It is based on a 10 minute presentation made at our September meeting. Dating houses is not an exact science; one can for example build a houses one in an old style but not of course the other way around.
However, in most cases it is surprisingly accurate especially if more than one feature is taken into account. This article is about dating houses, that is houses where normal people lived and not palaces, stately homes, castles etc.
Early houses used cruck beams houses their ends and in the case of the larger ones in between as well. They were relatively low, usually just one storey. A cruck beam is one piece click to see more timber from the ground to the roof apex.
Dating one tree was used per corner, ie four per small house. Dating the end of the 13th century these were split, not sawn, dating half so cutting down on the number of trees needed, only two now, and this resulted giving them a more symmetric appearance.
Dating Houses – More Information
Later still in the 14th century these long beams were done away with. One beam, a straight one now only went up to the roof level and the curved beam was used to form the roof so it was possible to make houses a little taller. This may have been necessary because of a shortage of suitable trees or just an improvement.
Huge numbers of trees were used. It has been estimated that a house would have required about trees to build. The walls of early houses used upright and cross beams that formed squares or rectangles about six feet across. From the 14th century onwards these were replaced by wall and floor plates with vertical uprights connecting them together; there were relatively large gaps between them. Dating the end of the century this studding houses much closer together and from the 15th century onwards diagonal bracing timbers, originally curved, were introduced.
The braces are paired to provide lateral rigidity across the frame in either direction to help support the upper floor. These jetted or overlapping upper floor houses became popular from the 16th century often https://search-by-image.info/violetisawallflower-onlyfans.php several floors so that there was quite a pronounced overhang making streets very narrow and the upper floors were very close together in houses either side of a street.
The Shambles in York is a good example. About this time square framed windows and doors were introduced; previously, especially doors, had curved tops. Also, they were starting to be put in symmetrically; previously, windows were just put in anywhere and at all sorts of different levels. Walls, particularly the spaces between the timbers were filled in with wattle and daub, cob or something similar.
Later plaster was used sometimes covered with patterns often very ornamental; this plaster work is called pargeting. From the 16thth centuries they started to use elaborate patterns of beams that were exposed because they were meant to be seen. Prior houses that the construction timbers were covered up with the wall covering, usually plaster. Common patterns of these decorative beams were herring bone, chevrons, stars and crosses. After the initial flurry this became more restrained and from the late 17th century houses went back to being much more lightly timbered.
Bricks were introduced from houses 15th century onwards but at that time they were very expensive so only used for this web page etc and then only for infills between the timber work. The dating bricks came from Flanders, presumably as ships ballast and were 1.
Dating Your Antique Home
Towards the end of the 15th and early 16th centuries this had changed to 2 inches. However, in brick sizes were standardised by statue to 2. By the end of the 17th century 2. To sum up, the smaller the bricks are, the older they are; bricks are a very good source of the properties age.
Incidentally, nowadays bricks are 2. Windows with glass in panels first became used generally dating the 16th century onwards. All of the windows had sturdy shutters that could be closed at night or in inclement weather. Initially glass was only used in large houses in bay windows called oriels. Originally, windows were of the casement type, hinged on the edge and opening like a door.
Sometimes two together meeting against an upright in the middle, all that was left of the original mullion bars. In about sash windows, originally with flat tops and bottoms, set on the dating of the building, started to be used.
The first ones had small panes with thick glazing bars, about two inches thick in Queen Anne buildings. Later, in Georgian times, houses became very delicate. They were set in openings with slightly curved tops made up of individually shaped bricks or in posh houses, shaped stones. The sills were made of a single piece of stone. From the window had to be set back into wall, not on the outside, because of new fire regulations. These were first introduced in London. In the 19th century, Victorian times, larger panes of much houses glass came into use, sometimes just two per sash.
The tops of these sashes were still square but nibs were put dating the bottoms to strengthen them. The top of the window openings were squared off and flat stone lintels came into use rather like the sills. In a lot of windows dating bricked up in order to avoid the new tax put on windows. This is a bit confusing though because houses were often built with dummy windows for decorative purposes. In the latter 17th century they started building houses symmetrical with evenly spaced windows and more central doors.
In the Georgian period it became fashionable to have taller narrower windows, gutters dating being hidden behind parapets or in roof gullies, external cornices half way up the wall, either of brick or stone became popular. Doors had big houses hoods with fake pillars either side of the front door with arched fanlights above them. Number 10 Downing Street is a perfect example. Towards the end of the 18th century Welsh slate started to replace thatch. There had always been tiles, even in the Roman period.
This was also because with roofs not being so steep there was more room inside them. Decorative iron balconies came into general use from about as seen in Bath, or for a more local example take a look at Peterborough Museum. Chimneys came into use from the 16th century.
Originally the fire was in the centre of the big hall room this was then moved to one end and baffles were used to divert the smoke to the outside. In time they developed into dating and a little window was added beside the fire, a little room within a room out of the draughts. From the 18th century onwards two chimneys, one each end, became the norm. From the s spaces that were originally used to accommodate animals shippons started continue reading be used as living spaces.
Examples are Wealden and Devon longhouses. Council houses came into being from onwards. Then there were the mock Tudor houses of the s. Suburban Metro-Land for example. These were followed by return windows, ie one window in two or more walls of a room. Big picture windows were a feature of the s. In the s dating s legislation came in to make them much smaller in order to conserve heat. After that there were plastic windows and now of course we have solar panels on roofs.
Apart from dating individual dating onlyfans misslee403 can be used to chart the growth of towns and see how their centres have changed over the years. Houses regularly reprinted paper originally published houses the journal, Field Studies. Each helps you spot the clues you need when it comes to dating houses from external evidence. A useful illustrated guide which takes you through the various tell-tale features including chimneys, roofing and doors. This section on bricks is a good houses where brick type, bonding houses decoration all provide dating evidence for English houses.
The earliest bricks dating from the late Medieval and Tudor period tend to be thin and long, with a rough surface reflecting the clay which would have been extracted close to the building site left. As brick grew in popularity during the 17th century, so local brickworks became established and the size of brick standardized centre left.
By the early 19th century, bricks were uniform in size centrealthough they were still handmade with their colour and finish depending on the local clay used. From the mid 19th century new methods of mass production, machine cutting, and improved transport meant finer quality, sharp edged bricks were widely available centre right. Pressed patterns in the face of bricks were popular from the s right. Bonding is the way in which bricks are laid in the wall and the pattern formed on the outside from the long sides of the bricks stretchers and the short ends headers.
Early brick walls usually have no clear pattern. English bond is a row of headers, then one of stretchers top left and was developed in the 16th century. Flemish bond has a header followed by a stretcher in each course top centreand became standard from the early 18th through to the mid 19th centuries. Both of these could have a number of courses of stretchers inserted so less bricks were used, referred to as a garden bond top right. Brick taxwhich was applied on the quantity dating, encouraged manufacturers to make bricks larger and some builders to use rat bond, with the bricks stacked up on their thinner sides bottom left.
English bond was reintroduced in houses late 19th century, often in its garden bond version bottom centre. Stretcher bond, with a cavity between the inner and outer face bottom rightcan be found in the late 19th century dating after weight loss surgery became standard from the s.
Diamond shaped patterns formed in darker bricks were popular in the 15th and 16th centuries and were re-introduced in many Victorian buildings. Regency brickwork often had chequered patterns formed from red mixed with cream or grey bricks left. Polychromatic dating and stripes formed by using red, cream and black bricks are distinctive of the mid s houses late s centre. More restrained bands of red brick and cream stone right were fashionable in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Dating Houses. Dating English Houses by External Features. Cruck Beam House Examples. Floorplan of a 17th century Dartmoor Longhouse, shippon to right.