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61-63 Long Acre is an L-shaped building
but with its main frontage aligned alongside Long Acre, rather
than at a right-angles as with the other buildings surveyed.
The principal part is 3-cells long and there is a single room
extension at the north-east corner. The latter was extended
further in 1982 for a new kitchen and the west end of the
main part has had several single-storey service rooms tacked-on
in recent years. The building was owned by the Crown but is
currently divided into two separate residences: that of the
Green’s at no. 61, and the Hodges at no. 63. A wall
between the 2nd and 3rd rooms divides the two households.
The building was listed at Grade II in 1989. Henceforth it
will be referred to as simply ‘61-63.’
The building is an old, largely brick-built
structure but with a south frontage and west gable-end that
have been drastically altered to a vernacular revivalist design,
with the introduction of dark vertical and diagonal timbers
and thin (2 inch; 50mm) dark-red bricks set in a herringbone
pattern. The tiled roof has three dormer windows and above
are two tall Tudor-style chimneystacks (Plate
7). When this transformation took place, possibly somewhere
in the 1870s, the rear elevations were largely left as before,
apart from the addition of a small porch at the internal angle
(Room
8) (Plate
8). As with the main frontage (Plate
12), this too had a Gothic-style doorway. The mixture
of styles is further illustrated by a separate outside toilet
/ coal-store block that features arrow-loop ventilation slits
on the south side.
Although this re-design was substantial,
and probably explains why the building’s early age was
not discovered until relatively recently, various parts of
the original structure were retained within the building.
Whilst most of the roof structure was replaced, part of an
original cruck-frame, a pair of long curving timbers that
usually rise from ground level to meet at the ridge of the
roof, was apparently left in place behind the brick façade
of the south gable. This was identified during an examination
of the roof by conservation officers in about 1990. The author
was unable to gain access to this part of the roof or to obtain
further detailed information from Rushcliffe Borough Council
to confirm this. There is also a curving collar still showing
above the wall between Rooms
2 and 3. The remaining part of the main range’s
rear elevation not now obscured by later additions, has early
brickwork and some timbers showing (Plate
9). The walling above is hidden behind render. Although
the east side of the building is unrendered, it is unfortunate
that much of its early brickwork cannot be seen because of
the close proximity of the adjacent building.
Internally, the original part of the
building alongside Long Acre is of a similar design to no.
21 with three ground-floor rooms (Rooms
1-3), the first two being set around a large central stack,
and with a dividing wall separating the last two rooms in
the sequence. All three rooms are 14 feet wide (4.35m) and
with a similar 12 feet (3.7m) length from wall to fireplace.
This differs from no. 21 which has rooms of unequal length
and a narrower width of about 12 feet (3.7m). Similarly to
the latter, 61-63 has centrally-placed cross-beams running
parallel to the building and two right-angle beams close to
and to either side of the central stack, which extend through
and show in the north façade. Neither of these timbers
extends over the cross-passage (shown as the hall in Fig.
7), an area which would have acted as the lobby entrance to
an original front door. A vertical timber on the south side
of the hall (and at a point central to the stack) may have
been a jamb to an internal dividing doorway, behind which
there may have been the parlour.
The extension in the north-east corner
(Room
6) is also 14 feet (4.35m) wide and slightly longer than
this from wall to end fireplace. This room is both bigger
and higher than the other ground-floor rooms. Rooms 1-3 are
about 2.1-2.15m (6¾-7ft) in height but Room
6 is higher at 2.3m (7½ft). This was used as a
large kitchen / dining area before the extension was added
in 1982 but may have started in use as a dairy or even a wash-house.
On the west side there is a centrally-placed window with a
segmental head, of similar size and appearance to that on
the west side of no. 21 Long Acre. Another large window above
and to the left has a flat head. The east elevation is now
unlit apart from a single small window at first-floor level
that lights a corridor.
At first-floor level the building as
a whole displays no obvious original features. The positioning
of the two staircases and the layout of rooms and connecting
corridors very much reflects the subdivision of the building
into two distinct parts. Together, the residences have five
bedrooms, two of which retain small Victorian fireplaces.
The relatively confined space of the upper floor in the main
range, with the side walls rising to only a height of about
1.2m (4ft) shows that the original building was only 1½
storeys high, with lofts or garrets instead of a second storey
as such (Fig.
8 Section 1). These were probably open to the roof, lit
by small windows at either end and intended principally for
storage. The relatively steep roof-pitch of about 55º
probably reflects the original use of a cruck-frame and a
thatched covering. The use of crucks might also explain why
the early brick walling in the north wall is not particularly
thick and does not sit on a wider plinth. Apart from supporting
the beams and joists of the upper floor, the side walls were
not load-bearing as the full weight of the roof was transmitted
directly to the ground through the crucks.
The original part of the building is
probably represented by the three rooms or cells that face
Long Acre. Although many buildings that feature a central
stack started as 2-cell units, with a third cell added later,
61-63 appears to have been built as a three-cell unit from
the start, with a hall or forehouse (an area that usually
incorporated the kitchen), a service area and a parlour, although
determining which room was which is not easy without corroborating
evidence. Where the upper part of the east wall of Room 2
rises towards the ceiling there are floor joints carrying
on through, and the cross-beam probably rests on a timber
upright about 0.4m (16ins) wide, which shows as straight joints
in the walling. There may have been a mainly stud or timber
and plank partition here before the building was sub-divided
by a brick wall for the two residences. One possible arrangement
is that Room 1 was the parlour, Room 2 the forehouse and Room
3 the service area (with perhaps a milk-house and buttery).
The latter was originally unheated. The line of the cross-beam
is clearly interrupted by both the staircase and the fireplace
as it has no chamfer-stops showing, and bricks used in the
fireplace are of the sort found in the later wing.
It is unfortunate that views of the main
frontage do not survive from before its 19th century alteration,
to show to what extent the door and window positions may have
replicated what was there before. The roadside elevation,
facing south, will have provided sunlight to the house and
the lobby-entrance implies an entry-point, perhaps to the
right of the present arrangement. The symmetry of the present
fenestration and doorways would not have been a serious consideration
in the early 17th century building. The building has all the
characteristics of having been a farmhouse and the earliest
surviving plan of Bingham, the tithe map of 1840, shows it
with other buildings set around a probable crew-yard. Another
doorway on the north side can be anticipated, and the brick
walling on the north side bears evidence for two possible
former entrances (Plate
9).
In the north-east corner of Room 1 the
wall is recessed to a half-brick thickness and externally
the brickwork is both darker and its coursing fails to align
with that of the adjacent walling, as Plate
9 shows. A vertical line of render may mask a timber door
jamb. To the left, the brickwork comes up against the later
porch, and although the join is now obscured by a plastic
down-pipe, the earlier brickwork stops at a straight joint
which the porch has taken advantage of. Internally, the north
wall in Room 2 displays a slight bulge at this point and a
horizontal timber beam at a low head-height apparently exists
beneath the modern plaster (pers. comm. B. Green). This is
suggestive of more timbers having been present in the walling
or perhaps that a doorway had been situated here. The doorway
into Room 1 may have been the later one of the two as the
cross-beam by the stack is set at an acute angle that suggests
re-alignment. External brickwork above and to the left of
the larger window in Plate 9 also differs from that marking
its right reveal. Within only a 4-metre length there is enough
variation in the earlier external brickwork to indicate that
the building has had a complex history. Why the walling above
is rendered is unclear.
Whether the brickwork is original is
not absolutely certain. Many similar buildings are generally
believed to have been timber-framed with a mud or wattle-and-daub
infill that was only later replaced with brickwork. An example
of this is 37 Water Lane, Radcliffe-on-Trent which is said
to date from 1637 (Priestland and Cobbing 1996, 225). At 61-63
the bricks showing on the north elevation vary in size but
generally average about 2? ins (60mm) in thickness, with a
length of just under 9ins (229mm), and are randomly coursed
with the use of multiple headers or bricks of reduced length.
The wall is only one brick thick and there is no plinth. The
later wing has both a brick plinth (perhaps because it has
a cellar) and bricks that average about 2½ins (57mm)
in thickness and 9½ ins (241mm) in length. These are
coursed in Flemish bond and below the eaves there is a dogtooth
course.
During the course of the survey dendrochronological
dating was successfully carried out in no. 61 on floor
joists in Room 2. These dated with some precision to 1617.
Whilst a general examination of local brickwork would suggest
that bricks with an average thickness of 2 3/8 ins (60mm)
are rare in a 17th century context, they are not unknown.
For example, Castle Farm, Melbourne, dating somewhere between
1604-30, has brickwork of this thickness (Hutton 1991, 42).
In addition, the length of the bricks at 61-63 is also consistent
with an early 17th century date, as a length of 8½-9ins
(216-229mm) was most common in the early-mid 17th century,
after which they had a tendency to get longer (as mentioned
above). The bricks in the north-east wing can still be later
despite being narrower as both their greater length and Flemish
coursing are consistent with this. Although in use during
the second part of the 17th century, Flemish coursing only
became the dominant form after 1700. This was also when the
corbelling-out of brickwork at eaves level with dentilation
(as found here) and dogtooth (cogging) courses became more
common. Unfortunately, the timbers in the wing were unsuitable
for tree-ring dating.
This part of the building will have included
a full chamber at first floor level, as opposed to the garrets
in the earlier range. This may have been used by farm labourers,
as parlours carried on being used as ground-floor sleeping
quarters well into the 18th century. This chamber had side
walls of full height and an attic-space was set below a roof
pitched at only 36º, so as to allow the adjoining roofs
to be at the same height (Fig.
8). How the upper floor was accessed is unclear but there
may have been a ladder rising from the kitchen below, or an
external staircase cannot be ruled out. The original part
of the house probably had only a narrow stair for access,
placed next to the central stack, but its likely former position
is not clear. The map of 1840 also shows another structure
adjoining the north end of the north-east part of the building.
This was probably a farm building that was subsequently removed
later in the century.
The exterior of the building may have
deteriorated before it was altered in the late 19th century.
The south frontage is somewhat eccentric on a former farmhouse
but it probably coincides with a change of use and tenancy,
from housing a single farmer to the provision of two homes
for farm labourers or other lower status occupants. The suggested
date of between 1870-80 for when this happened was the time
of the Great Agricultural Depression when farming was in crisis.
Many estate owners responded to this by using capital to improve
their housing stock so as to prevent rents from falling in
value, and this may be the case here in Bingham. Lord Carnarvon,
the lord of the manor at the time, may have commissioned a
local architect to improve the building.
The dendrochronological investigation
has produced a precise date of 1617 for timbers in the central
room of the 3-cell range (and by implication the whole range).
The layout of the building, the presence of a cruck-frame
and other timberwork all fit in with this date. What remains
uncertain is whether the brickwork at the rear of the building
is original or later infilling between timbers. The size of
brick used is not dateable with any precision. The later wing
is probably mid-late 18th century in date. The later redesign
of the building probably occurred between 1870-1880. |
