to the west and to the north (rear), and on the same alignment as the main range: a simple extension would most likely have been aligned at right angles.

Evidence for a late medieval or perhaps early post medieval date comes from its structure. The plain, unchamfered joists of the first floor (exposed during restoration) are laid flat in a medieval manner. The central bridging-beam is plainly chamfered, with simple run-out stops. On the soffit of the now internalised south (front) eaves-plate there are round-ended stave mortices and square post mortices (for now missing timbers). Similar mortices were observed on the east eaves-plate (removed during restoration), all indicative of large panel framing in the medieval tradition.

Empty stave mortices on the soffit of the central bridging-beam indicate that originally the ground floor was partitioned into two rooms, but this partition was later removed. Conversely, the first floor was initially one chamber (from evidence for arch-braces beneath the ends of the tie-beam), but subsequently was subdivided. Access to this chamber was provided by stairs, long since removed, through an opening in the floor in the east bay. Unfortunately no evidence to show how the building was illuminated was revealed.

The use of such detached late medieval or early modern structures remains unclear, though often they are referred to as kitchens.¹⁶ This is problematic, if there is no evidence of a hearth, and some may have seen more general use such as the storage and preparation of food.¹⁷

In the mid sixteenth century the late medieval open-hall was replaced by a two-bay ground-floor hall with chambers above, the high-end bay being longer (3.9m) than the low-end bay (2.8m). The front wall of the new hall, unlike its predecessors, was jettied towards the street, the still extant first floor framing incorporating close studding and mid-rails: curved down-braces are present, but these are concealed behind the studding. The framing is supported by a jetty-bressumer moulded with shallow rolls and hollows. At ground level the wall has been rebuilt in brick, except for a short length behind the later porch.

A handsome oriel window illuminated the west (high-end) bay of the hall. This was transommed with ovolo moulded mullions and canted side-lights, and was supported by a solid oak cill.¹⁸ Although the window was glazed from the outset, unusually it had shutters (interestingly, because of the limited space on either side of the oriel, inner and outer shutter grooves were required, to allow one shutter to slide behind the other). It is conceivable that a similar oriel lit the hall chamber above, but at present the fabric is partly concealed and this hypothesis cannot be tested, though a shutter groove does survive above the present window.¹⁹ Neither window appears to have had clerestory lights.

The hall was entered from outside through a door in the east (low-end) bay. This door, which led onto the cross-passage, still survives behind a later porch (Plate II), and is in excellent condition, albeit now hung on modern hinges. Typically for an external door it is double boarded, the outside boards set vertically, the internal boards set horizontally. Moulded battens have been nailed over the joins in the boards on its outer face. The door frame is embellished with rolls, hollows and cyma mouldings, its door head of four-centred form with ‘V’ sunken spandrels.

The beams above the hall are attractively moulded with rolls, whilst the common joists are plainly chamfered with simple step stops (Plate I). Both joists and beams remain exposed, as intended, and have not been ceiled by plaster. Stairs to the first floor chambers must have remained elsewhere, at this time, as there is no evidence for an opening in the floor for them here. Surprisingly there was no connection (door) between the two first floor chambers at first.²⁰ This means there was no access between the high and low ends of the building at first floor level, at this time, but such an arrangement is not unknown in buildings of this period. The chambers must necessarily have been reached from two sets of stairs within the east and west wings.

A large brick chimney rises up through the east (low-end) bay today, backing onto the previously mentioned cross-passage, but this is clearly a later insertion (see below).²¹ The original location of the chimney was ascertained after inspecting the rear wall of the hall. A 2.6m wide gap was once present in the framing of this wall at ground level, in the west (high) bay, and a similar gap on the first-floor. These suggest the chimney once stood against the rear wall of the hall, its hearths located in these gaps. It would seem, from this evidence, that the chimney heated both the ground floor hall and also the west first floor chamber (the east chamber was never heated).

The rear elevation of the hall, against which the chimney stood, is understandably less elaborate than the front, being unjettied and lacking the close studding and oriel windows. A simple, unglazed mullioned window is still extant in the east (low-end) bay at first floor level. Two original doorways are present on the ground floor. The first door lies, as one would expect, directly opposite the front door at the north end of the cross-passage, but now comprises modern fabric. The second lies immediately to the west, its frame moulded with rolls and hollows similar to those which embellish the beams over the hall. This door opens away from the hall, presently into a later stair tower, but originally into a now missing part of the building, perhaps a lean-to. A third door is present within the west bay, but this appears to be an insertion, despite its similarly moulded door frame.

The ground-floor hall with its chambers above are still covered by a crown-post roof, its construction typical of the period, though the presence of only alternate lateral braces is generally associated with late examples of such roofs (Plate III). The longitudinal braces are numbered from the east, but the absence of brace one indicates that originally the roof extended over the east (low-end) wing.²² The absence of soot-blackened timbers rules out the possibility that the roof contains fabric salvaged from the earlier open-hall.

It is not known if the high-end wing of the original Wealden, which was probably of similar proportions and appearance to the extant east low-end wing (see above), had survived, at the west end of the house, until this point, or if it had been replaced when the second, larger open-hall was built. The present wing, whatever it replaces, can however, certainly be attributed to Stephen Hulkes and his ‘new’ house.

The early history; documentary evidence

According to Hasted writing in the 1790s, ‘Calico House’ was also known as Parsonage House. This is an important clue concerning the history of ownership of the house because Calico House and the patronage of Newnham church were linked for centuries.²³ The name Newnham is not mentioned in Domesday, perhaps indicating that even in the eleventh century this was merely an extensively wooded area in which there was no permanent settlement, or nothing large enough to bother King William’s tax-gatherers.²⁴ Wallenberg’s earliest reference to Newnham is 1177 from Registrum Roffense where the place is called ‘Newenham’, a form that seems to have remained in general use until at least the mid thirteenth century when it was sometimes referred to as ‘Neuham’ (derived from the Old English niowe for ‘new’ plus ham, a town).²⁵ Nevertheless, it appears that the manor of Newnham alias Champion Court was in existence from the early twelfth century, being in the hands of Hugh de Newenham who held it from the Knights of St John as Henry I’s tenants in chief. Though unrecorded, it seems likely that Hugh was responsible for the provision of the parish church.²⁶

Hugh was succeeded by his son Fulk de Newenham who, perhaps following King Stephen’s lead as founder of Faversham Abbey, estab-lished a Benedictine nunnery on his manorial lands at Davington in 1153.²⁷ Amongst Fulk’s gifts to the nuns were lands from his manors of Davington and Newnham, and the ecclesia or parsonage of Newnham, which was linked to Newnham manor.²⁸ As a consequence of Fulk’s beneficence, the prioress became responsible for appointing the vicar, maintaining the chancel of the parish church (such duties becoming more formalised at a later date) and presumably ensuring that the church property was maintained (such as a tithe barn). In return the prioress would have received the great tithes, which seem to have been worth £5 per annum. This was a considerable sum and became the subject of a dispute between the priory and Faversham Abbey, the abbot claiming that Newnham church had been given to his institution. In 1193 Archbishop Hubert Walter resolved the dispute in favour of the nuns provided they paid 33s. 4d. annually to the abbey.²⁹ The priory is not mentioned in the Taxatio of 1291 but a later return, dated 1343, states that the nuns received 66s. 8d. from the ecclesia of Newnham after payment to Faversham Abbey; nothing from a messuage they held in the parish; 50s. from a hundred acres of arable they had in Newnham, Mousecote and Corstling; 21s. from sixty-three acres of pasture they held in Newnham, Mousecote and Bourdfeld; and 11s. 8d. from a windmill at Newnham.³⁰ An indication of just how important the Newnham property was for the nuns can be gauged from a return dated 1384/5. The churches of Harty, Davington and Newnham were together worth £12 per annum, the church of Burdefeld provided 53s. 4d., whereas all of their temporalities only provided £14 6s. 8d.³¹

Moreover, if the prioress failed in her duty to provide a vicar for the parishioners of Newnham, as happened at least once when the vicarage was vacant in 1292-94, the priory would also have been able to appropriate the small tithes.³² However this may have been exceptional and the monastery may have generally fulfilled its obligation, the vicar residing locally at the vicarage house. For example, in the early fifteenth century the vicar seems to have had a fairly substantial dwelling. In his will dated 1526, William Chadborne the vicar at Newnham mentions that in his hall there was a long table and a long settle.³³ It is not clear whether his bed with its feather mattress and a cupboard were also there, but this would not have been unusual. Among the other possessions in his house were a carpet and at least two candlesticks because two of the best were to be given to Thomas Pack after William’s death. William’s niece apparently inherited articles from the kitchen: a ‘ryngged cawdorne with two Eeres’ and two pewter platters, which may have been kept in or on the aforementioned cupboard that she was also to receive. Interestingly, William was a local landholder, and the lambs’ wool that was in his house probably came from his own sheep. The profits of his lands and woods were to be given to the churchwardens to organise two masses to be sung annually on the anniversary of his death, though what happened to the lands following the Reformation is unknown.³⁴ Thus from his bequests Chadborne seems to have been relatively prosperous, perhaps reflected in the size and state of the vicarage house. However, this was probably not the case in 1511 when at the archiepiscopal visitation the vicar complained that his stipend of eight marks per year (£5 6s. 8d.) was insufficient.³⁵ The prioress was prepared to raise it by a mark, which satisfied the vicar and may not have been too onerous for the prioress because there were only four women at Davington and the total annual income was generally £41 14s.³⁶

The vicarage house was presumably next to the church, but the position of the nuns’ messuage (said to be worth nothing in 1343) is unclear from the documentary sources. One possible location is the present site of Calico House; that is the messuage was an earlier house which for some reason in 1343 was without a rent-paying tenant. This may relate to the state of the building if the nuns had been unable to repair their property for some reason, because it seems unlikely there would have been a shortage of potential tenants in the period before the Black Death and after the countryside had apparently recovered from the agricultural crises of the 1310s and 1320s. Certainly the nuns were claiming poverty at this time; a statement the king’s official believed was the case when he investigated the priory’s finances in 1343, and their problems were presumably only exacerbated by any inability to fund the maintenance of their holdings.³⁷

If the nuns’ finances were precarious in the 1340s, they deteriorated even further in the later part of the century, a further reason for the imbalance between the financial value of the priory’s spiritualities and temporalities. Furthermore, the number of nuns had fallen from the original foundation of twenty-six to fourteen and it seems likely the numbers were even lower at certain periods in the post-Black Death era.³⁸ The collection of the nunnery’s rents may have been difficult during the later Middle Ages, which may have meant the prioress farmed out the priory’s holdings to local farmers rather than taking on tenants directly. Notwithstanding the national economic, demographic and climatic problems of the fifteenth century, for certain members of the peasantry such positions offered a means of extending their holdings at a time when the balance between the demand for and availability of land had swung in favour of those seeking land holdings. Consequently, the successful farmers were able to amass considerable property portfolios, consisting of land held freehold, as tenants and as farmers for various institutions.³⁹ Provided their offspring survived, these farming families would become the yeomen of the sixteenth century and their fifteenth-century predecessors, as employers of their less fortunate neighbours, wanted houses that proclaimed their rising status in society. Thus even though in agricultural terms Newnham and surrounding parishes were not especially productive because of the terrain and soil type, through the acquisition of small manorial estates such as Newnham parsonage and other lands and woods a few local farmers apparently achieved this status. These men would have constructed houses to match their position and from the architectural evidence detailed above, Calico House may have been such a property.

Unfortunately none of the fifteenth-century nunnery documents survives but the testamentary evidence offers a number of potential candidates as farmers of the parsonage or at least local men of a similar status. Among these is Thomas at Style of Newnham who made his will in 1462. He mentioned his house and garden that was near to the vicarage, a messuage and garden that was on the west side of the street with a garden called Pettehawe, a third messuage and garden and two pieces of land called Paradyse (later part of Calico Farm) and Gerveyse.⁴⁰ Another candidate is John Fylkes (1476) who at his death held a messuage with two gardens and a ‘hemphawghe’ in Newnham. He intended that the property should pass to John Bayle on the understanding that John’s wife and another John Fylkes should each have a chamber in the messuage with a fire and fuel for life, having free access at all times to their respective chambers.⁴¹ Even though few details are given concerning these houses, they do suggest that such houses would have been of a comparable complexity and status to Calico House, which by this time may have comprised the larger open-hall house identified by Austin (see above).

Even if the names of the fifteenth-century farmers of the parsonage will probably never be known, the last of their successors was Thomas Okingfold who, in 1529, farmed the parsonage of Newnham and rented eighty acres of land in Newnham and Monckton (and perhaps also the messuage) for which he paid £6 annually over and above the vicar’s pension and the pension to the abbot of Faversham, though he could deduct any expenses for the repair of the parsonage, barns and stables.⁴² Thomas’ will survives but unfortunately he does not provide any specific details concerning his property holdings and by the time he died the nuns had gone and their property was in Henry VIII’s hands.⁴³

Six years after Okingfold took on the farm at Newnham an inquiry concerning the state of Davington Priory found that there was neither a prioress nor nuns able to perform the services required, and the house was said to have lapsed.⁴⁴ As a consequence the king’s commissioners in 1535, the same year, did not record separately the priory’s holdings in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, but did mention that the priory had had the rectory of Newnham with the advowson of the vicarage. Robert Shene was vicar at the time and he certified that a house with one and a half acres of land there was worth 5s. yearly, which might have been the vicarage house.⁴⁵ These newly acquired royal assets did not remain with the Crown for long, the parsonage, glebe lands (and the messuage) sold to Henry Bourne gentleman at a rent of £20 per annum.⁴⁶ A decade later, in 1546, the priory site and its estates were sold to Sir Thomas Cheney for £1,688 12s. 6d.⁴⁷ The parsonage and associated holdings continued to change hands, the lawyer William Lovelace acquiring it in 1578 as part of his growing portfolio of properties in Kent.⁴⁸

This was one of a large number of clerical presentments in Kent that came into lay hands in Elizabeth’s reign, providing further opportunities for yeomen, gentlemen and others to acquire capital assets, thereby enhancing their wealth and status. Some of these men came from local families who had also been social climbers in the fifteenth century, while others may have been new to the area, taking advantage of such opportunities across the region at a time when Kent was becoming an even more important supplier of foodstuffs (grain, malt and livestock) and fuel to London’s rapidly increasing population. As a way of demonstrating their rising status they often adapted their existing houses by building new wings or adding new floors, windows and fireplaces. This seems to be the case at Calico House, and the replacement of the larger late medieval open-hall by the ground-floor hall and chambers above may have occurred in the years following the Dissolution.⁴⁹

Nevertheless, the acquiring of major estates, as Sir Thomas Cheney had done regarding Davington and the abbey of Minster-in-Sheppey, could also bring certain problems. Like others among the aristocracy financial burdens in terms of lavish expenditure on buildings, furnishings and entertaining, especially when the queen arrived with her vast household; and the expenses of patronage at court had the potential to bankrupt these families. Similarly, the need to ensure good marriages for daughters and the dangers of tying up lands as part of jointure settlements, particularly where the dowager widow lived for many years, was not new but continued to plague certain aristocratic families. The Cheneys were such a family, leading to the rapid break-up of their holdings. Among those who seem to have benefited was Ady Sare of Norton, esquire, who acquired, amongst other lands in Newnham (and also in Otterden and Eastling), the manor of Newnham (that is the manorial lands of Newnham which Fulk de Newenham had given to Davington Priory) with all its rights and privileges; the parsonage of Newnham with the tithes of corn and grain thereto belonging; all the glebe lands; the advowson of Newnham church; numerous named lands including Church Field, Parsonage Croft, Upper Scookes, Nether Scooks and Scooks Wood in Newnham and Otterden that together comprised over seventy acres; a capital messuage with a dove house, orchard and all the other outhouses and buildings belonging to it in Newnham (recently purchased from John/James Bourne); and a three-acre piece called Clobbe.⁵⁰

Sare kept the manor of Monckton alias Monkton Melfelds (including the site of the nuns’ windmill?), the parsonage of Otterden, a six-acre piece of woodland, another much smaller piece of woodland and an acre piece up Easelinge Lane, but he sold the remainder, that is primarily the Newnham property including the patronage of Newnham church, to Gabriel Livesey of Eastchurch, Sheppey, in 1615 for £1,300. Livesey presumably rented out his holdings in Newnham, and Stephen Hulkes may have been one of or his sole tenant there.

Calico House: c.1600 to 1618

Stephen Hulkes’ ‘new’ house⁵¹

The most important alteration that Stephen Hulkes did to the existing property was the construction of the present west wing, which must predate 1618, the year of his death (see below). In height the levels of the new west wing match those of the adjacent ground-floor hall. Its construction also linked the previously free standing service building to the house. Initially it was entirely timber-framed like its late medieval predecessor, and similarly it maintained the medieval orientation of the house – it was still the high-end of the building. The ground-floor room was known as the parlour, that above called the parlour chamber (see below).⁵²

Access to the parlour from the hall was no longer through the original parlour door, which lay against the front wall of the hall, but instead a new door was formed against the rear wall of the hall and the earlier one blocked. The style of the new door frame is consistent with the features of the wing, being ovolo moulded with high level lambs tongue stops. Of the other timberwork, unlike the floor joists above the hall those in this wing are hidden, as intended, by a plaster ceiling, the only exposed work being the ovolo moulded, north-south aligned bridging beam. From the change in direction of the common joists it is clear that the wing was originally jettied on two sides – to the south (front) and west. Stephen probably had a clasped side-purlin roof over his new wing, a typical early seventeenth-century replacement for the ubiquitous medieval crown-post roof. Like many of its period this roof seemingly terminated in a jettied gable to the west.⁵³

Close studding is still extant along the south elevation (Plate IV), on the first-floor floor, and was presumably once present at ground level, but has been replaced with brick. The parlour was illuminated by an oriel window, its form similar in some respects to that in the adjacent hall. It had canted sides, the windows of which were again ovolo moulded, and the cill was solid, but unlike the hall window it lacked shutters and there were clerestory lights (these are now blocked).⁵⁴ From the pattern of empty mortices it is clear that the chamber above was lit by a similar window. Again the surviving structure indicates the form of the windows at the west end of the wing, the ground and first floors each having had an oriel window similar to those on the south elevation.

Interestingly, Stephen was apparently not satisfied with the arrangement of his new windows and within a short space of time had modified the front ground-floor oriel windows, both in the hall and in the parlour. He had brick bases, with ogee moulded plinths, constructed beneath the original oak cills and perhaps added bench seats internally at this time. Each brick base includes a carved brick panel. That beneath the east oriel was decorated with a fleur-de-lis, but Stephen added his and his wife Johan’s initials to the west one, placing S.I.H. in a shield (Plate V).

Stephen’s parlour and chamber over were lined with small-square, scratch moulded oak panelling, or wainscot (Plate VI). Both rooms were heated by hearths in their rear walls. These hearths have elaborately decorated overmantles (Plate VII). That in the parlour is 1.7m wide, with splayed inner reveals, and was constructed using moulded and decorated lime plaster over roughly shaped brickwork, a technique revealed during recent restoration. In the upper frieze are two fleur-de-lis which contain the initials of Stephen and his wife (SH and IH). That in the chamber above is similarly decorated, but more modestly proportioned. The substantial brick chimney that served these hearths is sited in the gap between the wing and the detached medieval service building. Its four octagonal shafts still rise above the roof line today, but their probably decorated upper courses have been lost.

The chimney also brought hearths to the medieval building to the rear, possibly for the first time, perhaps signifying a change in use. The ground-floor hearth is plain in appearance and wide (about 2.28m). Its use for cooking is confirmed by Stephen’s inventory (see below). Moreover, the scar for the bottle jack, that turned the spits, is still visible at the right end of the lintel.⁵⁵ At the back of the fireplace there is a residual heat bread oven with a vaulted brick roof. Stephen’s great chimney also served the room above the kitchen, though the hearth here is less than half the width of the one in the kitchen: its jambs and gently cambered lintel are plainly chamfered, the chamfers terminating in broach stops 0.42m from the floor.

Stephen may also have overseen the raising of the first-floor elevations of the east (low-end) wing (from 3.9m to 4.3m) because he referred to the first-floor room as his ‘painted chamber’ and much of the wall painting still remains. The alteration was achieved by completely rebuilding the east and front elevations of the wing in new timber. Most is still extant, the frame close-studded with mid-rails and concealed braces (these braces are straighter and smaller in size than medieval braces). Attractive moulded jetty-bressumers supported the new framing, but only a fragment of the south bressumer, adjacent to the porch, now survives.⁵⁶ At the front of the house, the first-floor chamber was lit by an oriel window, apparently relatively shallow in depth with a solid sill, and unlike some of the other oriels, this did not have clerestory windows.⁵⁷ The new work probably included another oriel window in the east wall, and also the insertion of a ceiling or attic floor above the chamber.

Stephen’s painted chamber had paintings on all four walls, which took the form of faux panelling or wainscot, in red ochre, with strapwork designs (Plates VIII and IX). Around the top of each wall, immediately below the ceiling, he had painted a frieze containing an inscription in English which is based on a seventeenth-century biblical text taken from ‘The Proverbs of Solomon’, verse 4.⁵⁸ Stephen seems to have had wall paintings in at least one other room because traces were found in the chamber over the hall. The resulting house was, therefore, a fitting testament to his position as a prosperous yeoman within Kentish Jacobean society.

Stephen Hulkes of Newnham

In April 1617 Stephen Hulkes, his son John and grandson Thomas bought from Gabriel Livesey for £1,400 the estate in Newnham that Livesey had acquired from Sare.⁵⁹ Stephen styled himself yeoman of Newnham which suggests that at the time of the purchase he was a substantial farmer in the area, especially as he and his son (and grandson) were able to raise this large sum of money.⁶⁰ If he was Livesey’s tenant, he may already have been residing at Calico House, an elderly man who wanted to ensure the future of his family. As well as the house itself there was an orchard, dove house and other outhouses and buildings; and the place was linked to a three-acre plot called Clobb. Nevertheless, this was only a small part of Stephen’s acquisition, making him a locally important landowner but not yet of gentry status.⁶¹

It is not clear exactly when Stephen refashioned the house because although it is possible he might have done it as a tenant, it seems far more likely he would have waited until he owned the place. If it was the latter, the work must have been completed quickly because he referred to it as his ‘new’ house when he made his will in December 1617.⁶² Nonetheless, he was an old man by this time and it seems strange that he decided to make drastic alterations to the house at this stage in his life, pointing, perhaps, to an earlier date for the alterations.⁶³ Yet, even if the timing of these changes remains problematic, they must have been completed by December 1617.

Stephen’s will provides considerable information, not least that he had apparently handed over much of the responsibility for the family’s wellbeing to his son John, which might explain why the agreement with Livesey a few months earlier had been with three generations of the Hulkes family. John is the only son mentioned in Stephen’s will and according to the family pedigree in the Newnham parish collection John was Stephen’s only son.⁶⁴ However, the parish register reveals a Stephen Hulkes who was the father of an illegitimate daughter in 1614.⁶⁵ If this was another Stephen, who seemingly left the parish soon after his daughter’s baptism, it is conceivable that he was John’s brother, the black sheep of the family?

Stephen Hulkes may already have taken to his bed when he made his will because he no longer saw himself burdened with temporal cares; and his death followed soon after in July 1618. He had already chosen his burial place, wishing to be interred in Newnham churchyard ‘neer vnto a place where a dyall lately stood’, his executor to see to the construction within a year of ‘a faire tombe of ffreestone’ over his grave. Even though he sought a modest funeral, as an apparently God-fearing Protestant he wanted certain worthy observances such as a funeral sermon by a ‘sufficient’ preacher (who was to receive two angels of gold), the distribution of money (£3) and bread (a quarter of wheat) among the [deserving] poor of Newnham and elsewhere, and the giving of two angels of gold to his sister Dorothy Bishop in remembrance.⁶⁶

Stephen’s bed was on the first floor of his new house, though in which of the three upstairs rooms he mentions in his inventory (an addition to his will) is not clear because he had a bed in each. He might have been in the chamber over the hall because the best featherbed was there and the bed also had a coverlet and two blankets. However, apart from his desk and the hangings, his inventory does not mention any other items in the room, which may suggest that it was more Spartan compared to his other chambers.⁶⁷ In terms of workmanship, his best bed was in the painted chamber because unlike the other two it was made of joined work. Furthermore, curtains surrounded the bed, to enhance its status and keep out the draughts, and there were also curtains covering the windows, a mix of refinement and pragmatism. Otherwise the only listed furniture was two dozen joined stools made of oak and the largest chest with its three locks, perhaps holding Stephen’s title deeds to the house and lands. However it has been suggested that the painted chamber may initially, at least, have been a child’s room because the biblical inscription around the walls offers advice to children concerning their behaviour.⁶⁸ Whether such considerations were still important by 1617 seems unlikely, nonetheless Stephen’s bedchamber may have been in the room above the parlour, which was heated by a handsome fireplace, at the west (high) end of the house.⁶⁹ Here there was another standing bedstead. This bed seems to have had more furnishings including two pillows and pillow coats of Flemish work (possibly bought from the Flemish weavers who were still working in a few Kentish towns, as well as in London), though there is no mention of any blankets or coverlets. The room also contained a little table and another large chest, and, like the painted chamber, the windows were covered by curtains hanging from curtain rods, again for decoration, privacy and to keep out the draughts, while further curtains surrounded the bed for the same reason.⁷⁰

Downstairs in the rest of his rebuilt and refurbished house were the two main rooms for dining and entertaining guests. In the hall was a long table, maybe used at meal times on formal occasions, and a little square table. His armour was also there, a mark of his status though its usefulness was probably somewhat limited by this date.⁷¹ The parlour, with his and his wife’s initials on the decorated overmantle, contained two more tables: a drawing table and another square one, at which there were six foot stools. Perhaps also close to the tables were Stephen’s two great chairs, one made of wainscot, the other covered with green, matching the covering of a further two stools in the room. Also there was Stephen’s court cupboard, which may have been covered by the dornix carpet, in this case matching a curtain of the same material. As well as providing storage, such cupboards would have been used to display the family’s silver including in this case Stephen’s salt cellar and cup. These items were the only individual pieces listed in his will, apart from his clothing (inherited by his servant) and the furniture and other objects listed in the inventory, possibly becoming family heirlooms because they were to pass to his two married daughters.⁷²

The service rooms (below the painted chamber) on the other side of the cross passage from the hall were presumably Stephen’s ‘two other butteries’ in which were kept the standard measures for beer brewing and a block with three legs, both butteries having a range of shelves for the storage of various items. The other two butteries were next to the kitchen and they too had a great deal of shelving and in one there was another three-legged block. As noted above, the kitchen contained a large hearth in which was set all the ironwork required to cook the household’s food. Amongst the cooking apparatus were two great racks, a jack and weights, two wheeled spits, and three hand spits. Also present were two dressers, presumably used to store items such as platters and other eating utensils, while the cooking pots and pans were probably sitting on the kitchen shelves.

The well was in the back yard and seemingly the brew house too, in which there was a furnace and all Stephen’s brewing vessels. Brewing was an extremely important industry and Kent provided a large percentage of the barley and malt needed by the ever growing population of London, as well as serving more local needs. Hop growing was also extensive in the county and Stephen’s fortune may have rested on his abilities as a farmer and brewer (see above). Unfortunately, however, it has not been possible to trace his or his family’s earlier history because the surviving parish registers for Newnham and the surrounding parishes generally do not begin before the early seventeenth century and in the probate records the name Hulkes is not listed for any of these same parishes.⁷³ Yet if Stephen was the first of his family to reside in Newnham itself, he was able to build up a network of connections among the established local families very quickly: his daughters married men from neighbouring parishes (Maria’s marriage to Peter Adye of Doddington took place in Newnham in 1603), which may suggest that the Hulkes family did come from this part of Kent.⁷⁵ Frequently people were very mobile in the early modern period, holding lands in several scattered parishes or having wide-ranging business interests, and their personal and family networks often reflected this topographical diversity. Thus it is perhaps not surprising that in 1615 John Hulkes of Newnham was visiting the house of Erasmus Elmeston of Lenham and that the others gathered there were not from the local parish either. Interestingly, John said he was thirty-five years old and that he had lived in Newnham for seven years.⁷⁶

At his death Stephen had a number of properties in Newnham. As well as Calico House he had another house, called Cockehoope, in Newnham Street, which was to become the home of Christopher Brigges, Stephen’s aged servant. Among his other duties Christopher was to help John at harvest time. Stephen’s wife was to receive a messuage in Newnham and an annuity of £30, but presumably because of the earlier agreement Stephen did not specify that John (and Thomas) would be the new owners of Calico House. Nevertheless, following his father’s death John Hulkes inherited Calico House and some of the furnishings, including his father’s death bed, and presumably resided there with his family. Rather than remaining in her son’s new house, Johan Hulkes may have moved into the messuage she had inherited or joined one of her married daughters, taking her share of Stephen’s household items with her.⁷⁷

Calico House: 1618 to 1720

The house under Stephen’s descendants

During the mid seventeenth century the house underwent further work, though exactly when this took place is uncertain. Thus it may relate to the later years of John Hulkes, who died in 1651, or perhaps to his wife, who continued to live there after his death (see below). In either case it was the ground floor hall and its chambers that received the greatest attention.

Probably the first alteration was the relocation of the chimney (the original was located against the rear wall of the hall) to a new position within the east bay of the hall, backing onto the cross-passage. This alteration was perhaps undertaken to allow a stair tower to be built against the rear of the house (see below), a feature that would considerably improve communication within the building.⁷⁸

The new chimney is still extant, and has been little altered, its ground floor hearth a substantial inglenook with two small niches (spice or salt cupboards) in its rear wall. Its decorated oak bressumer resembles the beams above the hall, and the timber may have been salvaged from the original chimney when this was dismantled. A second hearth, on the first floor, is far smaller (1.2m rather than 2.67m), with a plainly chamfered bressumer of low segmental form.

The stair tower is also still extant, and is lit, on the ground and first floors, by glazed windows in its north (rear) wall (Plate X). Each comprises three lights with ovolo moulded mullions and iron glazing bars.⁷⁹ The tower’s elevations are close-studded, with a mid-rail, but appear to lack any form of bracing. The corner posts have long, flared jowls with short, angled shoulders. Still extant is the tower’s simple collar-rafter roof, which is gabled to the north (rear).

Entry to the tower at ground level is through a door in the north (rear) wall of the house, though the door predates the stair tower and must originally have led elsewhere (see above). A cupboard lit by a small window (now blocked) was present beneath the stairs from the outset. The stairs themselves wind their way up around a central newel to an inserted opening in the rear wall on the first floor.⁷⁹ The corridor that now runs along the rear of the main range, at this level, may have been inserted when the tower was built, allowing the upstairs rooms to be reached independently from each other, and thereby offering far greater flexibility than before.

A new window was inserted into the rear wall of the ground-floor hall (between the west door and the later stair tower) at, or shortly after, this time. This was a large window, one befitting a hall, with six lights (the profiles of its plainly chamfered mullions suggest it was glazed from the outset). It was blocked after the construction of another two-storey structure at the rear (see below).

Also formed at this time was an attic, which meant the two hall chambers were no longer open to the roof. The attic stairs are located to the rear of the chimney, and comprise solid timber treads fixed to runners. Many of the attic floor boards also survive from this mid seventeenth century phase, albeit now in a poor condition. Today the attic is unlit, but at an earlier date there was a small window along the south (west) slope of the roof. This was later replaced seemingly by a dormer window, from the evidence of the peg holes drilled through a number of the rafters, probably by the Hulkes when the west wing was rebuilt.

Another two-storey, timber-framed structure has since been built in the gap between the stair tower and the rear (service) wing, blocking the later hall window (see above); like the stair tower, its collar-rafter roof terminates in a gable to the north. It is not clear whether this addition was constructed by the Hulkes or their successors.

Similarly, either John Hulkes or his wife also had built a single-storey porch in front of the main entrance to the house. Still surviving today, its doorway has ogee moulded jambs with run-out stops. Covering the porch is a simple collar-rafter roof that terminates in a gable, the bressumer of which is ovolo moulded and decorated with a repeating guilloche pattern. The sides of the porch are open, above a mid-rail, and incorporate turned balusters. Seating is provided in the form of bench seats.

However it may have been John Hulse (John Hulkes’ grandson), rather than his grandmother, who was responsible for the single-storey lean-to that was constructed against the north (rear) wall of the service wing and hall. Initially it was entirely timber framed, but is now largely rebuilt in brick. Being two bays long, the short west bay is a continuation of the cross-passage of the main range, the east bay housing the stairs down to the cellar beneath the service wing. Originally there were two doors in the north (rear) wall of the lean-to: that to the east is now blocked with brick, that to the west remains in use, leading onto the cross-passage. Light was provided by a small, two-light, glazed window (now blocked) between the two doors.

In addition to this work, it was possibly John Hulse (died 1682) who replaced the hall chamber and west wing parlour oriel windows with the present flush mounted frames, though feasibly it could have been the work of his successor. These are transomed, their mullions ovolo moulded internally, while their external architraves and the outer faces of their transoms have narrow ogee mouldings. At a slightly later date the façade was decorated. Plaster panels were applied over the timbers of the south (front) and east elevations of the house, and a decorative design, dated 1710, painted on them, in red ochre (Plate IV and Plate XI).⁸⁰ This must be the work of John Hulse’s kinsman and successor. From the street this decoration is perhaps the building’s most distinctive feature; though almost all of the extant decoration is a modern restoration of the original work. It seemingly was the last work on the house undertaken by the Hulkes/Hulse family, but it is worth noting that in the late seventeenth century they had started underpinning in brick the west, ground-floor elevation of the west wing. This work was continued by the family’s successors in the eighteenth century, until most of the building’s timber-framed elevations had been replaced with brick.

Stephen Hulkes’ descendents

Having moved into Calico House after his father’s death in 1618, John continued the family’s farming and other commercial interests in the area, and also maintained his rights regarding the parsonage. Interestingly, in 1623, John Hulkes was one of those who testified against the vicar, Thomas Mills, saying that as well as being non-resident he had failed to read the litany and other prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays and that he was a brawling parson.⁸¹ A more colourful accusation was made by R. Adir who said that the vicar had on one occasion eaten nine yards of black pudding.⁸²

The early 1630s brought considerable changes: John Hulkes’ mother died in 1633 and the same year he had an agreement drawn up regarding the provisions his second wife Elizabeth (whom he had recently married?) and their children would receive after his death.⁸³ The following year he had prepared a deed of partition between himself and Thomas, his eldest son, to split the capital assets, including the advowson, they had acquired with Stephen seventeen years earlier.⁸⁴ They agreed that as John had made the last presentment to the living at Newnham, Thomas would make the next and they would jointly repair the chancel. In addition, according to the agreement, the lands and tenements were to be divided between them, each receiving certain named properties. However Thomas was a considerable disappointment to his father, and he compounded his ills by marrying without his father’s consent.⁸⁵ In contrast, several of his brothers and one of his stepbrothers were successful; acquiring lands in different east Kent parishes where they resided as gentlemen.⁸⁶

According to his will, made in 1647, John Hulkes wished to be buried in the ‘parsonage chancel’, close to the site of the communion table, and like his father he wanted his executor to oversee money distributed to the local poor.⁸⁷ As a very prosperous yeoman he sought to provide substantial legacies of several hundred pounds each to his unmarried children, who were to reside with their mother at the family house in Newnham until they married or came of age. Elizabeth Hulkes carried out the wishes of her husband after he died in 1651, apparently remaining in the village for more than a decade, presumably at Calico House because in the Hearth Tax returns for 1662 and 1664 a Widow Hulkes and Mrs Hulkes were listed respectively. Her house had seven hearths thereby making it the largest in the borough.⁸⁸ When she was followed by her grandson John, the son of Stephen Hulkes II of Westwell, is unclear, but there was a Mr John Hulse living in Newnham in 1671, that is prior to his father’s death.⁸⁹

Of those living at Calico House, Stephen Hulkes’ great grandson was the first to use the surname ‘Hulse’ and style himself gentleman. Like other families whose grandparents and parents had prospered during the seventeenth century, John’s father and uncles had gentrified their name, which they presumably felt was in keeping with the family’s higher status. Thus as a gentry landowner John’s will, made on his deathbed in January 1682, included the request that he be buried in the parish church at Newnham, and that a funeral monument should be placed nearby at a cost of £100.⁹⁰ He also continued the family tradition of aiding the poor, though in this case he initiated a charitable scheme to provide accommodation for two poor honest local people.⁹¹ The beneficiaries were to live rent-free in two cottages in Newnham Street belonging to John Hulse and when either of them died the churchwardens and overseers of the poor would choose a replacement. Yet he left nothing towards the maintenance of the housing stock, which would become a major drawback in the decades that followed.

John bequeathed to his wife Elizabeth a life’s interest in all his lands and property in Newnham and several other parishes, and his half share in Newnham parsonage. After her death the Newnham estate was to pass to John’s cousin, another John who was the son of Charles lately deceased of Chartham, and then to his heirs. However, if this male line failed, the inheritance would pass to his godson, another John Hulse, the son of Nathaniel his father’s stepbrother.

It is difficult to judge exactly how much of the new work (see above) undertaken at Calico House in the late seventeenth century was his, but the probate inventory of his goods and chattels does provide some clues.⁹² According to this document the main ground-floor rooms were the hall, parlour (Stephen Hulkes’ west wing), and kitchen.⁹³ The hall was relatively sparsely furnished, there being a long table with striped carpet and a small table also covered by a carpet. It seems likely that the four joined stools and possibly the three chairs were gathered around the long table, made more comfortable by the six cushions. Lying beside the fireplace was a pair of andirons. Entering the parlour, a visitor would have seen a large drawing table covered by a turkey-work carpet and twelve matching chairs. There were other items of furniture in the room such as a small table, a large looking glass and six joined stools, and in the hearth a small pair of andirons and a pair of bellows. It is difficult to ascertain how John Hulse and his wife would have used these rooms, but they may have dined, especially on formal occasions, in the hall, using the parlour as a more private space for the entertaining of their gentry relatives and friends. In such circumstances, it is conceivable that some of the family’s silver plate may have been there, available to be admired by guests and visitors.

Though Elizabeth Hulse, John’s wife, presumably directed operations in the kitchen, and perhaps to a much lesser extent in the brew house and milk house than her predecessors had done as the wives of prosperous yeoman farmers, the kitchen with its five spits, three gridirons and other cooking equipment was primarily the workplace of the maid servants. The pewter was also kept in the kitchen, with the much less valuable tin ware and two small glass cases. The single warming pan was presumably for the exclusive use of the master and mistress of the house, and it too was stored in the kitchen.

Upstairs in the [second] parlour or the best chamber (over the parlour) were two featherbeds with several items of bedding, the beds surrounded by curtains. Nearby was another looking glass, a case of drawers, a small table, a chest and a trunk in which would have been stored such valuable items as the family’s linen. Curtains covered the windows and a pair of andirons lay by the hearth. Next door in the hall chamber was a further bed with all of its furniture, two chests, a wainscot box, a small looking glass, two stools and an old chair. The last of the family’s rooms was John Hulse’s study (perhaps the painted chamber) containing a desk and books valued together at £5. Access to these rooms from the ground floor would have been via the stairs in the stair tower at the rear of the house, and of the two first-floor bedchambers for the family, John and Elizabeth may have used the best chamber, reserving the hall chamber for their guests.

The servants had two rooms, the first containing a joined bedstead and bedding, a trundle bed and an old table; the maid servants’ having two bedsteads and furnishings (but three featherbeds), two chests, an old trunk and three stools. Though conjecture, this seems to imply that John and his wife had five live-in servants. There seems to have been a fireplace in the latter room because there was a pair of bellows, a fire pan and tongs, which may indicate that it lay over the kitchen. Somewhere on the staircase there was a clock and down below in the two cellars were stored four brew tubs and fourteen drink casks. Presumably these were used in the brew house, which was probably a separate building and may have been quite large because it was also used to store the equipment needed for baking and washing. The milk house appears to have been part of the main building, possibly the ground floor of the infill at the back of the house between the stair tower and the kitchen, and may have had the servants’ chamber above (see below). Like the brew house, the barn, stable and corn loft were separate buildings; and in the yard there were three cows, a wagon and thirteen loads of firewood. John’s horses were slightly more valuable, together the three old horses and a small nag were worth £16.

Dowager widows or those who remarried might live for many years thereby outliving the next heir, and in this case Elizabeth Hulse outlived her late husband’s cousin. As a consequence when she died in 1704 the Newnham property was claimed by John Hulse, the son of Nathanial Hulse of Petham (see above). He may have moved into Calico House immediately, and it seems highly likely that he oversaw the decorating of the façade, remaining there until his death in 1713. The inventory of his goods suggests greater divisions within the house because as well as the hall, parlour and kitchen, there was a closet adjoining the kitchen and another at the foot of the stairs (perhaps the cupboard under the stairs, containing an old table and candle box), close by were the cellars and a room containing a malt quern, hemp seed and ten old sacks (possibly the single-storey lean-to).⁹⁴ In terms of decoration, too, there were changes because the hall contained six pictures, as well as seven chairs and two tables. The inglenook hearth was well stocked having a pair of pot hangers and other similar equipment, and the salt box was presumably also kept there. The inventory seems to suggest that the parlour was more sparsely furnished than before, though there were six chairs and a table, as well as a clock and implements for the fire sitting in the hearth.

As before the kitchen was well equipped, as befitted a gentry household that needed to be able to entertain guests and visitors, in addition to providing for the household on a daily basis. The servants would have eaten in the kitchen, seated on the seven chairs and a stool around the table. Storage was provided in the form of a dresser and a cupboard, and the salt box probably sat near to the hearth, though whether the lead tobacco pot was nearby is unknown. The pewter was probably here too, though like the linen it was listed separately.

Of the rest of the property, the milk house was presumably in the same place as before, and it was now said to have a chamber above.⁹⁵ This chamber contained a bedstead with its furniture and a cradle. Among the other first-floor chambers was the best chamber with its closet, the hall chamber, the kitchen chamber, and the painted chamber. Perhaps nearby were the porch closet (the small room formed above the cross passage when the ground-floor hall chimney was relocated in the mid seventeenth century?) and used to store apples, and the closet upon the staircase. The latter was large enough to accommodate a bed and its furnishings, and some hops. The best chamber (over the parlour) contained a bedstead with matt and cord curtains, a case of drawers, a table, eight chairs, a small trunk and items for the fire. Further storage was provided in the adjoining closet, which contained an old chest. As before, it seems likely that this would have been John Hulse’s bedchamber, though whether the linen was still kept in this chamber is unknown. Equally, it is not clear where the five family portraits were hanging at the time of John’s death, or the clothes press because they too were listed separately, as items that would be inherited by John’s young son and namesake.

The other first-floor chambers had fewer items compared to the best chamber, but each had a bedstead and similar curtains. Guests may have been accommodated in the hall chamber because in addition to the bed there was a cane chair, six other chairs and two chests, the painted chamber having nothing except its two beds and bedding. If the servants slept in the same chambers as before, it seems likely that these were the chambers over the milk house and kitchen, the latter also containing an old chest for storage purposes.

The brew house was well stocked, having a copper and a brass furnace, as well as a brewing tub, a tun tub, two bucking tubs, a cheese press and other items. The bucket and rope for the well were also there. Nearby was the wheat barn and podware barn, the latter used to store hay and oats in addition to peas. The stable seems to have been full of equipment rather than any horses, including an old wagon, a plough, two harrows and a roller. The four horses and five colts were outside, as were the three cows, four sheep and several pigs.

From John Hulse’s will, made just before his death, it is clear that he intended his young son John would inherit his property in Newnham, including Calico House, but not the inn called ‘The Sign of the George’. Until he came of age the property was to be managed by young John’s three uncles, who would inherit if John died before he reached his majority.⁹⁶ Consequently when he died soon after his father, Edward, Nathanial and Strensham Hulse inherited the Newnham property. None of them lived in Newnham and having no desire to keep the property they had divided and sold it by the spring of 1720. Calico House was described as:

that capital messuage or mansion house with the barns, stable, granary, pigeon house, outhouses, buildings, close, yards and garden and two orchards, two cherry gardens and three pieces of arable and meadow land with the shaws of wood belonging to the said capital messuage being in total thirteen acres in Newnham being then or late in the tenancy of Thomas Barling gentleman’.⁹⁷

The new owner of Calico House was Colonel William Delaune, who added it to his existing estate of Sharsted. He also acquired half of the parsonage of Newnham, that is the alternate right to present the vicar and certain tithes of corn and grain from the parish (as had been divided by Thomas and John Hulkes in their agreement of 1634), but he did not acquire all the Hulse property. From the Hulse pedigree it seems that the other part of the Hulse estate in Newnham, and probably the other half of the parsonage, was inherited by another of Charles Hulse of Chartham’s sons.⁹⁸ However by the later eighteenth century the Hulse family had relinquished interests in Newnham completely, the remaining assets having passed out of the family through the female line.⁹⁹

To conclude, across Kent the period c.1400 to c.1700 witnessed dramatic changes in the construction and adaptation of the houses owned by yeomen and their urban counterparts. Though the actual chronology and the precise details of these changes varied regionally, and to a certain extent individually, among the houses, there are some broad trends such as the increasing division of the domestic interior, the growing specialization of room use, the importance of heating, the expansion in the number and quality of furnishings, and the significance of access throughout the house. From the evidence of the building survey and the documentary records, these developments have been observed for Calico House. This is valuable in itself, but so too are the variations, as detailed above, and by placing the general beside the particular, it is possible to gain a better understanding of the history of rural housing in this region of Kent. Furthermore, the projected focus by KAS on a transect through the county, of which Newnham will be a part, means that this house, with others can greatly aid our knowledge of Kentish history during the crucial period between the crisis of the Black Death and the arrival of the Hanoverian kings.

endnotes

¹ The name ‘Calico House’ seems to have been used from c.1740, the first known documentary reference being in Catherine Swift’s accounts book where in July 1742 a carpenter called Thomas Wood was paid £1 19s. for work done on ‘Callicoe House’ Centre for Kentish Studies [hereafter CKS]: U145/A4/1. The name may refer to the external decoration, dated 1710, that resembles designs used on printed calico. For the purposes of this article the writers have referred to the property as Calico House throughout as a way of avoiding confusion.

² The authors would like to thank the present owners for permission to make extensive use of the detailed architectural and documentary report produced for them by the authors.

³ For those seeking a useful introduction to Kentish timber-framed houses; P.S. Barnwell and A.T. Adams, The House Within: Interpreting Medieval Houses in Kent, RCHME (London, 1994).

⁴ Evidence for reverse assembly can be seen within the rear wall of the surviving bay (now internalised by a later lean-to) atop the north-west post. It is this reverse assembly, and the presence of a double jetty, that indicate Calico House started life as a Wealden.

⁵ For a discussion on the partial survival of houses and the implications of multi-phase construction; S. Pearson, The Medieval Houses of Kent: an Historical Analysis, RCHME (London, 1994), pp. 59-60.

⁶ Originally this was not a fully screened off corridor, as it is today, rather it was a route through the building between the front and rear doors of the house. At Calico House the passage was not undershot (beneath the service wing) as is sometimes the case in such small hall houses. For a discussion of such features, see Barnwell and Adams, The House Within, p. 18.

⁷ These doors, and the adjacent lengths of partition, were reinstated, based on the surviving evidence, during the building’s recent restoration.

⁸ In durn construction the door head is an integral part of the door frame and not a separately formed component.

⁹ At the time of Stephen Hulke’s death in 1618 these rooms were referred to as his ‘two other butteries’ (see text narrative below).

¹⁰ This is unusual but not unknown.

¹¹ Part of the east (rear) elevation survives at ground level. A long curved down-brace is present here against the north-east corner post. Lath and daub was exposed above and below this brace, where later plaster had fallen. A peg in the surviving ground-floor post of the south (front) elevation must be for a similar down-brace.

¹² By glazing we mean conventional fixed glass.

¹³ Interestingly there is no shutter groove above the rear wall window.

¹⁴ It is now covered by a butt side-purlin roof.

¹⁵ The levels (e.g. floor and roof) within this frame are far higher than those of the original Wealden, ruling out the possibility that this is a surviving part of the original house.

¹⁶ For a discussion regarding such buildings, see Pearson, Medieval Houses of Kent, pp. 104-7.

¹⁷ Both bays are floored here and an open-hearth cannot have been present, but some form of chimney cannot be ruled out.

¹⁸ This must be an original feature for there are no mortices on the soffit of the jetty-plate above it for an earlier window or walling.

¹⁹ As seen already, a shutter groove does not rule out the possibility of an oriel.

²⁰ The original partition that lay between the two chambers has been removed, but is evidenced by mortices on the soffit of the tie-beam. There was no break in this partition for a door.

²¹ Its insertion turned the cross-passage into a proper corridor, rather than merely a route through the hall from the front to rear doors.

²² The numerals comprise shallow nicks made with a chisel.

²³ E. Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 2nd ed., VI (Canterbury, 1972 [1798]), p. 413.

²⁴ Using the Hearth Tax of 1664, which places Newnham in ‘Stupenton Borough’, Upper Faversham Hundred, it would seem Newnham in Domesday was ‘Stepedone’ in Milton Hundred; P. Hyde and D. Harrington, Hearth Tax Returns for Faversham Hundred 1662-1671, Faversham Hundred Records, II (Lyminge, 1998), pp. 284, 473; P. Morgan, Domesday Book: Kent (Chichester, 1983), 5, 117; Norton is 5, 143, map: East Kent. The authors would like to thank Terry Lawson for bringing this information to their attention.

²⁵ J.K. Wallenberg, The Place-Names of Kent (Uppsala, 1934), p. 287.

²⁶ For the importance of manorial tenants as patrons and church-builders, see M. Berg and H. Jones, Norman Churches in the Canterbury Diocese (Stroud, 2009), pp. 22-3. Also there seems to have been a motte and bailey castle at Newnham from the late 11th or mid 12th century; A. Ward, ‘Castles and Other Defensive Sites’, in T. Lawson and D. Killingray, eds, An Historical Atlas of Kent (Phillimore, 2004), pp. 53-4. The market and fair were establish somewhat later (granted in 1303 and known to have been held in 1312); http://www.history.ac.uk/cmh/gaz/gazweb2.html. See also; T. Lawson, ‘Markets in the Medieval Period’, in T. Lawson and D. Killingray, eds, An Historical Atlas of Kent (Phillimore, 2004), pp. 50-1.

²⁷ J. Caley, Sir Henry Ellis and Rev. B. Bandinel, ed., Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicarium, a new edition, IV (London, 1846), p. 288.

28 Hasted, Kent, VI, p. 414. According to Lewis writing in the 1720s, Mr Southouse of Faversham had seen writings held by John Hulse showing that Fulk had founded the nunnery; J. Lewis, The History and Antiquities of the Abbey and Church of Faversham in Kent (1727), p. 77. Monasticon Anglicarium, p. 288.

²⁹ W. Page, ed., Victoria County History, Kent, II, p. 144. Hasted, Kent, VI, p. 419.

³⁰ Monasticon Anglicarium, p. 290 citing Bodleian: MS Dodsw., vol. CXV, f. 158. Lewis, Faversham, p. 78.

³¹ Monasticon Anglicarium, p. 288.

³² Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library [hereafter CCAL]: DCb/VR10.

³³ CKS: PRC 17/17, f. 110.

³⁴ There is nothing in the Kent chantry records for Newnham; A. Hussey, ed., Kent Chantries, Kent Records, XII (Ashford, 1936).

³⁵ K.L. Wood-Legh, ed., Kentish Visitations of Archbishop William Warham and his Deputies, 1511-12, Kent Records, XXIV (Maidstone, 1984), p. 224.

36 Ibid., pp. 30–1.

37 Monasticon Anglicarium, p. 288

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ In terms of acreage, ecclesiastical institutions were hugely important in Kent and by the mid fifteenth century most have devolved responsibility for their manorial holdings onto their farmers who paid them a rent for the demesne lands. Such men are extremely interesting, see for example; G. Draper, ‘The Farmers of Canterbury Cathedral Priory and All Souls College Oxford on Romney Marsh c.1443–1545’, in J. Eddison, M. Gardiner and A. Long, eds, Romney Marsh: Environmental Change and Human Occupation in a Coastal Lowland (Oxford, 1998), pp. 116-22.

⁴⁰ CKS: PRC 17/1, f. 275.

⁴¹ CKS: PRC 17/3, f. 5. Also see below for the Fylkes family.

42 Monasticon Anglicarium, p. 291.

43 CKS: PRC 17/23, f. 93.

44 Monasticon Anglicarium, p. 288.

⁴⁵ Valor Ecclesiasticus, I, p. 70. The only document for Davington Priory listed on the Monastic Houses website, hosted by UCL, is The National Archives [hereafter TNA]: PRO E36/154, pp. 67-72: survey of the lands of Davington in form of summaries or notes of leases, c. 1535. From TNA catalogue, there does not appear to be anything of use in the Cheney papers.

⁴⁶ Hasted, Kent, VI, p. 419. The Bourne family had held Sharsted manor from the time of Edward III; Hasted, Kent, VI, p. 309.

⁴⁷ Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Domestic, XXI, pt II (1546), p. 91.

48 Hasted, Kent, VI, p. 420.

⁴⁹ For a discussion on the timing of the change from open halls in Kent belonging to the yeoman farmers rather than the gentry, see Pearson, Medieval Houses of Kent, pp. 114-15.

50 CKS: U145/T12. For an assessment of the land market in sixteenth-century Kent; M. Zell, ‘Landholding and the land market in early modern Kent’, in M. Zell, ed., Early Modern Kent 1540-1640 (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 39-74.

⁵¹ In terms of current ideas about ‘new’ and ‘old’, there were those among the higher social strata who saw adaptation of existing structures as the way forward, a reflection of the idea that age and antiquity were synonymous with authority and quality, but there were others who equated old buildings with decay for which the best remedy was destruction and replacement; D. Woolf, The Social Circulation of the Past: English Historical Culture 1500-1730 (Oxford, 2003), pp. 208-9.

⁵² The hall, once seen as the pivotal room in the house, was by the early seventeenth century beginning to lose this status in favour of the parlour, even possibly in rural houses such as this, though the hall remained important as a point of entry and as a formal space from which to approach the parlour, rooms used by the family and its distinguished guests; N. Cooper, Houses of the Gentry, 1480-1680 (New Haven and London, 1999), p. 141.

⁵³ This is suggested by the attic floor, which seems to have been jettied over the eaves-plate. The gable has since been turned into a hip.

⁵⁴ One of the oriel’s canted sides was exposed internally during works when a small section of later panelling was removed.

⁵⁵ The jambs of the hearth have been repaired with new brick, but were once perhaps chamfered, with simple broach stops, like those of the fireplace in the room above. The lintel is gently cambered and plainly chamfered.

⁵⁶ The original bressumer would have been plain, and would have sat atop the joists.

⁵⁷ Transom mortices can be seen on the outside faces of the posts. These are square cut and the sides of the oriel were, therefore, most likely to have been square, not canted. Grooves for the leaded glass of the side lights can also be seen.

⁵⁸ The source of this inscription was the Geneva Bible and/or the King James Bible; information provided by T. Organ. The authors would like to thank the present owners for procuring this information.

⁵⁹ CKS: U145/T12.

⁶⁰ At his death Stephen had 894 sheep and forty-nine cattle grazing on Romney Marsh; J. Thirsk, ‘Agriculture in Kent, 1540-1640’, in M. Zell, ed., Early Modern Kent 1540-1640 (Woodbridge, 2000), p. 81, citing CKS: PRC 28/9/270. See also: A. Everitt, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640-60 (Leicester, 1966), p. 26.

⁶¹ He already held land in the vicinity, including fields and an orchard abutting the glebe lands; CCAL: DCb/D/T/N14.

⁶² CKS: PRC 32/44, f. 332.

⁶³ The RCHME report says that the new parlour end with fine fireplaces was built c.1600 and that in the early seventeenth century the east end was heightened, the chamber wall paintings were done and the stair turret was added; S. Pearson, P. S. Barnwell and A. T. Adams, eds, A Gazetteer of Medieval Houses in Kent, RCHME (London, 1994), p. 95.

64 CCAL: U3/251/25/3.

65 CCAL: DCb/BT1/171/6.

⁶⁶ Bread, as the staff of life, was an immensely suitable charitable bequest, and one that his Catholic forebears would also have understood, though from a somewhat different doctrinal perspective; S. Sweetinburgh, ‘The poor, hospitals and charity in sixteenth-century Canterbury’, in R. Lutton and E. Salter, ed., Pieties in Transition: Religious Practices and Experiences, c.1400-1640 (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 63-73.

⁶⁷ Though it is important to remember that the inventory only concerns a percentage of his household furnishings because the residue (all the items not individually recorded) was to be shared equally among each of Stephen’s three children and their mother.

⁶⁸ To date it has not been possible to ascertain who the child(ren) might have been because at his death all three of Stephen’s children were adults and there is nothing to indicate that any of them had been born or spent their childhood in the house.

⁶⁹ By the early seventeenth century, prosperous and genteel householders had generally moved beds previously in the hall or parlour to an upper floor, part of the move towards specialization rather than multifunctional use. Moreover, beds at the high end of the house were the province of senior members of the household; Cooper, Houses of the Gentry, p. 289.

⁷⁰ As Richardson highlights, by this period the ‘middling sort’ were beginning to share with those above them socially a common sense of more ‘delicate’ and thus superior domestic interiors and furnishings – objects offered luxury and comfort, and also marked status and refinement that reflected well on their owners; C. Richardson, Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2006), pp. 65-6.

⁷¹ He would have been expected to have been part of the local militia.

⁷² The very way Stephen Hulkes sought to pick out a considerable number of particular items as bequests is indicative of the watershed between what Richardson calls ‘the conservative domestic culture of’ the medieval period and ‘a one in which objects were necessarily divorced [because of their sheer increasing number] from their connections to familial transformation and ancestral mnemonics’; Richardson, Domestic Life, p. 67. Evidence of this proliferation of household objects for Kent can be seen in; M. Overton, J. Whittle, D. Dean and A. Hann, Production and Consumption in English Households, 1600-1750 (London, 2004).

⁷³ The surviving parish register for Newnham begins in 1722, but the Bishops Transcripts start in 1603; the registers for Doddington: 1589; Lynstead: 1653; much earlier are those for Eastling: 1558. Of the wills: John Hulk (1484) was from Goudhurst and Thomas Hulkes (1543) was the parish clerk at Hollingbourne. Nevertheless the Fylkes family was well represented in the parishes of Doddington, Newnham and Teynham and it is not impossible that it is the same family because a double ‘f’ for a capital ‘F’ is not dissimilar to a capital ‘H’ and at least one other family in Kent experienced this shift.

⁷⁴ CCAL: DCb/BT1/171/3. In the Doddington parish register a John Hickes married a Marie Adye in June 1598, though whether this was John Hulkes is unclear; CCAL: U3/195/1/1.

⁷⁵ CCAL: PRC X.11.7, f. 228.

⁷⁶ The messuage in question was occupied by William Ridges when Stephen made his will.

⁷⁷ Though considering seventeenth-century London houses, Brown believes good access and connections to other parts of the house were characteristics of the hall; F. E. Brown, ‘Continuity and change in the urban house: developments in domestic space organisation in seventeenth-century London’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 28 (1986), 581-2. Such ideas are useful, though it is necessary to bear in mind Pearson’s comments on the complexity of the relationship between rural and urban housing; S. Pearson, ‘Rural and urban houses 1100-1500: ‘urban adaptation’ reconsidered’, in K. Giles and C. Dyer, eds, Town and Country in the Middle Ages: Contrasts, Contacts and Interconnections 1100-1500 (London, 2005), pp. 43-63.

⁷⁸ The ground-floor window had been blocked, but was reinstated during the recent restoration.

⁷⁹ In cross section the newel is round, not polygonal, and has perhaps lost its finial.

⁸⁰ Additional pine mouldings were applied around the aforementioned windows before this plaster was applied.

⁸¹ CCAL: PRC X.11.19, f. 191v.

⁸² CCAL: PRC X.11.19, f. 194.

83 Stephen’s widow apparently died at Doddington (perhaps living with a married daughter); CKS: PRC 2/32/57. The indenture concerning the provisions is noted in John Hulkes’ will; TNA: PROB PCC 11/220, f. 259.

⁸⁴ The details are preserved in an abstract of title of Captain Edmund Barrel Faunce to certain rights and property in Newnham; CKS: U145/E6.

⁸⁵ CCAL: U3/251/25/3. John recounted the misdeeds of his son Thomas in his will; TNA: PROB PCC 11/220, f. 259.

⁸⁶ Most of his sisters and stepsisters also married well, that is to members of the local gentry but they all died young; ibid.; W. T. Berry, Newnham in Kent: a village of no importance, Faversham Society, xi (1976), p. 9.

⁸⁷ Berry, Newnham, p. 9. Regarding the inheritance of his mansion house, John was not very precise in his will because he bequeathed ‘all such household stuff being in my mansion house in Newnham as were given unto me by Inventory annexed unto the last will of Stephen Hulkes my deceased Father unto such of my sons as shall have right to the said house after my decease’; TNA: PROB PCC 11/220, f. 259.

⁸⁸ In 1662 the parsonage was listed as having four hearths; Hyde and Harrington, Hearth Tax Returns, pp. 18, 19, 41, 284.

⁸⁹ According to Berry, when John Hulkes died in 1651 he left his Newnham property to his son Stephen but this Stephen did not return to Newnham, preferring to remain at Westwell. Stephen died in 1678, his heir being his son John; Berry, Newnham, p. 9. Hyde and Harrington, Hearth Tax, p. 62, though the number of hearths at Mr John Hulse’s house was seemingly difficult to read.

⁹⁰ CKS: PRC 17/75, f. 260.

⁹¹ Ibid. Berry, Newnham, p. 9.

⁹² Fea reported seeing a ‘good fireback bearing the Commonwealth date of 1650, surmounted by a regal crown’, which may belong to an earlier phase of the work on the house; A. Fea, Picturesque Old Houses (London, 1905), p. 8.

⁹³ CKS: PRC 11/45, f. 152.

⁹⁴ CKS: PRC 11/71, f. 97.

⁹⁵ It has been suggested that in some late sixteenth-century houses the milk house may have occupied the space previously known as the pantry, i.e. one of the two ground-floor service rooms in the low-end wing; Pearson, Medieval Houses of Kent, p. 104. This does not appear to have been the case at Calico House because the inventory lists separately the painted chamber and the chamber over the milk house.

96 CKS: PRC 17/82, f. 185.

97 CKS: U145/T11; T12; U145/E6.

⁹⁸ CCAL: U3/251/24/3. The notebook of Archbishop Wake c.1715 lists the patronage of the Newnham church as belonging to Hulse and …; CCAL: Add MS 19.

⁹⁹ In the 1790s it was in the hands of Mr William Hills, late of Southwark; Hasted, Kent, VI, p. 420.

Fig. 1 Ground plan, as existing, showing location of sections and features.

Fig. 2 Long section through main range, as existing, showing location of features.

Fig. 3 Cross sections through main range, as existing, showing location of features.

Fig. 4 Ground plan showing phasing and room names.

Fig. 5 Long section showing room names.

PLATE I

West wall of hall, showing framing of earlier medieval open-hall (note moulded beams and chamfered joists overhead

PLATE II

View looking north into cross-passage, through sixteenth-century front door.

PLATE III

View of attic, looking east, showing crown-post (note single down brace)

PLATE IV

View of south elevation of main range of house, showing close studding and painted plaster

PLATE V

Decorative brick panel beneath west window of south frontage, carved with the initials of Stephen Hulkes and his wife

PLATE VI

Stephen Hulkes’ parlour, looking east, showing seventeenth-century small square panelling and decorated fireplace

PLATE VII

Detail of decorated over mantel of parlour fireplace

PLATE VIII

Stephen Hulkes’ painted chamber, looking south-east

PLATE IX

Detail of wall painting

PLATE X

North elevation of stair tower and two-storey extension

PLATE XI

Eighteenth-century painted plaster on east elevation of service wing