Wikhurst Farm, Bough Beech

WINK.HURST FARM, BOUGH BEECH By R. T. MASON and R. H. Woon IN 1967 the construction of a reservoir for the East Surrey Water Company at Bough Beech, near Bever, required the removal of two medieval houses known as Little Winkhurst and Winkhurst Farm. The National Grid references were: Little Winkhurst 496/492 and Winkhurst Farm 496/493. The area is well endowed with ancient timberframed buildings, many of which are of the medieval open-hailed type, the most significant example so far known being the very early hall at Old Court Cottage, Limpsfi.eld, Surrey, tentatively dated to circa 1200.1 Despite its name, Little Winkhurst was the larger and more pretentious of the two, and consisted of three bays of an erstwhile four-bay house with a substantial sixteenth-century addition (probably a kitchen with a chamber above) and a small stairs vice. There had been an exceptionally early flooring-over of the hall during the first half of the sixteenth century and at roughly the same time there had been architectural improvements of the chamber over the service end. Also a large chimney had been built at the south side with a fireplace serving the hall only. The provision, at the south end of the added wing, of a 'smoke bay' about 4 ft. wide which functioned as both fireplace and chimney was established by the localized blackening of the rafters and upper timbers of this particular compartment. Such 'smoke bays' are frequently encountered in the humbler local houses and may generally be placed with some confidence in the second half of the sixteenth century, that is, between the "open hall" period and the accelerated practice of brick chimney building of o. 1600. Normally a later brick chimney is found built within the smoke bay and the character of its brickwork will sometimes assist in resolving a chronology for the whole building.2 These features reflect a considerable increase in status for the household at the relevant time with an incidental division of its master/servant strata much more definite than it could have been under medieval conditions. Winkhurst Farm, the subject of these notes, though smaller and less pretentious, was certainly earlier, and in many ways structurally superior to its neighbour. Also it was so unconventional in plan and 1 Surre1J Arch. Oollections, lxiii (1966), 130-137. , R. T. Mason, Framed Buildings of the Weald (1964), 76. 33 WINKHURST FARM, BOUGH BEECH design as to suggest that it may have been originally built for a specialized need-not necessarily an agricultural one. The characteristics of the typical medieval farmhouse are familiar and easily recognized, consisting of an open hall of two bays flanked by two-storied accommodation at one or both ends. The convention of upper end with moulded dais beam and single parlour doorway, and lower end with two service doorways, all in association with a more or less ornamental central hall truss was so consistently adhered to that departures from it are always of interest. Entrances are at either end of a cross passage-occasionally structural and well-defined, either within the hall at its lower end or outside it in the service bay. The variation of this basic design by means of jettying the two-storied parts (as in the so-called 'Wealden' house) is a refinement and in no sense a deviation from the orthodox. At Winkhurst Farm the hall was of two bays, reduced to one bay in its upper part by the flooring-over of the south bay to provide a solar chamber above. The original house consisted of no more than this, and the space under the solar being open to (and part of ) the hall, there were no service rooms whatsoever in the accepted sense of the term. The accommodation was therefore strictly minimal, lacking not only the privacy of parlour and chamber but also the convenience of the buttery and pantry so essential to the medieval farmhouse. This prompts the speculation that it may not originally have been built as a farmhouse-at any rate a farm.house attached to a pastural farm. Surviving buildings demonstrate the predominantly pastural character of medieval W ea.Iden farming, i.e. extensive service rooms often extending through two whole bays, barns and granaries being few in number and small in size. Despite its humble character the house was well built and the carpentry excellent, ruling out sheer economy as a disciplinary factor. Another unorthodox feature was the complete absence of even a non-structural cross passage. Entry to the hall was by means of a single doorway in the west wall positioned just south of the cross-beam carrying the solar floor joists. There was no opposing doorway in the east wall, indeed there had originally been a window in this position. A house of somewhat comparable design in this respect, is Trimmers Pond, Forest Row, Sussex,a which, although the hall is of two bays with crown-posted open truss, has the lower under-sola.r space open to the hall and t4e single entry is in a very similar position. Examination of the solar floor timbers and the solar-hall partition showed that although the joists had been trimmed for a staircase and later blocked up, this was a post-medieval feature and there had never been a medieval stairway within the house, so that entry to the solar 3 SWJew Aroh. OoUections, had (1930), 107. 34 J->lwto: Xlllional .llon1w1tnlt llt<."Qrd. Crown cu))yright \\"inkhu,,;t F,1r1t1 from north-west. \,Vinkhurst Form l"J'Om north-enst. WINK.HURST FARM, BOUGH BEECH must have been by means of an external staircase, on the west side. No direct evidence for it was found, however, as the framing (very well preserved elsewhere) was seriously altered and damaged at this position. The location of the external stairs is therefore arrived at by the evidence of the rest of the framing, which demonstrates the improbability of its being situated elsewhere. The landing and entrance to the solar a.re likely to have been set immediately above the single entry to the hall. External staircases were perhaps more common in medieval framed houses than we suspect and there is some evidence that this was a normal means of access to cross-wing solars in the larger houses. Mortices for the landing joists can sometimes be detected in wall framing. There was a noticeable paucity of windows. Only three were definitely located and two more could be inferred; all were extremely small and of the simple diagonal bar type without any trace of means of closure. It will be seen that there was here little or no attempt to imitate the manor house in the normal fashion, in fact the house seems in many respects to lie in quite another tradition with perhaps a different lineage of development. In detail, however, the carpentry was quite conventional in every respect save one. It was found that the northernmost tie-beam at the gable end was seated to the wall-plate with a 'bare-faced' (i.e. one-sided) dovetail. All of the other tie-beam-to-plate joints were normal, that to the south gable being specially checked since it has been suggested that this is treatment logically reserved to gable tie-beams. The feature has been noted in a fourteenth-century context in Essex.4 The wall framing consisted of normal quadrilateral panels with large curved braces. This is the method of construction in all the early (fourteenth century) houses in the Weald, but it had a long period of use extending well into the seventeenth century, becoming progressively less massive, so that its value as a dating criterion is not great. Most of the original plaster and wattle panels had been replaced piecemeal by brick infilling of a wide variety of date and texture extending from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. An attempt had been made to seal off the solar roof from that of the hall by a rough hazel-rod wattle partition which had been plastered in the solar side only. No evidence of any kind of smoke outlet was found but this is quite usual in such ea.sea. The thick incrustation whioh remained on the rafters suggested that whatever means of egress for smoke was provided it was not very effective, and also, perhaps, indicated a period of exposure to open hall conditions rather longer than normal. The roof was of crown-post-collar purlin construction without any • Fourteenth century or earlier. C. A. Hewitt. Medieval Archcoology, vi-vii ( 1962--8), 268-4. 35 7• WINKHURST FARM, BOUGH BEECH adornment or refinement. The plain square crown-posts had longitudinal head-braces engaging the collar purlin and stout curved 'down braces' to the tie-beam. This is a simple but technically well-developed form which must necessarily argue against a really early date for the house. The dating of small-framed homies is generally difficult but is becoming less so as knowledge increases. A date for Winkhurst Farm in the late fourteenth century is proffered on the basis of its typology of design. The kind of house where under-solar accommodation is open to the hall is well established as a fourteenth-century type in the region. Other examples are Trimmers Pond, Forest Row; No. 48 High Street,5 East Grinstead, and its near neighbour No. 68. In all three of these houses, however, there is partial screening of the hall by means of speres, or wing walls, at either end of the cross-beam, leaving a wide arched opening at the centre. No such feature existed at Winkhurst Farm, the opening extending for the full width of the building. There was, however, a row of oak pegs about 4 ft. apart in the hall face of the cross-beam which perhaps may have been used to support a curtain. The absence of speres is perhaps not surprising since the architectural standards generally of Winkhurst Farm are well below those of the East Grinstead and Forest Row houses. Trimmers Pond is probably not later than c. 1400 and the two East Grinstead houses are authentically dated by well-cut Decorated mouldings from the first half of the fourteenth century. In these examples also the entries lie under the solar in the same position as at Winkhurst and none of them have any evidence of an opposing doorway to form a cross passage. V i rtually the only essential differences are the absence at Winkhurst of the speres and lower architectural (as distinct from structural) standards. A limited encroachment of the solar into the upper part of the hall is a fairly common feature, especially in houses where the cross passage is within the hall. It is not unusual in such cases for the solar to over-run the cross passage thus adding considerably to the solar floor area. This is carried to its ultimate degree in certain 'W ea.Iden' type houses recently found by S. R. Jones and J. T. Smith in Warwickshire6 w)lere the solar, as at Winkhurst, occupies almost half of the upper space of the hall. It may be significant that these early :fifteenth-century houses, and the East Grinstead parallels here cited, are town houses. The only analogous example which could possibly have been a farmhouse is Trimmers Pond, Forest Row. The explosion of Jacobean prosperity left its mark here as elsewhere. Firstly a chimney (presumably of brick, but possibly of timber and plaster) was built against the east wall of the hall. This was later 6 R. T. Mason, op. cit., note 2. 25. 8 Trans. Birmingham Arch. Soc., lxxix (1964), 24-35. J:'H.T MIT.IU'.S • I II I • I I • I I I I t I I I . . .. I I • • • I • • • • t=•======== == '- ::-:==-====.=I - - ----·'-'--- 1 _________ 1 , ___ J 1--- --- ---,-:,----! -- - -- ___ J.J.---( 1-- - -- - ---- --~---_,LJT _-_- -1i 7--- .... --------7 I r------------JI J ____________ J I • '-r- ----- ------ -l I ---􀀐􀀑-----------􀀒' - -- -------- -t I j _______ t:: 41 7'7i-------------------[----1; 1I --------:r-7 l t-- - -- --- - 􀁏 I i-------- 􀀞 I C:=-= =. - - :-:-:-I.:i_ -I I 10 6 0 10 Ii • • I 0 2 .3 4- 5 6 i wun' l I l ! FIG. 1. Plan and longitudinal section. R.H. Wood. meM et del. 1967. 20 I 8 9 J ' (face p. 36 10 􀀄 r􀀄tr .. • .. l 0 􀀅1CT2£􀀆 ••o•· I I I I I I I I I 􀀐.I... -- ------ ---- -- 0 to I ,. !> 4 5 6 ·; I : I : : FIG.2. Cross section and reconstruction of north-east elevation, men-s et del. I 967. ;20 I 7 % 9 : ; I R.H. Wood. WINKHURST FARM, BOUGH BEECH removed leaving only the trimming of the rafters as evidence, and replaced by another in the opposite (west) side. Later a large and up-to-date addition was made to the west side providing four new and handsome apartments. The wall framing of this new wing was of the close-studded type, which in spite of its superior character and later date had deteriorated to an extent far in excess of that of the earlier structure, so much so that almost the whole of the lower storey had been rebuilt in brickwork and most of the upper storey tile-hung to cover the numerous defects. The original early part of the house was dismantled with care and ea.oh component provided with an identifying label. It has been placed in store at West Dean, near Chichester, where it is intended that it shall be re-erected as part of an open-air museum for the Weald and Downland regions comprising representative buildings of various types, together with suitable local crafts and industrial monuments. 37