Re-erection of the North Cray Hall-house at Singleton
by P. J. Tester, F.S.A.
If all goes according to plan, the weekend commencing Friday 10th August 1984 will see the beginning of the final stage of an archaeological project which started back in 1968. Over that weekend work will begin on the re-erection of a fifteenth-century hall-house which stood until sixteen years ago on the roadside at North Cray in the London Borough of Bexley. At that time it was removed in the interests of road widening and it was intended to re-erect it somewhere within the Borough.
The completed excavation at Oldbury.
However, after years of delay, the timbers were eventually donated to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton, near Chichester in West Sussex, where after careful repair the house will be reconstructed as part of a small market-square complex already partially completed. A detailed description of the house was published in Arch.Cant.Vol.87(1972).
The completed excavation at Oldbury.
Mr Roger Champion, the master carpenter of the Museum, has spent the past months repairing the frame and renewing the timbers where necessary. The material has been recognized as elm, and there are definite indications that the external woodwork was painted red as a primary feature of the building.
Coinciding with the erection of the house in August, it is intended to hold an exhibition of photographs illustrating how the work of restoration has taken place.
Among the Museum's permanent exhibits are several buildings from Kent, notably the fine medieval hallhouse called Bayleaf, rescued when Bough Beech Reservoir was formed on its site at Chiddingstone, and from the same locality came a small timber house from Winkhurst Farm.
The completed excavation at Oldbury.
One of the most interesting and dramatic archaeological sites in Europe must surely be that of Biskupin in Poland. Excavations over many years have revealed the remarkably well preserved remains of a late Bronze Age/Iron Age settlement of great extent - 'wooden Pompeii' - as it has been described.
A comprehensive exhibition dealing with Biskupin will be touring Britain during 1984. At the Museum the Butser Ancient Farm Project team is reconstructing replicas of three Biskupin houses, one of which will be finished in Iron Age fashion, the other two being used as exhibition space. In addition to objects from the excavations, there will be models, maps, plans, and photographs that recreate Biskupin and the Lusatian culture that it represents.
The exhibition opens on 3rd May, where it will stay for three months before being taken on tour around Britain for a further four months.
