Abstract
This article presents the results of an Historic England (then English Heritage) funded volunteer building recording project in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, conducted by the Southwell Community Archaeology Group under the direction of Dr Chris King (University of Nottingham) and Matthew Hurford (Trent & Peak Archaeology, York Archaeological Trust). Southwell, as a minster town with Roman and Anglo-Saxon antecedents, is one of the most important historic urban centres in the East Midlands and has an impressive and distinctive architectural legacy. The Group examined over 30 mainly brick structures which date to the eighteenth century or earlier, but this article concentrates on the six timber-framed buildings which survive in both the centre of the town and the outlying suburb of Westhorpe. These range in date from the first half of the seventeenth century back to the medieval period, with dendrochronological analysis carried out as part of the project by Nottingham Tree-Ring Dating Laboratory identifying the earliest known vernacular building in Southwell dating back to the mid fourteenth century.
Highlights
In 2013 the Southwell Community Archaeology Group, led by Dr Chris King (University of Nottingham) and Matthew Hurford (Trent & Peak Archaeology, YorkArchaeological Trust) was awarded an Historic England ( English Heritage) grant under a National Heritage Protection Plan call for proposals for research on ‘Early fabric in historic towns: pre-1750 vernacular buildings’.1 This provided funding for a reconnaissance survey of pre-1750 buildings in the historic centre of Southwell, and for more detailed survey and analysis of a select number of key structures to provide training for the group in building recording methods
Old Farmhouse originated as an open hall with a smoke-blackened crown-post roof structure and has been dated by dendrochronology to between 1337-1362.40 only a small fragment of the first phase of the structure survives at Home Farm Cottage, Westhorpe it was clearly a relatively high-status two-storied building with an open truss on the first floor, which may possibly have served as a chamber block to a now-lost medieval hall to the east
Westhorpe and Home Farm Cottage, Westhorpe being re-dated by dendrochronology to the medieval period
Summary
In 2013 the Southwell Community Archaeology Group, led by Dr Chris King (University of Nottingham) and Matthew Hurford Overhall Prebend contains a fourteenth-century two-light window.[11] Most notable among the early houses was South Muskham Prebend, a large H-plan timber-framed building with a hall between two cross-wings, with octagonal, crenelated crown-post roofs dating to the fifteenth century; the structure was largely destroyed by fire in 2001.12 The majority of the prebendal mansions were leased to gentry families by the seventeenth century and were substantially rebuilt or modernised in the period between the Restoration and the late eighteenth century. It is possible that the range was constructed close in time with the north and south ranges, and all three may have been conceived as part of a single building project, despite their structural differences.[28] The timber framing throughout is of high quality, with decorative arch braces distinguishing the entry passage on the ground floor (Fig. 6) and cambered tie-beams and jowled posts on the first floor. It has always been assumed that all three ranges that make up the Saracen’s Head were constructed from the start with two full stories, but the existence of an open hall is not unexpected in a fifteenth-century inn of this scale and status, as seen for instance in several near-contemporary examples of medieval inns in the nearby urban centre of Newark-on-Trent.[30]
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