21 May 2024
In 2022, Janet Spavold gave us an excellent talk called “How to Read a House”, in which she described features of old buildings that you can use to work out their age and history. At that time she mainly discussed layouts and exteriors but in May we welcomed Janet back for Part 2, which focused more on details and interiors.
Until about the 1570s in our area, most houses had an open fire with no chimney. When chimneys became fashionable, they were added to the outsides of existing buildings and you can sometimes see that they are barely bonded into the earlier structure. A chimney extending high above the roofline might show that the building was once thatched. The chimney’s base is often widened to create an inglenook. Smaller ones were only intended for heating the room but larger ones were used for cooking: tell-tale signs are a cupboard for keeping salt or herbs dry and a small window that admits light to work by. If you have a chance to look up inside such a chimney, you might see a bar from which the food or cooking pots were hung, their height being adjustable to control the temperature. A cheaper alternative to an inglenook was a hood made of timber and plaster.
Bricks thinner than 2½ inches date from before the Brick Act of 1572, which prescribed that as a standard size. In 1784, the government introduced a tax per 100 bricks to pay for the American War of Independence. Some manufacturers, such as Joseph Wilkes of Measham, made giant bricks (“Wilkes’ gobs”) to reduce the number needed and they can still be found in the area. For economy, bricks were sometimes laid on their sides but this resulted in a thinner and weaker wall. Look round the corner of a house and you will often find that the side walls are made of older or cheaper materials than the facade facing the street. This trick is known as a “Queen Anne front with a Mary‑Anne back”! Different regions of the country had bricks of distinctively different colours, according to the local clay. If you see a house with multi-coloured brickwork, it dates from after the mid-19th century, when railway transport became available. The Edwardians were fond of terracotta, which could be moulded into fine details around windows and doors. Whitwick had a supply of the very pure clay required, which brought more money into the town than its coal mines.
Janet provided much more information on subjects including windows, beams and staircases, which will certainly enhance our members’ future visits to historic houses, not to mention some more venerable pubs!