Herefordshire Through Time
Herefordshire Through Time
Prior to the 18th century the principal building material for houses in Herefordshire was oak. The timber was felled and worked while still green (wet) as this made it easier to cut and shape. Sections of the house were assembled in the carpenter's framing yard then the parts were numbered with carpenters' marks before being taken apart and moved to the final site. Here the frame was reconstructed on a stone plinth, each joint being secured with tapered wooden pegs. Panels were filled with wattle and daub and the roof covered either with straw thatch or stone slates. Not all houses were made using new oak, some contain re-used timbers from demolished buildings, often with empty mortices and peg holes; the belief that these are ships' timbers has no foundation in truth.
The county has a strong tradition of cruck-framed houses, most of which date to before 1450. These structures use massive cruck blades, cut in pairs from single, curved trees, to support the roof. Many houses in Weobley and Pembridge have this form of construction.
At the heart of the typical Herefordshire house, built in say 1500, was a single-storey hall, open to the ridge, with a central hearth for heating and cooking. Entry to the hall was from a cross passage that also gave access to the service accommodation in which the ground floor rooms were for food preparation and storage; the pantry for bread, and the buttery for beer and cider. There was a bed chamber above for the servants. Doorways at the opposite end of the hall led to the best rooms, the parlour, with the solar or bed chamber above. There would have been no glass in the windows but they did have shutters. This house layout would have accommodated an extended family living a communal life, coming together to eat, and for some also to sleep, in the central hall.
Towards the end of the 16th century, either because of social changes or possibly due to a few decades of a marked downturn in the climate, houses became more comfortable as the two-storey range replaced the medieval open hall. Chimneys were introduced to heat smaller rooms that had become less draughty as window glass became more widely available. The existing old-fashioned hall houses were converted, by the insertion of a first floor, a change that usually involved raising the roof to create extra headroom. Often the family accommodation at one end of the hall was rebuilt to provide greater comfort and space; an improvement that was often marked by a display of wealth through the lavish use of timber. Many buildings of this period can be seen in Ledbury in a style that is notable for the use of close-studding and, on Ledbury market hall, chevron decoration.
The first half of the 17th century saw a more decorative and playful use of timber in the creation of elaborate patterns within the panels. This is evident on John Abel's market hall, Grange Court, Leominster (HER 1633), which also includes richly carved figures and faces.
By the late 17th century, the long tradition of timber framing was being replaced by the use of brick, and although some timber houses were still made during the 18th and even 19th centuries, they were often of inferior quality, with frames that were intended to remain unseen behind lath and plaster. It is also probably true that although so much of the rich heritage of fine, early timber-framed buildings that survive in Herefordshire can be seen, there is also much that now lies hidden behind later facings of brick or stucco.