8. HISTORICAL ASSESSMENT:
DIFFICULTIES
Doorways, windows and hatchways will be obvious, but their positions
have often been altered over the years. Heating arrangements are
generally altered and improved as the years pass, so that a medieval
house which is built with a tiled hearth at floor level may later
acquire one or more brick or stone fireplaces with chimney stacks. These
in turn may be masked by later elaborate fireplaces and overmantles.
Recognition of the construction and materials of a house
may be and usually is hindered by plaster or rendering inside or
outside, internal partitions and wall paper, curtains or even furniture
– or the owner and his dog! Agreement must be reached with the owner
(and if need be with the planning authority or even with English
Heritage) on what can be stripped away and what cannot.
Confusion is sometimes caused by the reuse of materials,
usually timber, sometimes stone or brick. Apparently pointless mortices
and other joints cut in a timber are the most common sign of its reuse
from an earlier structure. With experience, the timber’s function in
its previous use may be worked out. Almost all reused timbers come from
other buildings, probably close by. Occasionally an unshaped tree trunk
may be built into a house, especially to brace a floor. It is in fact
unusual for timbers from a ship to be reused in a house or in any
building and it is surprising that legends of ships’ timbers in houses
continue to persist. Nevertheless the legend lingers on.
9. HISTORICAL ASSESSMENT: REMOVABLE ITEMS
Finally, in a house, there are the fixtures and fittings, the doors and
door frames, windows and window frames, cornice and skirting mouldings,
ceiling beam mouldings and stops, staircases, handles and catches. These
items are the most easily recognised and dated, but the danger is that
some of them are quite "portable" and may have been added to a
building centuries after it was built. They may nowadays be bought
wholesale at architectural scrapyards, so beware of fakes and fakery!
Hall’s compact, comprehensive and excellent Period
House Fixtures & Fittings 1300-1900 (Annexe 3 Book 17) provides
attested dates for a wide range of items. Even a Victorian or an
Edwardian house may nowadays have historical interest and Yorke’s The
Victorian House Explained (Annexe 3 Book 18) and The Edwardian
House Explained (Annex 3 Book 19) are very good for those periods.
Lawrence & Chris’s Period House: Style, Detail & Decoration
1774 to 1914 (Annexe 3 Book 20) can also be very helpful; it is less
detailed but wider in scope.
10. HISTORICAL ASSESSMENT: PROCEDURE
There is no easy method. As already described, the researcher has first
to work out what functional type of building lies before him or her and
then to identify its constructional features and materials. From this he
or she may gain an understanding of how the building functioned, both
originally and in later periods.
The object of the exercise is to see everything that
is to be seen, interpret everything for what it is or was, and to record
this wisdom. It is easier written than done. The researcher (one person
is best, or two can work separately and compare notes later)
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