The Medieval Manor of Penhallam,Jacobstow, Cornwall

THE remains of the medieval manor of Penhallam lie in a sheltered valley in the parish of Jacobstow, some 3 miles from the sea. It was one of the principal houses of the Cardinham family who held, under the king, the largest seignory in the county of Cornwall. Extensive excavation between the years 1968 and 1973 revealed substantial remains of a sophisticated manor house, standing within an earlier ring-work. The stone-built house was constructed in four periods during the late 12th and early 13th centuries. It was deserted in the middle of the 14th century and was gradually demolished. Mo remains of the buildings were visible above ground at the time of the commencement of the excavation. The site, now known as Berry Court, takes the name of a small homestead of probable 16th-century origin, standing on the outer edge of the moat.

There was no visible trace of the hall associated with the early Norman ring-work, but its existence is attested by the subsequent development of the site. Excavation revealed that there were stone buildings standing on the four sides of a courtyard. They comprised a hall, camera, chapel, service rooms, lodgings and a gatehouse. From these remains it was possible to obtain much information about the construction and development of a medieval manor house in the 12th and 13th centuries. Excavation of the 13th-century gatehouse and drawbridge well revealed the construction, assembly and operation of a counter-balanced bridge.

The excavation finds, attributed to the 13th and early 14th centuries, have been presented to the Royal Institution of Cornwall at Truro.     

The English Medieval First-Floor Hall: Part 2 – The Evidence from the Eleventh to Early Thirteenth Century

The concept of the first-floor hall was introduced in 1935, but Blair’s paper of 1993 cast doubt on many of those buildings which had been identified as such. Following the recognition of Scolland’s Hall, Richmond Castle as an example of a hall at first-floor level, the evidence for buildings of this type is reviewed (excluding town houses and halls in the great towers of castles, where other issues apply). While undoubtedly a number of buildings have been mistakenly identified as halls, there is a significant group of structures which there are very strong grounds to classify as first-floor halls. The growth of masonry architecture in elite secular buildings, particularly after the Norman Conquest, allowed halls to be constructed on the first floor. The key features of these are identified and the reasons for constructing the hall at this level – prestige and security – are recognized. The study of these buildings allows two further modifications to the Blair thesis: in some houses, halls and chambers were integrated in a single block at an early date, and the basic idea of the medieval domestic plan was already present by the late eleventh century.     

Account of a Roman Sepulchre at Geldestone,Norfolk

Rescue excavation between 1988 and 1990 in advance of river erosion examined a substantial part of the small medieval rural hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge and later post-medieval farm. Established in the latter half of the twelfth century for the infirm, including lepers, the hospital layout consisted of a detached stone chapel adjacent to the river crossing, with a timber hall to the west. This hall was destroyed by fire, and a sequence of timber buildings were then constructed in adjacent areas. By the fifteenth century these structures also included a stone building, possibly a refectory. The first small chapel was replaced in the thirteenth century by a larger structure, which went through a period of expansion and then subsequent contraction by the fifteenth century. Only in the fourteenth century were a hall, probably a guesthouse or the master's lodgings, and dovecote built adjacent to the chapel. The cemetery to the south of the chapel was partially examined. The site appears to have been a largely economically self-sufficient unit with an attached farm. The hospital was abandoned during the latter half of the fifteenth century, but the site and some of the buildings were subsequently reoccupied as a farm from the mid-seventeenth century. The farmhouse underwent conversion from a longhouse to a house of hearth-passage plan in the early eighteenth century. The former chapel was reused as a byre and additional stables constructed. The farm was moved to its present location to the south in the mid-eighteenth century and the former hospital site finally abandoned.     

Two 12th-century Wich Houses in Nantwich,Cheshire

EXCAVATIONS in Wood Street, Nantwich uncovered two salt or wich houses, the first medieval wich houses belonging to an inland production centre to be thoroughly investigated. From the excavation a picture emerges of a highly structured and ordered organization, with each stage in the production of salt clearly defined and demarcated. The two wich houses were approximately the same size and both included amongst their equipment a trough, either clay-puddled or, in the later periods, a hollowed-out tree trunk, technically called a ‘ship’. These were used for storing the brine, once it had been carried across the river in wooden pipes. There was no trace of this aqueduct network. The brine was then boiled in lead pans over an open fire. There were six hearths to each wich house. The houses are dated to the late 12th century. One was pulled down shortly after it was built; for the other the last recorded date is in the 16th century.     

Effigy of a Knight of the Fifteenth Century,Dug up in the Churchyard at Minster,Isle of Sheppey,in 1833, and now Preserved in the Church There

Twenty years after the R.C.H.M. volume Shielings and Bastles drew attention to the survival of many bastles, thick-walled defensible upper-floor houses of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, characteristic of the Anglo-Scottish Border. Recent fieldwork in Northumberland has shown that bastles (the earliest vernacular house type to survive in any numbers within the county) also exist in considerable numbers in some areas slightly further afield, and notably in Allendale, to the south of the Tyne. Seven Allendale bastles or bastle-derivative houses are described in detail, and another twenty-seven listed in a gazetteer. The origins of bastles are discussed, and some possible medieval antecedents suggested; the fabric and morphology of the buildings are then considered, and various groupings—such as ‘extended bastles’ and groups around a common yard—examined. The continuance of the bastle tradition is seen in bastle-derivative houses of the later seventeenth century; the date at which conventional ground-floor houses were re-established varies from valley to valley.     

Usages of Domestic Life in the Middle Ages

This paper is based on the lecture given to the Institute at the Society of Antiquaries of London on 18 October 1972. It concerns the discovery in 1967 in a house in the village of Harwell of the aisled hall, formerly in the curia of the medieval manor of the Bishop of Winchester, for which the Pipe Rolls for most of the years from 1208 to 1450 exist. The earliest phase of which parts survive consisted of a framed building with passing-braces built in the twelfth or early thirteenth century. The evolution of this form of timber dwelling with oak is traced from continental, probably lower Rhineland, structures of the ninth and tenth centuries. The long timbers used as passing braces are likely to have been derived from buildings in southern Germany which used conifers such as fir, timber that in turn had a long history from Roman times.     

English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200–1500)

FROM A SYNTHESIS OF evidence for late medieval peasant buildings this article argues that their size, quality and complexity have frequently been underestimated. Documentary evidence from the West Midlands is used to define the main features of peasant buildings—agricultural buildings as well as houses—in the period 1350–1500. Similar characteristics are found in the same period in other regions, in the context of their own building traditions. The origins of durable vernacular houses must be sought in the 13th century with the move away from earth fast construction. A series of changes began long before the ‘Great Rebuilding’ of the 16th and 17th centuries, and connected with that process in an evolutionary pattern.     

On the Probable Identity of the Gloucestershire Chapelry of St. Briavel’s,Recognised as Lidneia Parva in the Twelfth Century,with the Ledenei of the Saxon Hundred of Ledenei,Named in the Domesday as the Property of William Fitz Baderon

The shrunken medieval hamlet of Wintringham lies in the parish of St Neots some 2 miles east of the town centre. The position of the settlement was clearly defined by the remains of the peasant crofts, moated enclosures and bj the ridge and furrow of the open fields, which surrounded much of the site.

An excavation was arranged by the Department of the Environment and the Deserted Medieval Village Research Group in 1971 and 1972 to examine the moated enclosure, lying in the southern part of the site, before it was levelled and ploughed. The finding of four superimposed houses and their associated buildings revealed much information about the construction and expansion of a substantial timber house between circa 1175 and 1340.

The excavation finds have been presented to the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge.     

Recent Researches Among The Pyramids

Recent consideration of the date of construction of the hall at Tamworth Castle puts the building into a medieval context. It is suggested that the structure was raised in the second quarter of the fifteenth century or earlier. With a span of over eight metres (27 feet) its impressive tie-beam and double collar roof trusses represent the full structural development of the post and truss tradition and its place in that tradition is discussed. This significant late medieval timber frame has not stirred much interest since J. C. Buckler drew part of a roof truss (B.M., M.S. 36436, p.38620) and little documentary evidence has come to light which might establish close dating of the structure. A short account of the associated domestic buildings inside the shell keep reflects the general trend from first floor to ground floor hall and the eventual abandonment of the latter as the centre of the household.     

Roman Pottery Research in Britain and North-West Europe: Papers Presented to Graham Webster. Edited by A.C. and A. S. Anderson

The Court House at East Meon was a country residence of the medieval bishops of Winchester. Of this residence, the great hall, a solar, and a garderobe block survive largely intact. The Court House is remarkable not only for its fine state of preservation but also because of the detailed record of its development to be found in the magnificent records of the bishopric of Winchester. Until recently, there had been disagreement as to the date of its construction but the discovery of the original building accounts has allowed this to be established with certainty. Unlike larger bishopric residences which could accommodate the entire episcopal household for long periods, it seems to have served partly as a retreat for a select number of the bishop's household or friends. Although the name ‘Court House’ is not recorded until 1647, it is used here to denote the medieval house. All places referred to in the text are in Hampshire, unless otherwise stated.     

English Place-Names derived from the Compound wīchām

THE WIDE alluvial plain in the centre of Yorkshire, dividing the sub-Pennine uplands from the Cleveland plateau and the Wolds, was well forested in medieval times and supplied timber for the buildings in the City of York. Timber houses in the Vale itself have until now been unrecorded. They can be compared in certain respects with some groups of buildings in western Yorkshire, but are much less like the structures in the City of York than might be expected.     

陕西白水县下河遗址大型房址的几个问题

下河遗址大型房址F1、F2、F3均为半地穴式五边形建筑,年代为庙底沟文化时期。这种大型建筑是我国宫殿建筑的滥觞。房屋的营建大致包括六道程序,房内的地面均为料姜石制成的白灰铺设。F1为目前所见同期房址中最大者,对认识下河遗址庙底沟文化时期聚落的组织管理和资源调度等具有重要意义。     

The English Medieval First-Floor Hall: Part 1 – Scolland’s Hall,Richmond, North Yorkshire

A new survey of Scolland’s Hall in Richmond Castle identifies it as an early example of an integrated hall, chamber and garderobe. The hall was entered at one corner and the entrance to the chamber was at the opposite corner, suggesting that it had a low end and high end of the conventional form better known from buildings of the thirteenth century and later. The chamber was relatively small and had a mural fireplace set in the middle of the longer wall. It had a door to a projecting balcony, while a further balcony was provided overlooking the River Swale alongside the undercroft. The building is dated to the 1080s. It is argued that the features which appear to be unusual at Scolland’s Hall – the location of the hall at first-floor level, the organization into a low and high end, the integration of the hall and chamber, and the use of viewing balconies – have parallels in other near-contemporary buildings.     

Making the house a home in later medieval York

ABSTRACT

The loss of all original furnishings or decoration and the relentless refashioning of interiors have eroded our ability to appreciate how extant houses functioned as living spaces in the later Middle Ages. This paper uses a variety of documentary sources, notably York’s rich collection of probate inventories, to provide evidence on the division and furnishing of buildings. Depositions from cases within the ecclesiastical court of York ask questions about the way that particular artisanal and mercantile houses functioned both as residences and as places of work. Taking the author’s 2008 study in Medieval Domesticity a step further, the paper will consider in more depth the notion that a distinctive bourgeois ideology of domesticity, which was projected through material culture, grew up in the later medieval city. It will, moreover, ask how far later medieval artisanal or mercantile houses constituted homes.     

Medieval Britain in 1962 and 1963

Abstract

The Hammerbeam roof over the great hall of Edinburgh Castle is one of only two high-status roofs surviving on medieval secular buildings in Scotland. In 1999, Historic Scotland recorded the roof structure in advance of cleaning work. Detailed examination of the existing structure and surviving documentation confirms that much of the original timberwork survives, despite later use as a barrack, then as a military hospital, which resulted in many alterations to the structure, including subdivision of its interior. In 1887–92, the building underwent an extensive restoration by the Edinburgh architect Hippolyte Blanc. Its dating has been a matter of dispute among architectural historians, particularly with reference to its stone corbels. Our dendrochronological analysis indicates a construction date of 1509/10: the roof of the great hall of Edinburgh Castle is, therefore, a rare example in Scotland of major timberwork from the reign of James IV (1488–1513). Much of the original carved stone corbel work survives, despite restoration and partial replacement by Blanc, and the iconography of these is contemporary with the roof construction. The decoration of the corbels is therefore among the earliest use of Renaissance ornament in Britain. With the splendour of the roof, they are a small part of the repertoire used to present James IV in the magnificence of a contemporary European monarch.     

仙人好楼居:襄阳新出相轮陶楼与中国浮图祠类证

湖北襄阳东汉—三国蔡越墓出土的相轮陶楼,在建筑形制上为汉式陶楼和印度式相轮塔刹的结合,在装饰母题上同时兼有汉地神仙瑞兽与印度—犍陀罗式有翼天人的图像,明显带有佛教初传时期汉、印文化杂糅的特点。本文在讨论陶楼形制的过程中,分别联系同期北方墓葬中出土的陶楼明器和汉晋之际江南地区的佛饰堆塑重楼魂瓶进行类比分析,证明这两类墓葬明器都与文献记载的"浮图祠"相关联。在佛教初传汉地时,由"仙人好楼居"的汉式重楼过渡到高层佛塔,浮图祠是初期的标志,襄阳蔡越墓陶楼或可看作是浮图祠的标准器。浮图祠用作明器进入墓葬,反映了汉地民间埋葬方式因佛教传入而起的新变化,并在随后长江中游六朝砖墓的建造中留下了印记。     

Three Deserted Medieval Settlements on Dartmoor: A Report on the late E. Marie Minter's Excavations

HOUNDTOR, HUTHOLES AND DINNA CLERKS are three deserted medieval settlements on the granite uplands towards the eastern side of Dartmoor Forest, Devon. Houndtor and Hutholes were small villages comprising eleven and six buildings respectively; Dinna Clerks was an isolated homestead. Extensive excavation at these sites by the late Mrs E. Marie Minter revealed a long sequence o f superimposed houses, divisible into two periods. Those of the first were built of turf. Although their remains were few, and in some places confusing, they provided much information on the construction of this type of building in the South- West of England. During the second period commencing in the middle of the 11th century, the houses of turf were gradually replaced by those of stone. The excavation of the well-preserved remains of the long-houses and their associated barns and corn-driers and the recording of the gardens and some of the open fields have given a clear insight into the ecology of a community dependent upon mixed farming at altitudes between 1100 and 1300 ft above sea level. The excavation of these settlements has also demonstrated how the deterioration of the climate in the late 14th and early 14th centuries led to their eventual desertion.     

Lathom House: The Northern Court

Abstract

Thomas Stanley is credited with the creation of a fine new house at Lathom when he was made earl of Derby in 1485. This house, according to the poets and writers if the 16th and 17th centuries, was a sumptuous and well-defended place surrounded by moats and with as marry as eighteen towers. Indeed, it was claimed that Henry VII, stepson if the first earl if Derby, based his design for Richmond Palace on Lathom. After the house had fallen to the Parliamentarians it is usually accepted that the place was razed to the ground and, since the latter years of the 18th century, there has been considerable debate regarding its location. Recent archaeological work at the site if a later house, designed by Giacomo Leoni, is now providing evidence to show that Leoni's building probably lay on the site of the earlier structure and that some if the medieval masonry was incorporated into the rubble fill if the 18th-century walls. This study now examines the evidence for the first earl of Derby's house and argues that Lathom should be considered amongst the most important late 15th-century houses in England and Wales.