PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE BUILDING

Construction – timber

Timber-framed houses usually have either a cruck frame or a box frame. The walls tend to be thinner than those of clay construction.

Crucks are two large curved timbers which make a triangle at each end of the house (a bit like a capital A), with a beam joining the pairs of crucks across the top to make the ridge of the roof; the crucks also form the walls of the building. The roof trusses were usually between 12 and 16 feet apart, and the space between them was known as a ‘bay’.

Box frames have vertical posts with horizontal beams that make a box shape. The walls are usually made of the same material as the frame (known as a ‘mass wall’), or additional beams make smaller panels within the frames that are filled in (known as a ‘frame wall’). The box frames tended to be made up in the carpenter’s yard to check that they fitted together properly, then each piece would be numbered before the frame was dismantled and put together in its final position. A good example of this ‘prefab’ timber-framed construction survives in Norwich; Augustine Steward’s house (shown in picture 4.1 below) still has the numbers marked on the timbers.

The most common fillings for frame walls are wattle and daub (woven wood with a mixture of clay, dung and horsehair spread over it) and brickwork. Where you have exposed timbers externally, look at the distance between them. As a rule of thumb the smaller the gap between them, the more likely it is that the building was high status. Large square panels were common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; smaller panels were more common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Construction – brick

Bricks were expensive until the sixteenth century, so they tended to be used mainly for the houses of wealthy people. They were hand-made at first and their size wasn’t regulated until 1571, when the legal standard size was set at 9 inches x 4.5 inches x 2.25 inches (229mm x 114mm x 57mm).

It’s worth measuring the size of the bricks on your property because they can give you a clue about dating. In 1766 the legal standard size changed to 8.5 inches x 4 inches x 2.5 inches (216mm x 102mm x 64mm), and the legal standard size changed again in the 1960s to 215mm x 102.5mm x 65mm (8.5 inches x 4 inches x 2.5 inches). Smaller, irregular-shaped bricks are likely to be older than uniformly sized bricks, though it’s worth remembering that sometimes bricks from older properties were reused in new buildings. Larger bricks suggest that the construction might be some time between 1784, when the first brick tax was introduced (the tax was made on the number of bricks used rather than the area of brickwork, so larger bricks meant a smaller tax payment) and 1803, when the larger bricks were taxed. The brick tax was repealed in 1850.

The colour of the bricks varies depending on where you are in the country, including various shades of red, creamy-yellow and blue-black. There may be local names for certain types of bricks, too; for example, the creamy-yellow brick in Suffolk is known as ‘gault’. The colour also reflects building fashions:

• Red brick was fashionable in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth century.
• Grey and brown bricks were fashionable in the mid to late eighteenth century.
• Grey, yellow and white bricks were fashionable in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
• Red bricks became fashionable again in middle class houses in the late nineteenth century (when yellow bricks – ‘London stock’ – were seen as working class).

The pointing of the brickwork can also give you a clue to dates. Before the nineteenth century, bricks were sandwiched together with lime mortar; the sand in the mortar was quite coarse compared with modern brickwork. Though bear in mind that buildings are often repointed to prevent structural damage from weathering, so the clue might not be there.

The place you’re most likely to find original brickwork is in a cellar, because walls can be refaced or rebuilt. It may be that the cellar is older than the rest of the building, for example if the house originally built over the cellar was knocked down and a new one built on the old cellar and foundations.

The way that bricks are laid is known as a bond. The three main types of bond are English bond, Flemish bond and stretcher bond; though you may also find ‘random’ bond, where no pattern is visible at all.

English bond has alternate courses of headers (the short horizontal side of the brick) and stretchers (the long horizontal side of the brick). This form of bond was popular between the middle of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Flemish bond is where all rows have alternating headers and stretchers; the headers are centred against the stretchers above and below them. This style of bond took over in the eighteenth century.

Stretcher bond (shown in picture 4.5) is where all bricks are stretchers; it became more popular in the nineteenth century when metal ties were introduced and bricks no longer needed to be laid as headers to bridge the gap between the internal and external wall.

However, these dates aren’t quite ‘set in brick’ because more modern buildings often use retro features – the brickwork on picture 4.3 above is actually twenty-first century, not seventeenth!

As well as the bonds and sizes of bricks used, there are two other things to notice on the brickwork: string courses and decorative patterns.

A string course is a long horizontal projecting course of bricks; it may be moulded (as in the example in picture 4.6 below), or in a different colour brick or laid in a different pattern. It’s usually there for decorative purposes, although sometimes it can indicate that an extra storey has been added to the property or that the roof was raised slightly to give the ceiling extra height, particularly if the string course is very close to the top of a window.

You may also see patterns in brickwork, where different coloured bricks are used as contrast. The main ones are:

• Diapers – diamond-shaped patterns; these are also used on flint buildings to provide contrast.
• Chequerwork – where bricks are laid in alternate colours, much like a chequerboard. This was particularly used in the Tudor period.

You may also see a date or initials of a former owner laid in different colour bricks on the gable end of a house. As with dating stones, you need to be careful about how you interpret the date – it might refer to rebuilding or refacing rather than the original building.

Some bricks are shaped or glazed; round-cornered and glazed bricks are most likely to be found in Victorian and Edwardian properties.

Construction – cob and daub

Cob is a mixture of earth or clay and straw, laid in thick bands. It’s usually rendered over with a lime plaster. If bricks or stone aren’t used as quoins (corners), the walls may have rounded corners.

Clay lump (common to Norfolk) is a special form of cob made of clay and horsehair, set in a wooden frame to make oversized bricks (known as ‘bats’) which are then stuck together with mortar.

Wattle and daub is a similar method where upright stakes are bound together with withies (thin, flexible twigs – often willow) and then covered with daub, a mud-based filling that sometimes included straw, crushed or powdered chalk, sand and clay. The daub was put on to the wattle in wet handfuls (known as ‘cats’) on both sides of the wattle at the same time and pressed in. Once the daub had dried, it was covered in lime plaster.

Construction – stone and flint

The use of stone depends much on the local area; granite is used in Cornwall and the west, limestone in Dorset through to the north east, and sandstone throughout the country. Flint is commonly used in East Anglia and coastal regions; in high-status properties the flint is knapped (i.e. split and the flat edge is shaped into a square), whereas in cheaper properties it was left undressed.

Stone is sometimes used just for the quoins of a building, which is usually dressed stone laid so that there are alternately large and small faces. The use of stone quoins is a common feature of Georgian houses.

Other external wall finishes

Apart from brick, stone and flint, the most common external finishes are render and stucco.

Render is a coating, usually rough. Popular types of render include:

• Lime plaster – often used to cover timber buildings. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was used in East Anglia to cover timbers and was called pargeting. Rather than being smooth, pargeting has regular patterns (combed work) or more complex moulded designs such as flowers, birds and motifs.
• Limewash – often used to cover flint or rubble walls, particularly if the stone was porous, as it helped with weatherproofing. In the nineteenth century it was fashionable to clean off the limewash. Both limewash and lime plaster could be coloured; umber gave the plaster a brown or yellow finish, and bull’s blood gave the pink finish seen commonly in East Anglia.
• Cement (used from the late eighteenth century), usually Liardet’s, Parker’s Roman, and Aspdin’s Portland. Portland cement was used for stamped work in Victorian times, which copied the pargeting of centuries before.
• Stucco – this was a type of plaster with a smooth finish, which fell out of favour in the mid nineteenth-century. Sometimes stucco is coloured and ‘grained’ to look like ashlar stone, i.e. a dressed stone facing about 5cm thick that was put on the outside of load-bearing walls.
• Roughcast – a mixture of lime and gravel, commonly used from the 1850s.
• Pebble-dash – mortar mixed with smooth pebbles; this was used in the early twentieth century.

Terracotta plaques are often used to decorate Victorian and Edwardian buildings. In Norfolk anything apparently terracotta is more likely to be a special form of moulded brick, produced locally and known as Cosseyware. If the terracotta has been glazed, it’s known as faience.

Glazed tiles are also very common in Victorian and Edwardian buildings.

Wall plates

If there has been a structural problem with the property you may see evidence that a metal tie has been inserted between two walls; the tie usually involves a metal cross, bar, S-shape or disc on the outside of the wall. The S-shaped tie is sometimes formed as a snake. (See picture 4.12 on page 47 for an example of metal ties on the gable end of a pitched roof.)

ROOF SHAPES, GABLES AND PARAPETS

Look at the rafters, which give the roof its shape, and their covering. Check for any changes to the roofline: this can show that the property has been extended. For rafters, the wider and shallower they are the older they’re likely to be.

Although tales of timbers from shipwrecks being used for the structure of a house are very appealing, they’re also likely to be colourful rather than true: wood used at sea would be seasoned and hardened, and therefore very difficult to use in a building.

The gable end can sometimes show if a building has been altered – for example, if the pitch of the roof has been flattened to give more headroom in the top storey you may see different building material in a triangular shape at the edge of the gable.

Roof shapes

A standard pitched (sloping) roof looks like a capital A from the gable at the side. As a rule of thumb earlier buildings tend to have a steeper pitch because it helped rain and snow fall off more quickly before it penetrated the roof covering. But beware of retro designs in more modern buildings: for example, what looks like a Tudor building may well be a 1930s ‘retro’ design.

Where a house has been extended to a ‘double pile’ construction (two bays wide) you may see an M-shaped roof; this is more common from the eighteenth century. With double pile houses the main living rooms were at the front of the house, the bedrooms were on the first floor and the kitchen and servants’ rooms were at the back.

A hipped roof is where there’s a slope to the ends of the roof as well as the sides. From the front it looks like a typical child’s drawing of a house.

A Mansard roof is where the pitch (slope) of the roof changes halfway down; the top half is less steep than the bottom half. It first became popular in the mid-seventeenth century, mainly as a way of getting more ‘headroom’ in rooms that were used perhaps as servants’ quarters.

A catslide roof is a pitched roof where the angle of the slope is the same at both sides of the ridge, but one side is longer than the other. It became popular in the late seventeenth century and was a way of getting more space in a small house, or moving servants’ quarters to the back of the property. See pictures 5.14 and 5.15 of Mill House on pages 73 and 74 for an example of a catslide roof: the catslide goes over the bathroom (originally the back bedroom) and stairs, both of which have vaulted ceilings.

Gables

A gable is the vertical, triangular-shaped part of a pitched roof. They may be plain (as in picture 4.12 on page 47), or more decorative. Common decorative gables used from the seventeenth century are the Flemish or Dutch gable and the crow step or Corbie gable.

Parapets

In the eighteenth century rooflines, and their windows, which usually belonged to servants’ quarters, tended to be hidden by low walls known as parapets.

Ridges, finials, bargeboards and cornices

The ridge (top point) of the roof needs to be waterproofed, so there are special sorts of tiles which curve over the ridge. These may be plain or, particularly in Victorian houses, have an ornamental ‘crest’ that sticks up. (See picture 4.24 on page 55 for an example of an ornamental ridge.)

Finials are decorative ends to roof ridges or at the top of a gable; they’re usually made from terracotta but may also be made from stone or iron. Again, they tend to be mainly Victorian.

Bargeboards are the wooden decoration on a gable (usually pitched). If they’re very decorative they’re likely to be mid-Victorian; by the Edwardian era bargeboards had become very plain again.

Cornices are ornamental projecting features on the walls just underneath the eaves (on internal walls they’re known as coving). The two most common designs are:

• Dentilation – the headers jut out slightly with gaps between.

• Dogtooth – the bricks are laid at an angle so the corners project.

You may also see very ornate cornices on late Victorian or Edwardian houses which are as ornate as those found internally; these tend to be made from white terracotta.

Roof coverings

Thatch was used from quite early on as a roof covering. However, because thatch needs replacing regularly, it’s quite difficult to date a thatched roof.

There may be laws about the use of thatch in a town to give you some clues – for example, Norwich suffered severely from fires in 1507, so a law was passed forbidding the use of thatch as a roofing material for anything built after that. The five original thatched properties within the old city walls date from before those fires.

Thatch was sometimes replaced by tiles or slate; if the roof is very steeply pitched it’s possible that the original roofing material was thatch. You may also see ‘weatherings’ – these are projecting courses of brick on chimney stacks or adjoining walls that are well above the later roof line, because a layer of thatch is obviously much thicker than a layer of tiles.

Shingles were flat ‘tiles’ made from thin slabs of oak. Stone and clay tiles were used from the sixteenth century onwards; these were either flat tiles made from stone or clay which were ‘pegged’ onto battens in an overlapping pattern, similar to shingles, or curved (S-shaped) pantiles made from clay.

Slate was a common roofing material in Wales. From the nineteenth century onwards, when transport links improved, it was used in other parts of the UK.

Lead flashing on tile and slate roofs were uncommon before the eighteenth century. Thatched houses didn’t tend to have gutters or downpipes. The first downpipes and gutters were made from lead, or timber lined with lead, and may have dates on them as well as ornamentation, though it’s possible that the building is earlier than the date inscribed on the rainwater head, particularly if the roof was originally thatched. In the nineteenth century cast iron guttering and downpipes began to be used; the square ones couldn’t be painted at the back and tended to rust through, so circular downpipes were more practical.

CHIMNEYS

Looking at the chimney stacks may give you an idea of dating, but again, be aware of the possibility of replacement stacks or ‘retro’ building. Stacks from the early seventeenth century often have angled shafts.

By 1650 these have become wider rectangular stacks with arched patterns, and by the eighteenth century the stacks are slightly splayed at the top. Late eighteenth century stacks may have string courses and cornices.

Fancy, ornate chimney stacks (often Tudor revival style) were very popular in Victorian houses.

Look at the number of chimney stacks and relate them to the number of fireplaces within the property; this might help you if your property is old enough to have been subject to hearth taxes (see Chapter 8, pages 123–5).

Watch out for ‘false’ chimneys, which were built to give an illusion of wealth and don’t actually relate to a hearth in the building. (The false stacks weren’t taxed – the tax was based on the number of hearths rather than the number of chimney stacks.) In Mill House, shown in pictures 5.14 and 5.15 on pages 73 and 74, there are two chimney stacks with three chimney pots. Looking at them from the back of the house the left-hand one relates to the hearth in the living room; the two right-hand ones relate to the back-to-back hearths in the dining room and (formerly) kitchen.

DATE STONES, INSCRIPTIONS AND FIRE INSURANCE PLAQUES

Date stones may show the date of the building, but the date might refer to rebuilding, alterations, or even the commemoration of a marriage. It’s more likely to refer to the date of the building if it’s part of a structural stone such as a door lintel.

If there are initials or an owner’s name inscribed next to the date, you may be able to trace that person through the parish registers (see Chapter 9).

Fire insurance plaques may help you trace the property through insurance records. The plaque will give you the name of the company that insured the building for fire; there should also be a number on the plaque, which is the policy number. If the insurance company or the company that took it over still has the records, you may find a description of the house and possibly even plans from the nineteenth century. However, be aware that these fire insurance plaques are often sold as antiques so the plaque on your house might have referred to a completely different building.

BOUNDARIES

Look at the boundaries of the property. Are they fenced, or are there brick or stone walls? A dry-stone wall is likely to be earlier than one finished with mortar.

Changes in the level of the garden may point to an earlier structure there, such as a well or a wall. It’s also worth looking at modern boundaries to compare them with previous maps (see Chapter 6 for more details).

OUTHOUSES

Were any of the buildings used as an outside kitchen or toilet? For example, Mill House had an outbuilding that had been used as the scullery and contained a butler’s sink. There was a section at the back of the outbuilding that was used as a coal hole (and I can just about remember the coalman delivering sacks of coal straight into the coal hole, in the years before we had central heating); there was also an outside toilet, set about 20 feet away from the house. You may find evidence in bundles of deeds about when a house was modernised with an inside bathroom and toilet or central heating.