The Fashion of Dating Houses - Follow Up

By Gordon Taylor

The article in KAS Magazine 115 concerned three towns and referred to an omitted chart, but this is now shown below.

The fact chart below of the three towns shows how the populations have changed, the numbers of houses with inbuilt dates in the 16th to 18th centuries and the 19th and 20th centuries and the gap years between when no houses had a built-in date. The similarity in the latter figures is remarkable.

Town	Population in 1801	Population in 2011	No of 16th–18th century	Years Gap no dates	No of 19th–20th century	Arrival of railway date
Sandwich	2,735	4,985	12	75	26	1881
Corsham	2,402	13,000	6	85	18	1841
Broadstairs	1,568	24,543	5 + 4	86	34 + 6	1863

1. The study is of houses, but I have noted shops in Broadstairs as the town has three 1920 dated shops, one pub, in the town centre and one house outside; only one 1920 house and shop in Sandwich, none in Corsham.

2. 1801 population figure for Sandwich is for 1811 courtesy of John Hennessy of Sandwich Archives and Ann Harrison- Brooks. Hasted gave 2,213 in 1776. *Sandwich has a row of cottages with a date of 1805.

3. Broadstairs figures 5 + 4 show Broadstairs + St Peters to show how St Peters has stagnated and how Broadstairs’ population has ballooned from the lowest to by far the most. The arrival of the railway is displayed to indicate a possible reason for the population increases – Corsham’s railway dates from Dr R. Irwin.

4. The closeness of the years’ gap figures cannot just be a coincidence. It must indicate either: economic situation of the country or date stones coming back into fashion – I think the latter. The re-

appearance of dated houses starts in the three towns and nationally in 1868, 1869, 1872 and 1849. I have noted a house in Oxfordshire with curvilinear gables dated 1814.

The article also appeared in the Vernacular Architecture Group (VAG) Newsletter 79. Lorraine Moor (editor) kindly led me to a website: http://www.northcravenheritage. org.uk/NCHT/DatedDoorheads. htm listing, often with photographs, over 200 datestones in North Craven in Yorkshire. The fashion starting date 1590 aligns with my research, and the peak number of the datestones also matches, i.e. either side of 1700, although the 17th century had the most. However, the gap without date stones I’ve noted doesn’t exist in that area but carries right through to the first decade of the 20th century. But a number are only hearsay it appears.

Lorraine also kindly gave me another link: https://youtu. be/7tzPADmRlls where Malcolm Airs, an architectural historian, a VAG member, notes house dates in Dorchester on Thames on a fascinating amble around the town, again mainly in the range I have listed, pointing out some of the pitfalls of relying on the date one sees!

I also heard from David Clark FSA, former President of the VAG, who kindly sent me a list of 126 properties being compiled in Oxford City where again the start date is late 16th century 1588 on a house, but the list is comprised of primarily public (scholastic) buildings, only around 30 being houses. The table is comprehensive and would be an excellent example for any new group taking up the challenge. Their gap of 79 years is earlier, i.e. 1720 to 1799, then one more house then a gap to 1816 (see NB4 above).

David also mentioned a site in Sheffield: www.sheffieldhistory. co.uk/forums/topic/5292-date- stones-on-sheffield-buildings/ sheffield, although this is a more casual look at dates.

We now have access to four areas to compare, but dates are not necessarily built-in.

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Fig 1: Faversham 1697

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Fig 2: Ickham 1691