|
The buildings surveyed on Long Acre were
certainly farmhouses and the cottage on Long Acre East may
well have been used initially by a small farmer. Most of the
farms in Bingham were situated on Long Acre, the main route
through the town, and the 1840 tithe map for Bingham, the
earliest surviving map of the town, shows the outline of at
least six farms within the space of only about 400 metres.
In the 1586 survey it was called Husband’s Street. In
East Bridgford there was both a Husbandman’s Street
and a Cottager’s Street, names that marked something
of social division at the time (Ashikaga and Henstock 1996,
89). Vernacular architecture studies have tended to focus
more on 17th century farmhouses, perhaps because of their
relatively high survival rate, whilst the once common smaller
buildings, such as Donkey Green’s Cottage, have tended
to receive less attention.
Many cottages were built in the later
16th century, but many were of poor quality and this led to
an Act being passed in 1589 ‘against the erecting and
maintaining of cottages,’ unless they also had four
acres of land. The term cottage then referred to one-roomed
structures, built largely from mud (Woodforde 1969, 11). A
considerable number of houses built before 1750 had two ground-floor
rooms, the earliest generally only 1½ storeys tall
(Barley 1986, 256), and many of these are now referred to
as cottages. Many were built for farmers, craftsmen and tradesmen,
others of lesser quality for labourers. Because the quality
of materials and workmanship varied, many have since been
demolished or so drastically altered that they are now unrecognisable.
South of Scarrington, a small settlement of cottages known
as Little Lunnon housed the poorer members of the parish for
several centuries (Flatman 2001; Plates 18, 19). One of these
is shown with a similar extension as existed at Donkey Green
Cottage; these may have been for small kitchens or pantries.
The last cottage at Little Lunnon was demolished in 1945,
and other cottages in the district around Bingham have been
lost in relatively recent times.
By the beginning of 17th century the
almost standard farmhouse design had evolved and this was
to be repeated through several more generations. This was
usually an unjettied timber-framed building 1½ storeys
or more high and 3 cells or rooms long. It was entered by
a doorway in a lateral wall opposite a central chimney-stack.
The end room away from the stack was commonly an unheated
service room, and this was sometimes divided into 2 smaller
rooms (Mercer 1975, 62, 63). A low houses of three-cells length
was preferred to a taller one of two-cells length (ibid.,
65). The two other buildings in the survey generally conform
to this blueprint.
Nottinghamshire has never had much of a tradition
of using stone, and although the east part of the county has
supplies of skerry this has tended to be mainly used for rubble
walling, often in combination with brickwork (Summers 1975,
39). Most lesser status buildings were timber-framed and some
fine examples were still being built well into the mid-17th
century, as timber was used in the framework of most lowland
houses up until then (Iredale & Barrett 2002, 23). However,
as timber has never been available in great quantities in
Nottinghamshire partly because of restrictive forest laws,
many early buildings were built of mud and stud, using a minimum
of timber in simple post and beam framing (ibid., 42). A paucity
of timber is evident in the buildings of Bingham.
Throughout England bricks were not used
in any quantity until after 1600 as they were initially expensive
and were restricted to houses of the land-owning classes (Smith
1992, 95). Because of this fact the claypits referred to in
the 1586 Bingham survey (see above) were probably not associated
with brick production. One of the earliest brick houses in
England, Old Hall Farm at Kneesall (between Newark and Ollerton)
was built in the 1520s as a hunting lodge. It has the distinction
of being the first identifiable lobby-entry house in the country
(Gray 1994, 71), so it could be said that Nottinghamshire
was not exactly a backwater in the development or spread of
brick-building. However, it has long been thought that during
the 17th century bricks were confined in the county to larger
farmhouses or the homes of the lesser gentry, and that not
until after 1700 were lesser buildings built solely of brick,
when also many earlier timber buildings were clad or infilled
with bricks, often in a herringbone pattern. As a local example,
no. 37 Water Lane, Radcliffe-on-Trent, is said to date from
1637 and to have a brick infill dated to 1709 that replaced
wattle and daub (Priestland and Cobbing 1996, 225).
There is now increasing evidence for
vernacular buildings built primarily of brick in the middle
decades of 17th century. Before then brick walls were usually
built 1½ bricks thick as they were usually a covering,
cladding or incorporated with existing walling and timbers,
and possibly because of some remaining uncertainty about brick’s
load-bearing capabilities (Iredale & Barrett 2002, 22).
Some buildings in Newark show a confidence with brick in the
mid-century, such as 5 Church Street, mentioned above. At
40-44 Castlegate a 14th century open hall roof was carried
on single-brick thick walls that date to somewhere after 1636.
From about 1660 onwards farmhouses were being built solely
in brick and often built L-shaped from the outset, as by then
more service space had become an important consideration (Barley
1986, 250). Parallel developments are the increase in height
to a standard two-storeys and garret, the use of cellars,
and fireplaces appearing in the end room, by now usually used
as the parlour (ibid. 257). Ordinary brickwork before 1640
rarely showed any standardised bond (Iredale & Barrett
2002, 22).
Bricks are difficult to date, as their
size could vary from place to place. Early 17th century bricks
used in the general area around Bingham were generally no
more than 2-2½ins (50-57mm) in thickness and local
tendencies suggest that bricks that were 2 3/8; ins (60mm)
in thickness are uncommon in the 17th century. As a note of
caution though, the early 16th century bricks at Holme Pierrepont
Hall reached this thickness, as did those in Castle Farm,
Melbourne, which dates from dating somewhere between 1604-30
(Hutton 1991, 42). Also, brick lengths had reached about 9½
ins (241mm) by 1700, with even longer bricks being made in
the early 18th century (e.g. for the buildings of Thomas Parkyn
of Bunny Hall). This goes against findings elsewhere that
bricks over 9ins (229mm) tended to be used less as the 17th
century progressed (Campbell and Saint 2002, 181, 190). Bricks
in Bingham may show a tendency to be both thicker and longer
than elsewhere, possibly due to local production methods and
the continued use of similar moulds in brick kilns. This continuation
is evident at no. 21 Long Acre as it occurs in the upper walling
rebuild mentioned above, in the addition in the north-west
corner and the building added on to the south end (the latter
two with English garden bond coursing). A brick of similar
dimension was also used in a barn built after 1776 at Cooper’s
Cottage in Bingham. Further study of older buildings in Bingham
may establish how widespread this brick size was and its longevity.
|
