Episode Transcript
[00:00:21] Speaker A: The Tudor History and Travel show is a podcast that brings Tudor History to life by exploring Tudor places and artefacts in the flesh.
You will be travelling through time with Sarah Morris, the Tudor Travel Guide, uncovering the stories behind some of the most amazing Tudor locations and objects in the uk.
Because when you visit a Tudor building, it is only time and not space which separates you from the past.
And now, over to your host, Sarah Morris.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Hello to all my time traveling friends out there. It's wonderful to be back for another episode of the Tudor History and Travel show with me, Sarah the Tudor Travel Guide.
Before we get into the meat of today's podcast, I just want to remind you that over at our sister company, Simply Tudor Tours, we are running another giveaway this summer. Yes, it is a giveaway to win one free, free place on our Rise and Fall of amberlynn tour in September 2027. So that's next year.
Now, last year when we ran this, it proved extremely popular and we are looking forward to welcoming the lucky winner on this year's Rise and Fall tour.
But if you're feeling lucky and you fancy an adventure of a lifetime, traveling in the footsteps of Anne Boleyn as we retrace the story of her rise and of course her drama dramatic fall, then why not enter? There will be a link in the description associated with this podcast, no strings attached. All you need to do is enter your name, your email and your telephone number so that if you do win, we are able to contact you and keep your fingers crossed. We will be drawing the winner on the 14th of September and getting in touch with them as soon as possible after that date.
So all remains for me to say is good luck, my friends, and I hope that I'll be meeting you next year in person.
So with that announcement over, we can turn our attention to today's podcast. And actually, this is one of those podcasts where we're revisiting somewhere that we have been in the past. Yes, we are at the Weald and Downland Museum in Sussex.
You may recall that. Oh, a couple of. Well, probably difficult to say time flies, doesn't it? But a few years ago now, we met John Roberts there who gave us a guide of their late medieval Tudor farmhouse and we did a How to Read a Tudor Farmhouse episode.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: It was fascinating.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: And again, if you're interested in picking that up, there will be another link in the description associated with this podcast. So do check that out.
But today we return with a slightly different focus. In fact, in some ways we are picking up our story.
If in the first instalment, we looked at the use and the structure and the layout and the kind of activities and people that would occupy a late medieval, early Tudor farmhouse. We're going to roll the clock forward and look at how architecture and the spaces used by ordinary people in their houses were used and developed and changed over the course of the Tudor period. So over the course of roughly a century or so.
And in this instance, we have a different guide. I'm going to be joined by Roberto Labrador. But first, you, you will hear from Hannah Miller from the Wealdon Downland Museum, who will give us an introduction of what the museum is all about.
So this makes for a fascinating episode if you're interested in the ordinary folk, how they lived their lives and designed their houses.
So stay tuned because we are about to go time travelling, so let's not delay any further.
Let's buckle up and let's head over to the Wealdon Downland Museum.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, wherever you are on four corners of planet Earth. You are joining me in West Sussex today, which is close to the south coast of England. And actually I'm on a return visit to the Weald and Downland Museum. I can't believe it, but apparently it could be overseas six years ago, since I was last here. If you follow the Tudor travel guide since then, you will know that last time I was here, I was speaking to John Roberts and we were looking at a typical house associated with a yeoman farmer from the 16th century. And if you missed the episode, we will put a link in the description associated with this podcast. But today we have a return visit because we are going to continue our story.
You will know that normally I'm exploring palaces and castles, but I also know that many of you are interested in the history of the ordinary folk of Tudor England, and that's what we have here at the Wealdon Downland Museum. And shortly, I'm going to be joined by my guest expert who's going to be touring the museum with us and particularly focusing on two of the properties which really exemplify the architectural development of domestic living and during the 16th century.
But before we meet with Roberto, I'd love to introduce to you Hannah, Hannah Miller. Hello, welcome to the show.
Now, Hannah, you are.
You work here at the Weald and Downland Museum. Perhaps you can introduce yourself, tell us what you do here.
[00:06:17] Speaker D: First of all, I do, I'm head of interpretation and collections at the museum, which is all about communicating what the collections are about.
So we do that very Much about live interpretation, which means we have people here talking to visitors, demonstrating, and that can be museum staff who are all experts in their areas.
We also have volunteers. We have nearly 300 volunteers throughout the year coming in doing many different things, from chopping wood to cleaning the houses, to talking to visitors, to demonstrating cooking.
And that's very much how we, we like to interpret here.
[00:06:58] Speaker C: Brilliant. Excellent. And I really wanted to meet you at the top of our podcast to give some people who maybe are not familiar with the museum a little bit of context about what this museum is all about, how it came to be. What's your purpose here?
[00:07:15] Speaker D: Well, we began in the 60s, basically, and it was led by. By volunteers. Again, all power to volunteers, I say.
We had a gentleman called Roy Armstrong, who was a retired architect and he was particularly interested in timber frame buildings from the Wild and Downham region, which, if you're not familiar with it, it's down in the south of England, really, from below London to the south coast.
And he had seen that in the new building that was happening in the 60s, things like timber frame buildings were being destroyed to make way for new buildings and new housing, which is all very valid. However, these beautiful medieval buildings were being thrown on bonfires and being discarded and just not there was no value placed on them. He saw the value and he began collecting them basically with the team of volunteers that he got to keep together. In 1970, we opened with some of the buildings that we were able to rescue and then restoration work happened and then they were put back up on the site here.
So again, things like finding a site to house a museum that is going to be having lots of buildings in, that was a job of work in itself.
So that happened in 1970.
And then we went to where we are 55 years later and we've got over 50 buildings now, all rescued and all put back up on this site in context. So people can kind of see what a farmhouse might have looked like. Did it have barns next to it? Did it have any houses up the road? What would it have looked like in the more kind of urban, if you like, market square areas. So you've got medieval townhouses and shops and things like that as well.
But we go from an Anglo Saxon reconstructed building right through to an Edwardian tin tabernacle. So we've got a whole range of different buildings with different functions, from domestic homes and to barns to sheds, to brick drying sheds to a bakehouse, all kinds of different buildings.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: It's a fantastic story, isn't it, of preservation it really is.
[00:09:34] Speaker D: It really is. There was a big movement. Yeah, absolutely. There was a big movement in the 60s, 70s, thank heavens, recognizing the buildings that were being destroyed. So we were lucky enough to be able to establish this here back in 1970.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: And as people can probably tell from the birds nesting in the trees, we are outdoors. It's an outdoor museum. Of course it is, absolutely. What's the size of the museum here?
[00:10:01] Speaker D: We've got 40 acres, so. So we have farming that happens here as part of our interpretation.
We have woodlands as well. And so we coppice those some. Not the whole 17 acres that we have of woodland, but we do coppice a lot of that to produce the firewood that goes into some of our buildings, for example, and creates the wood produce that makes our fences and hurdles and things like that as well.
So we have a lot of things, different things happening through the year. It's very seasonal, as you said. We're open air, so we are very much elemental, if you like. We lean into the elements, we celebrate the weather and we encourage people through the year to come and see what's happening in the sort of seasonal ritual cycle. In our gardens as well, we've got historic gardens established for six of our buildings. What's happening on the farm with our animals, with our working horses, with geese, pigs, sheep, and then just generally to enjoy the weather as they come on site.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: Absolutely. And of course, if people haven't heard of the Wealdon Downler Museum in its own right, they may well have heard of the repair shop. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
[00:11:14] Speaker D: It's been wonderful. It's been such a good collaboration.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Is it still going on here?
[00:11:19] Speaker D: They are. They are still filming. They're back again this year for their. I don't know what series it is, but it's been a really, really good working relationship with them because what they do with their craftspeople is very much about what we. We're about. It's valuing heritage, it's keeping those skills alive by using them.
And we love the fact that we have visitors arriving who come. Come through the door saying, we've come to see the repair shop. Oh, there's a museum as well.
And then they explore the museum and really enjoy that as well. So it works really brilliantly from both sides.
[00:11:57] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for setting the context for today. Shortly I'm going to be meeting with our second expert of the day, who's going to take us on a tour to see a couple of the properties, to explore them in detail. But we may well be coming back to you just to round up our podcast to find out where we can find out more about the museum.
[00:12:14] Speaker D: Lovely. My pleasure.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: So I've walked deep into the heart of the museum to meet up with our guest expert for the day and Roberto is with us here. Roberto Prieto Labrador.
That's a wonderful name, I have to say.
Thank you for joining us today and being our expert here at the museum.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: Well, that's all right. But as ever, in true Tudor travel guide fashion, please can you let people know who you are and what are your connections and interests in these beautiful buildings?
Sure.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: So my name is Roberto Prieto Labrador. So you said that beautifully.
[00:14:10] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: I am an architectural historian, specialised in vernacular domestic buildings, and I work as a principal conservation officer for Mastonborough Council in Kent.
However, my connection with the museum comes from my previous role as a senior consultant.
The company that I used to work for was involved in the reconstruction of five of the buildings that are now on display here at the museum. And I was also the consultant that was involved with the permissions to construct the units for the filming crew, involved with the repair shop, which also takes place here at the Willendola Museum.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: Ah, that's so interesting. Fantastic. Now, you suggested, and we've been working up to this podcast for quite a while now, so been a long time in the planning, folks, but here we are. But you suggested that we come to a place that's very familiar to me and anybody who's been following the Tudor travel guide. I mentioned at the top of the podcast that a few years ago now, more than I care to admit, we were here talking about how to read some of an early Tudor domestic house, a yeoman farmer's house. We're outside a bay leaf farmstead at the moment.
You suggested we started here because today's story is going to take us forward in time and show us how architecture developed, Is that right?
[00:15:37] Speaker A: That's correct, yes. So we're going to start briefly here, just as a link with the actual content of the podcast today, because this is pretty much as far buildings went before everything changed. And that's exactly how that change is what we're going to be talking about today. So today in front of us, we got the classic open hall house that you were talking about in that podcast. I won't say how long ago. No worries.
But today we just go beyond that and what happened after with those houses.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Okay, so would it be just useful to very briefly summarize. You mentioned this is an open hall house.
Would it be useful, just to summarise when this type of building came into being and how long was it fashionable for before things started to evolve in domestic architecture?
[00:16:28] Speaker A: I'll try, because it's a quite wide topic, but, yeah, I'll try to summarise. So, yeah, so whole houses, they obviously appear in the medieval period. They've been the standard type of house through the whole medieval period, and they stark getting into decline around the end of the 15th century, especially the early 16th century. That's mostly in the southeast and the east of England, which were. And London, of course, which were the wealthiest regions. But the actual whole house still survived quite later on in other parts of the country. So you could still find whole houses well into the 17th century up north, or, you know, some artists that were a bit more isolated.
And in terms of what this house was, if I use Bay Leaf as our textbook example, we've got three bay house. We've got a central open roof, open room, open hall all the way up into the roof, which was heated by an open fire that was not in the center but just off center, and the smoke will escape through the roof.
And then we've got two bays on either side that were floored. And then you got the accommodation and services of the house. And the life pretty much happened in that open hall. So beautiful.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: I love the fact that you talk about the fact that architectural advances took longer to get to the north along with everything else.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Really. Yeah. It's a chemical fact. Yeah.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: You know, changes in religion, probably fashion, and the same here is in architecture. That's quite an interesting pattern that I hadn't really thought about before.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: I mean, it's geography, really. I mean, if you think about, you know, the eastern counties in London, I mean, you have direct contact with the continent and everything, you know, goes to that first, and then it's all like lakes down into the other parts of the country. So.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Okay, Roberto, so that's a fantastic explanation. Thank you for that. We're going to be moving on, literally through time.
So where do we need to go next?
[00:18:29] Speaker A: So we're going to go to Poplar Cottage.
[00:18:32] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Which is our textbook example of a transitional house. And I will explain what that means. Can't wait.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: Let's go.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Let's go.
[00:20:29] Speaker C: Right, well, we've come a short distance away from Bay Tree Farm and we've arrived at Poplar Cottage. I understand.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Poplar. Yes. Poplar, is it?
[00:20:38] Speaker C: So. So just first of all.
Well, I was going to say, actually, let Me just pause for a moment because it is a time for me to remind people who are listening that we will be taking photos while we're here. So as ever, there will be a show notes page where you can see a gallery of image, so you can see some of the things that Roberto and I are talking about today.
So talk to me about first of all what we can see if you can describe it for us and why is this place relevant to our story?
[00:21:11] Speaker A: So this is Poplar Cottage. Sorry, it's a bit of a full mouth name. Yes.
It's a two bay and a half timber frame building. It's fully timber frame, two stories and it's quite, quite small, quite simple. The framing is formed by square panels and the windows are arranged evenly on the facade and they are unglazed, as you can see. They've got mullions which are those vertical elements in the window. We only got this lattice kind of shutter just to prevent from, you know, being cold inside. I still have some light.
It is important for us today because even though it was built with things somewhere in the mid 17th century, it's a very, very good example of a transitional house. And I will explain please, what does that mean?
So I said before that the whole house was in decline by the end of the 15th century, early 16th century. That's because there's a number of elements, number of conditions that actually helped buildings to evolve.
We don't really know all of them and there's no an actual agreement between historians about, you know, what those conditions were. But probably we agree that there was a long time of peace. We got finally a dynasty settled in England with Queen Elizabeth. Well, first with the Tudors. Yeah, with the Tudors, with Henry, then Edward, Mary and so on.
And obviously the economy as well blossomed and, and then there's also a change in mentality within the household where we began to see a more specialized use of rooms. So before in the open hall house, everything happened within the hole. So you ate there, just slept there, you, you lived in the whole house. Only really the owner of the house retied to one of the, the floors base which was the, the, the solar and the parlor.
But when the, the hall began to decline, the house began to get partitioned. And the first element that we, we encounter is how we can make the house more comfortable by making better use of the heat and have less smoke. So you can imagine, okay, the open hall house was really smoky.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: Yeah. And actually we've just been in it, haven't we? You can smell the smoke when you walk into the hall.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:23:42] Speaker C: And the walls are really blackened.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: So it must have got everywhere.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: Absolutely. You can actually come here in winter during some events and they will have the fire on. And it's a very small fire because obviously for five regulations and six safety, but you can still, you know, you can still feel your eyes sort of like itching and watering. So it's really uncomfortable.
So, yeah, that was the, you know, the, the first element I would describe is how we can make that better. So what they did here is they move the fire all the way to the end.
[00:24:13] Speaker C: Should we go in?
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Yeah, let's go in.
[00:24:14] Speaker C: Let's go in. Okay, so I'm stepping through the, the threshold now. This is raised, isn't it? And in threshold doesn't have. Doesn't that actually have a kind of a meaning? Well, it's a purpose, a physical, practical purpose.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Well, it does. It's just where your structure really sits. So obviously it's a timber frame house. So you need, if you had your frame indirectly on, on the, on the ground, it will rot eventually.
So you've got a plinth that is normally masonry. It could be a stone or brick. In this case it's stone.
And then you got your sole plate, which is the horizontal massive timber that is basically holding that.
[00:24:52] Speaker C: You step over literally to get into the.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: So you have to do a bit of jumping just to get over. Yeah, I mean, some houses will have that cut off, but in this case it wasn't. I haven't really explained either, you know, a bit of the context for poplar, because it's quite interesting because it's not your usual house is what is called a waste land cottage.
[00:25:14] Speaker C: Okay, new. New term to me. Please explain.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: So wasteland cottages were buildings that were basically erected without permission from the manor. So they were legal houses, just to be blunt.
They were normally on the edge of roads, turnpipes, or just outside the. The commons, the wasteland of the manor. If you were caught, which normally happened, because obviously how suddenly it appeared, then you will be called to. To this, to the quarter sessions of the. Of the manor. And then you'll be either asked to put it down or just to pay a fine just to make it legal. Sometimes they don't give you that option and they just say, no, it needs to disappear.
And if you don't, we'll be fining you endlessly, basically. So it's like, like a really early version of the planning system that we got today. You know, it's like A non permission sort of like house.
[00:26:10] Speaker C: It's pretty risky though, isn't it, to go down that road for people who, I mean, I think we should stop and just say, who, what kind of person lived here? Because I'm thinking they wouldn't have had that much money.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Exactly. And that was the reason. I mean, you got. Because you got that sort of like time of prosperity during the 16th century. Population obviously like, you know, got bigger and there's not enough houses and people start building a bit ad hoc, which is what happened here.
The person that actually owned this place is what we call a husbandman, which.
[00:26:41] Speaker C: Can you spell that?
[00:26:43] Speaker A: So it's a husband, husbandman.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: Which is what we call today a laborer or a person that is a small trader. So within the social class of the period, if we can say that it will be not the very bottom, but it will be definitely on the bottom of the middle class or what we call the middling salt in this period,
[00:27:09] Speaker C: I think it might actually be useful. I think we did this on the previous podcast, but actually it might be quite useful just to talk about the social strata of the Tudor period. Right. From the people at the bottom to the people at the top. If you could just give us an overview of that, that would be really useful.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Sure. So obviously at the very, very bottom you got people that are kind of outside society, so criminals and that sort of people. And then you got the poor, which normally can be split into the serving poor, which were people that were just poor by casualties and no fault of their own.
Then you move into labors and husbandman, then you go into geomen, and we're already in that sort of like middling, middling sort. And then you pass to squires, gentry, so landed gentry, so the lowest level of the aristocracy.
And then from there you move into the nobility. Yeah, nobility, the king and so on.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: And I seem to remember from our previous conversation, one of the pivotal things in Tudor societies, whether or not you own land and where does that, where does that happen and what's the importance of that?
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Right. So if you are an aristocrat or you are a member of the gentry, you basically own land and you rent that land. So your benefits come from, from that tenancy. So you don't really work the land yourself, you've got people working the land for you and that's where your income come from.
[00:28:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: Now, the people of the Midland salt, which is pretty much what we'll be talking today with the yeomen and the husbandman, they were tenants for the, for the manor. And they, they, they work the land, but they themselves could actually employ as well, servants. And sometimes, even though it wasn't legal, they might sublet properties that they own. And we find that in manorial courts a lot and, and in documents where they might say, I live in this house, but I also own this house that is occupied by, you know, blah, blah, blah. So there's definitely a lot of, like, sublet in there. So there's like a lot of. It's like a, like a very flowed sort of like, economy, if you, if you like.
[00:29:29] Speaker C: Yeah. And so in that transition, I seem to remember, from.
Is it yeoman farmers, did they own their own land? Was that the difference between a sort of a normal kind of farmer or a.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: So the yeoman, they don't own the land. They're tenants from the manor.
[00:29:52] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: But they got very long leaseholds and that tend to sort of like pass into the heirs, even heiresses sometimes, or women, sometimes even inheritance.
But they don't own it, although they almost behave like they do because they build buildings.
But all that needs to come from those permissions from the manor. And that also involves the use of the wasteland of the common, which links to Poplar Cottage. Because if you're a yeoman, for example, you got customized rights that means sunrise given by the lord of the manor to use the wasteland. Normally you get fuel, you get material for construction, you use the land for pasturing your cattle.
But the amount of. Of land you use for those to get those resources would be based on how much land you actually rent from the manor. I see how those permissions really work. Those are normally arranged independently by each manner, and that's what they call customary rights.
[00:30:57] Speaker C: We're going to come back and talk about the actual house and the architecture and the space we're standing in in a moment. But I think. One more question. I have to give people an idea of, you know, who was living here, what you mentioned they'd be a husbandman, you know, what kind of family would live here, how many people would live in this house? What would their daily routine be like?
[00:31:17] Speaker A: But we don't really know who lived here specifically, so we haven't found records of it.
The manorial records for Washington, that's where this cottage was originally in the village of Washington, which is here in Sussex.
They start in the 1680s, and by that time there was a lot, like half a dozen, I think, of wasteland cottages already built. So it's very difficult to identify which one would Be popular, there would be people that own no land and in fact you can normally spot these cottages if you see maps. Even still 19th century, you can still see the small cottage with very, very tiny amount of land.
So normally it would be less than 4 acres. There was an act that actually came into place in 1589 where they were trying to prevent the construction, construction of illegal cottages and they said they at least have to have four acres of land.
And if you see old maps where popular, there's an 18th century map I think is actually on. On the museum's website that you can see there.
You can see that it had a really small land, just the curtilage, which is exactly what has been recreated here. So all these fencing you see around, that's a.
Obviously people listening cannot see it, but we are. We got this lovely fence around us that is just really close to the cottage.
[00:32:45] Speaker C: Yeah, it's just. It's sort of about 3 meters out from the cottage, maybe.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: Yeah. As a perimeter.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: Exactly. And the beauty of this, this place as well is the museum was very aware of this context. So when they rebuilt the cottage, they actually built it facing this field that we got to the front of the cottage, which it will be like, you
[00:33:07] Speaker C: know, the wasteland, as it would have been.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:33:10] Speaker C: And what kind of size of family would have lived in here generally? Do we have any idea?
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Well, we don't know for this, for this place specifically, but they were normally quite large families. I mean, obviously there was a high degree of, you know, like infant.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: Yeah, mortality.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:33:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: But yeah, there could be lots of families.
And you will see this. There's beds pretty much everywhere. And that goes as well going back to the house and its development, how the building really evolved from that open whole house when everybody was sleeping and eating and living in the whole house. Now we've got more partition house and more private house, if you like.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: So. So let's talk about the space we're in a little bit. And actually it might be useful to give people. I know Chris has been taking photos, so there'll be some on that show notes page. But what's kind of the square footage of this house? Because it's small, isn't it? We're just doing a very quick calculation here. We're thinking like 25 foot by 15 to give people an idea. And we've clearly come straight in through the front door and we're in the main sort of sitting room with a fireplace. And anyway, you're the person to explain where are we in and what's important about the features here that distinguish it from the earlier house.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: So we are now in what will. Will be called the kitchen, most likely.
[00:34:24] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Which is where obviously there was cooking. We got a half, which is the only basically half in the house. So we are in the only room that was heated.
Now the main difference from, from the house where the podcast started, Bay Leaf, is the fact that we don't have that open space all the way up to the roof. We have actually a room that has been floored over, which means we got a room above us.
And obviously by doing that, the fire can no longer be kind of in the middle. In the middle. It needs to be pushed. And what they did is they pushed the fire to the end of the room and created what we call a smoke bay.
So a smoke bay is essentially, as the name says, it's a really narrow bay, maybe four or five feet maybe across. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very narrow. Where basically you got your fire. And that remains open to the roof. And it's a way to still have that sort of like in between. Between something which is not really a chimney, but it's not an open hole.
[00:35:30] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:35:30] Speaker C: So it's not. I was just about to say, oh, is there a chimney? But there isn't actually a chimney. We haven't got that far.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: That's right. So that's what we call this, a transitional house because we're in that sort of like transition between the open hall and the moment when we go finally a masonry chimney stack being inserted into. Into the house. Now the thing with this smoke bay, I mean, you've got one here that is again, it's. It's a very, very textbook smoke bay, which, I mean, it looks almost like a fireplace, but it's just entirely made of timber.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Which it will be incredibly dangerous, as you can imagine. And they used to set fire a lot, did they? Yes. There's plenty of information in the coroner's report where houses were constantly getting.
Being burned because obviously the, the pre masonry chimneys were built off timber, like, you know, very, very flammable elements. We got a bit of a stone in the back of the. Of the other smoke bay.
[00:36:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: But everything else is just.
[00:36:35] Speaker C: I'm looking up, I've kind of climbed into this smoke bay and yes, we've got. Oh, here we are, we're both in it now. And we've got the stone back wall. But yeah, just looking up, it's just like another bit of open roof really, isn't it? It's Just that it's walled off from the rest of the house. I can see what you mean. There is no chimney. There's just like a little open, triangular vent on the side of the house.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: That's right. So you got a very irregular roof form. You go, one end is completely gabled, and that's where that opening that you're describing is at the apex. And the smoke will escape through that. And then the other end is completely heaped. So it doesn't have a gable. And as you say, it's. It's just like a really, really narrow room that goes all the way up. Like a really narrow, narrow version of the. Of the open hall.
[00:37:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: Just to control that. And there's none here. But sometimes you can see when you find remnants of a smoke bed, you can still find hooks where, you know, meat will be hanging and they will get in the smoke.
[00:37:37] Speaker C: Smoked meat.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
And you can still identify these features when you go to a house, even though a chimney has been inserted. Because when you go up, you will find three or four rafters that are completely blackened. You might be lucky and still find the two closed trusses. So the two sections of wall that form the. The smoke bay is still there, are completely blackened.
And that will be the clue for us to know that that was a
[00:38:08] Speaker C: smoke B.
I didn't know these existed, and I've certainly never stood in one before. So that's a first for me.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: You can find them in pretty much every form and color. And in this case, it's just been pushed by the end of the. Of the building. Because it's always a very small house. But when you got a house like Bay Leaf that's been converted from. From an open hall house into something like this.
[00:38:31] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: You might find the smoke bay happen just in the middle of the. Of the house, just at the end of the open hole.
[00:38:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: And you still got your.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: I see. Yeah.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Your. Your floor base on either side.
[00:38:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: And then going a bit ahead during this transitional period, it's kind of like a melting pot of different houses and typologies. So this would be like the most basic type of house. Two rooms down, two rooms up, and the smoke bay to the end.
But if you were much wealthier, if you got someone like the person that owned Bay Leaf, for example, you might as well get your smoke bay within the former open hall and then floor the hole across. Then you might knock down one of the end base and build a crosswind.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: Ah, right.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So they start experimenting with ways to make the house More subdivided, more specialized. So that's, that's the other element that happens here. The rooms began to be specialized. You don't have a single room where everything happens, happened. So you were asking me for where we are because this is the only room that is heated we know that would be living here most of the time they will be cooking. And as we refer to this as the. As the kitchen. Sometimes in very early inventories you can even find the word hall use as the. As the kitchen and then sometimes even later as the pallet. I'll get to that later when we go to the next house. The. But in this context you're going to still find kitchen and hall in chieftains change exactly because of that moment of overlapping between the two.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: What's interesting to me, you know, you're talking about putting in ceilings and subdividing halls. I mean of course you've got that of course in the high status houses as well. I'm thinking of Hever with its original great hall that was full height and the floor was put in and you get a lot of gallery put in. So it's just the more posh version, isn't it of what's going on here.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: It is something very interesting with the, you know, with the nobility is that they never abandon the whole house. And for example I used to work for Audley End House in Essex and I was building the system 14 and it was built with a massive open hall when it was completely unused.
[00:40:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: And it's because they still use the hole as a ceremonial space was in houses of the middle and sort obviously that function is obsolete, it's not needed. However, I would argue and I found a couple of examples where houses were still built in the early 16th century which is quite late for an open hall house to be built from scratch in this part of the country as an open hall house. And when we analyzed, you know, the timbers in the roof we found they were not very black. And if you remember bay leaf is completely pitch black because of the suit. And those buildings that I found were in that blackened. And then we know there was a smoke bay or a chimney inserted not much later. And that made me think that those houses were maybe still used in some sort of ceremonial way. And when we researched the background of the house we found that the people living there, whilst they were not nobility or gentry, they were still holding very high positions within their societies. They were churchwardens or you know that sort of like quite high esteem local bigwigs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's A perfect way to describe it. Exactly. So, yeah, they would probably still having that reference of what nobility was doing by having the holy steel kept as a later.
[00:42:11] Speaker C: It's like a status symbolism more as
[00:42:14] Speaker A: a feature than actually as usable as space as such.
[00:42:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So we're just stepping through to the back another. Over another threshold here.
So we've got. Describe what we've got in here, first of all.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: So we've got a room that is not much bigger than the room we just came from. Still in the ground floor, there's no half, so it's unheated. And there's only a small window on one side facing what we would call the. The wasteland.
And it's been set up as what we call a shop. Not a shop in the way that we understand today, but as it was referred to back in the 16th and the 17th century. So it would be a place where you do sometimes trading, but mostly you do crafts. And in this case, you can see this, like shoes.
[00:43:03] Speaker C: Shoemaker.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: Never say, like a shoemaker. Yeah.
[00:43:06] Speaker C: Cobbler, I think they're called.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. I was trying to find a term myself.
[00:43:10] Speaker D: Time.
[00:43:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: So, yeah, you can see they got all the tools here on the wall, the hammers and. And everything just to make the. The shoes and the. They call shoe trees, I think the
[00:43:20] Speaker C: actual molds for the trees, upper parts of the.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: That's right.
But we know that in most cases this used to be a service space. And in inventories, normally these service spaces, even though they were obviously less mixed than the open hole there, is still kind of multifunctional. So, yeah, they might be for storage. And we see that with the pots we got there, they might doing some craftsmanship with.
With the shoes. But then they might also have beds or mattresses that might be just put down here when they. They go to sleep. That will obviously depends of how big your family was.
[00:43:59] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: Or not in this case, because it's a very small place. But if you actually have servants, then your servants will probably sleep here.
[00:44:06] Speaker C: Yeah. And you would sleep upstairs, I guess.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's correct.
[00:44:10] Speaker C: And so it's really essential stuff only, isn't it, really?
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And that doesn't really go. I mean, it's related to the actual social class of the person living here as a husbandman. But if you actually read inventories of yeomen that they would be wealthy. Yeah.
Yes. They might have more stuff in the inventory, but in terms of how ornamental they were, they wouldn't be too different. Maybe the quality Will be better, obviously, but it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be much different.
We don't have at this point still many comfortable furniture. So we have like stools and chairs, but not, not really cushions.
[00:44:53] Speaker C: It's really basic and it's very basic.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:44:57] Speaker C: Stuff. And I guess upstairs then is where we need to go for the sleeping quarters, Is that right?
[00:45:02] Speaker A: That's correct, yes. So we go stairs on the side of the. Of the smoke bay.
[00:45:06] Speaker C: Up the stairs.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Sam.
Wow.
Wow. And we are on the first room upstairs, which is just above what we call the hall or the kitchen. These are referring in inventories as chambers. Right. And they are normally referred as by the room that they go just below. So it will be the kitchen chamber or the whole chamber and so on.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: And I just want to ask you
[00:46:25] Speaker C: about the windows because they're a lot. The lattice windows, they don't have glass. Glass was a very expensive item. But what did they use? Because I've noticed as we've gone around there is a kind of. I don't even know how to describe this, but it lets. It's partially transparent. So the light comes through, but obviously it's still stopping the worst of the. Any drafts coming into the room. What did they actually use?
[00:46:48] Speaker A: They can use all sorts of materials from cloths. They use linen here in this recreation, which allows light to get through in some areas. I even seen horn. But that's more associated with more expensive houses or monastic buildings as well, from animals. So. Yeah, anything that you could really have around just to stop the. The weather but still be able to see what you are doing in the house, we just do it.
[00:47:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: And you said the glass was very expensive. It was expensive.
However, I found some houses during this period, maybe not as basic as this house, but more in. More in the line of bay leaf and their counterparts from the later period that they actually had glass. And that was because they were built next to glass industries. So if you go a local glass making industry or something similar, then it would be easier for you and cheaper to get that glass than if you were somewhere that you don't. So sometimes geography and, and what you got around you in terms of local industry.
[00:47:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: And that goes for brick as well or any other sort of like vernacular materials. What I can say is, is this house with. Be a really, really, really late example of. Of a smoke bay. I said before we think it was built in the mid 17th century based on the. On the framing and the way it was built.
At this point, this type of house Was pretty much obsolete, especially in the southeast.
We normally find these houses on. Yeah. Late 15th, mostly early 16th century. And then chimneys began to get inserted. I see in the second half of the. Of the 16th century onwards in this case as they was built without a chimney. So mid 17th century and we think later in the late 17th or early 18th century even the chimney was inserted.
[00:48:42] Speaker C: Right. Okay. The other thing about this room is it's obviously steep pitched roof and the thatch, the straw is really visible. Is that how it would have been?
[00:48:54] Speaker A: You will have. Yes. And the beauty with that is it's actually self isolated. You don't have to add anything else. Even today, if you have to thatch a barn for a conversion, for example, you don't need to add much more insulation because the thatch is giving you that.
So it's a great material for that, sort of like for insulating rooms.
But you have to think they will be sleeping on that themselves. So mattress will be completely filled up with, you know.
[00:49:22] Speaker C: And you've got it here, haven't you got the straw mattress on the bed? Because we've got basically the one bed in the room here.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: Yeah, this would be the main. The main room. And obviously you will benefit from the heat coming from.
[00:49:33] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: From downstairs that probably go through the floorboards.
[00:49:37] Speaker C: Although it's. I mean there's obviously there's no fire downstairs at the moment. It is cold, isn't it?
[00:49:42] Speaker A: So it does.
[00:49:42] Speaker C: Does bring home to you how chilly these living spaces must have been if the fire hadn't been roaring. And it's partitioned by. There's another small. Well, it's not that much smaller, but a bit smaller room. So would the children have slept in here or.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: Yeah, children. Any members of the family. Yeah.
Even if you have some service, as I said before, again, multi. Multifunctional spaces and the inventories always have like at least one bed or never a best death. That's normally on the main chamber because that sort of. That suggests a really big framing. But mattresses that sort of like more basic sort of like bedding, it will be found practically everywhere.
[00:50:23] Speaker C: And no actual door.
So is that, is that. Would that have been like this? Because there's not a lot of privacy, is there?
[00:50:30] Speaker A: No. And that goes again with the idea that I was describing. Although there's a bit of evidence here that maybe there was some sort of door.
[00:50:36] Speaker C: Yes, possibly here. Rudimentary door. Yeah.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: But yeah, the privacy as we, as we understand it today didn't really exist. And that goes for everything. I mean if you imagine you got children, you're a couple and you're going to have more children. Yeah, I mean, this is what it is. So, you know, people really had a complete idea about privacy, family life.
[00:50:59] Speaker C: It's quite hard.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Sexual life as well even, you know.
[00:51:01] Speaker C: Yeah. It's quite hard for us to get our head around, isn't it?
[00:51:03] Speaker A: It's really difficult. And, and yeah, I think, think I like to say that the Victorians are responsible of that.
[00:51:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:10] Speaker A: Because they introduce the idea of none of the privacy on the other space.
Yeah, exactly. But no, back in this period, absolutely, there was no much privacy, more privacy than in the whole house, but still not as we understand today.
[00:51:25] Speaker C: So I think that's probably us having explored this particular cottage. But I know we've got one more example to go to.
So where do we need to go? And why?
[00:51:33] Speaker D: Why?
[00:51:34] Speaker C: What does that particular house show us?
[00:51:36] Speaker A: So we're going to go to Pending. So even though I said this was built in the 1650s, as I say it's a very late example, Pending has been dendro analyzed and it's been. We know it's been in 1609 and it was built from scratch as a closed house with a chimney stack already.
[00:51:55] Speaker C: Right. So we're moving on in our architectural evolution. Right. Right. Lead the way.
[00:52:01] Speaker A: Let's go.
[00:52:02] Speaker C: Let's.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Sa.
[00:53:51] Speaker C: Roberto. We've come a little bit of a walk from Hopla up to Pendeen. A very quite different looking house, significantly bigger. Maybe you could describe for everybody what we're seeing from the outside and how it differs significantly from the last cottage we were at.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: So socially we are closer here to Bay Leaf House than we were to Poplar Cottage. So it's more of a. It was a yeoman's house.
We know from that Dendronis that it was built in 1609.
[00:54:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: So it's an early 17th century house and it's what we call a closed house. That means it's a house that was built from from the outset with a chimney stack. So. So no open hole or not. Sort of like transition elements, just built with the central chimney stack method. Brick. In this case, it's complete in the frame. As a house, it has four base.
Yeah, I think it's four base.
The main difference is the ground floor doesn't have water on top, which was the panel infill for both Bay Leaf and for Poplar cottage. This case we've got actually brick, as we call brick noggin, which is what we call that. So infill in between the timber framing.
[00:55:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: But the up floor has still the waterland up.
[00:55:15] Speaker C: So. So brick, obviously, at some point, brick was a big innovation and it first came into royal palaces. Very fashionable. Obviously, it must have eventually found its way into to everyday use.
Talk to me about why brick supplanted the wattle and daub. Why would you have half a house of brick and half of wattle of daub? Some of those issues I'd love to hear a little bit more about.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Well, it's the same kind of rationale as people making a, you know, a rare extension with a large kitchen or, you know, buying a massive tv. So it's a way to show status, because obviously brick was expensive, but maybe you would have enough money to do the whole house. To do the whole house.
So you had to economize.
[00:56:02] Speaker C: I thought that's what you were going to say.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Yes. So you had to economize there. And in this case, they just did the. The ground floor. Interestingly, you. You find that.
I believe it's all the way around the house, not just on the front. Santa just got brick on the front for show. Yeah. And everything remains in the frame. Sometimes the whole framing has been removed, although that happens a bit later into the late 17th century.
The whole framing of the front gets removed and gets refronted with brick, but the framing remains.
[00:56:34] Speaker C: So when this was built, would it have been built with the brick in it, or were there examples of where they took the wattle and door bow and decided to replace it with brick because they suddenly had the money to. And the availability of the material, as
[00:56:47] Speaker A: far as I understand, for the investigation from the museum, it was built with brick from the outset on the ground floor and then watered up.
[00:56:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:58] Speaker A: On the top.
[00:56:58] Speaker C: And I presume brick is more. I mean, it's less. Obviously, it doesn't catch fire as much. It's more durable.
[00:57:05] Speaker A: It is, yes, it's more durable.
[00:57:07] Speaker C: It's got practical elements.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: Absolutely lovely. It insulates more than Waterland up. So. Yeah. Yeah. As. Yeah. So much. Obviously you've got much thicker wall.
[00:57:15] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:57:15] Speaker A: And it's a much more dense material that Waterland up. So in terms of insulation, it gives you a bit more of that on the. On the ground floor, especially if you go like, in this case, like fireplaces. It's another way to sort of retain that heat within. Within the heat, the spaces in the. In the house. But mostly it's just a way to display a status. And that happens not only with the brick wall work, but also with the framing itself. And that can go for practically every single timber frame building you find. There's always a degree of displaying social status or wealth in the framing either because you know you got the best quality timbers on the front.
If you go, you know, cash to just spend. You can even introduce far more timbers even if they, they don't have any sort of like structural element. Just for show.
You can still have yetis as you had in bay leaf by this point. They were a bit old fashioned by the 17th century, but you can still find them all the way down to the mid 17th century as a way to displace that wealth and status. But yeah, the brick here is the, is the main character and you're going to see pretty much everywhere in the house and in places where they would be seen by not only by yourself but your visitors. And that's the whole point because you're spending good money on that brickwork.
[00:58:39] Speaker C: So the other couple of things that sort of jump out at me while we're still on the outside is this has got a, a stone tiled roof. It's not thatched. Is that how it would have been constructed? I mean, obviously again I'm thinking of royal palaces that had tiled roofs way back. But did the ordinary person basically just have thatch roofs till a particular period in history or as stone tiled roofs, were they around for a lot longer?
[00:59:06] Speaker A: No, they've been kind of like living next to each other. So that tiles, or even in where I live, which is sort of like near to the wheel, you've got Horseman stone. It's another sort of like very common material in these old buildings. And they were just built with them because they were just readily just there. And we know tires have been used even, you know, in farm buildings from the early medieval period.
And well that, if you call that kind of that takes from the roof, then it goes to the roof. But as I said, they were just living together. There was a time where they stopped using this or that.
[00:59:40] Speaker C: And so the big feature from the outside, and we'll go in in a minute, is clearly the chimney. And that's what you were talking about earlier. That's the biggest fashionable innovation.
Talk to me about chimneys then. How did they come into being and when do we start first seeing chimneys in normal kind of domestic architecture?
[01:00:02] Speaker A: So fireplace and chimneys, obviously, as you said, they existed before in royal palaces, monastic buildings from the early medieval period, castles, you name it.
[01:00:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:12] Speaker A: But they start leaking down into the lower levels of society later on. The Eddies examples we have, they normally date from the late 16th century, we know, for example, I really like this reference. So William Harrison, in his description, his description of England from 1577, he has, I think it's chapter nine. He talks about the buildings in England and he makes these remarks where the old men are commenting how many chimneys they are now appearing in London, whilst when they were young there weren't barely any.
So that gives you that sort of like moment where, you know, mid to late 16th century Tymnis just sort of like for everybody everywhere. And when you go to old maps, and I'll show you that in a minute, then you can see as well most of the houses. And those maps I brought today, one is from 1610, I got one from 1626 and the other one from 1636.
Practically all the houses are drawn with a chimney in it. Of course, these maps are not always 100% accurate and the houses are drawn a bit, you know, speculatively. However, you know, if you took the, the body to draw the chimneys, most likely the building had already a chimney in it. So we know that by, by this time when, when painting was built, it was a quite common feature in this level of society.
And they appear at the same time as the smoke bay appear. So they normally identify as the end of that transition, but they overlap each other. And you can have buildings that maybe have a smoke bay in one room and then a chimney in a different room that has a more social element, like a parlor.
So. Yeah.
[01:01:59] Speaker C: So what made chimney suddenly become available to everybody was it the material got a lot cheaper?
[01:02:04] Speaker A: It got cheaper, yes. And, and the technology just got a bit more available for, for everyone to be, to be built. And it comes as well with the idea of having the house more compartmentalized into, into a smaller spaces. And if obviously you've got more spaces, you need to, to heat more. More rooms was before all the light just happened in, in the, in the whole house, that was the only heated room. Right, so should we go inside?
[01:02:34] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I presume the other feature then is as you were saying, this, this house has more spaces associated with it. Again, we're getting that increasing level of a little bit more privacy maybe.
[01:02:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. And mostly the, the specialized rooms as well, they come mostly for like service room. So before that most of the activities would just happen within the same room or within the same couple of rooms. Now you got these rooms used for as a blue house or a wash house or a, a bake house. And they normally are built as outshots or lean Shoes just on the back or side of the building. Something on the front as well. So we haven't gone around the building, but if we were to go around, you will see a lean to. Just to the back of this building.
[01:03:22] Speaker C: So that's the 16th century equivalent of just an extension that we would do today.
[01:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much. Absolutely. And those can be also added to previous buildings. So we know in Poplar Cottage, for example, when the chimney was inserted in the late 17th or early 18th century, they also built a lean to the rear with more service space. And here in Pendin, we had three. I remember there was one on the back that has been rebuilt and there were two more that were later that were on the side and on the front.
And you can still see from the front the.
The empty mortises where the framing will be just making those. And while the front was very interesting, I'm almost a big gut. It hasn't been rebuilt.
I appreciate it. It's a later addition. That's why it hasn't been rebuilt. It was a big house and it also had a bread oven inside.
[01:04:13] Speaker C: Ah, okay. Yeah.
[01:04:14] Speaker A: So it was a very, very interesting, like space.
[01:04:19] Speaker C: So we've come in into one of the two spaces downstairs. We definitely now have a chimney, a brick chimney, a stone chimney. So what we've got, that's for me, that's similar is you can see the timber frame, but as you were saying, there's much more brick on display.
Ceiling heights are a bit taller, but you've still got the open slatted window. So we still have that sense of openness in the house.
[01:04:45] Speaker A: That's correct. I mean, this still sits with one foot on the medieval period. So we still got those elements like, you know, the, the Anglaise windows with the mullions. That is pretty much a descendant from. From that medieval tradition. But you can easily find houses, as I was saying before, before that they will be glazed at this point. So that will base with how much money you could spend or. Or how close you probably were to your glass. Yeah, a glass industry.
What I didn't really mention as well is this detail of the.
On the chimney stack. Yeah. You see it's been all painted red.
[01:05:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:05:21] Speaker A: So the brick was irregular when it was made back in the day. And maybe you couldn't even get the best quality brick, one brickwork, because it'll be the one that was very regular, very nice. So the way to make it look better would be just to paint the whole brickwork red or so like brick color and then paint the lines in the white imitating the. The mortar.
[01:05:49] Speaker C: It's so funny because I don't know about you, but I much prefer the higgledy piggledy bricks because that's the old brick. And. But this is looking back at things retrospectively, but how they wanted everything to look very straight and which to me now is an ugly, modern brick.
[01:06:05] Speaker A: Well, that is. That's a very romantic idea. And I come from that sort of live again, it's a very soft, like, Victorian or late 18th century, if you like, idea of going back to the rustic and even very outside craft. Going back to the soft line, the origins and the soft land. Like, romantic idea how this building. Where and which, you know, we know now that most buildings were not even, like, exposed with the masonry. They would be rendered and things like that. So for our eye, which we still come from that tradition or that romantic idea is a bit like an eye. So it's like, oh, that looks horrendous.
But no, that's how the building actually look like. It's just. It doesn't appeal to our taste, which is different. So this is pretty much the same thing and is actually placed in a really, really strategical point, which is the entrance. So when you get into the house, the first thing you're gonna see is the brick wall.
[01:06:57] Speaker C: Yeah. So you don't come into the chamber. You kind of come into, like, a little mini passageway with. And the chimney is right in the center of the house with the two. One room on one side and one room on the other. Is that. Was that typical then, of this?
[01:07:10] Speaker A: Yes. In fact, this is called a lobby entry house. So this is the actual term for this type of house because you, as you said, you enter into a lobby and then you go your rooms on either side. The Tymna stack is in the middle. And then it serves five places that are back to back.
[01:07:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:25] Speaker A: And you can have sometimes just one single fireplace, sometimes two, like, in this case, on the ground floor. This house has three fireplaces, so two on the ground floor and one in the first floor.
But sometimes you even go like four. You go like two back to back, just hitting all the rooms.
[01:07:44] Speaker C: Up and down.
[01:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah, up and down.
[01:07:46] Speaker C: Luxury.
[01:07:46] Speaker A: Exactly. The moment you go, the more you can really spend on that. On that chimney stack.
[01:07:51] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:07:51] Speaker A: And I'm gonna show you a very interesting document. That's one of my favorite ones, which is a manuscript from Suffolk, and It dates from 1577.
And you basically shows a floor plan of a lobby entry house that was to be built in Suffolk.
[01:08:15] Speaker C: And and can we include that on our show notes? Yeah, of course, that would be great. So you'll see an image of that, dear listeners, and this is what Roberto's just explaining to us now.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: So just for the listeners, just to know what we're looking at. So it's a manuscript document and it has a ground floor plan of a house that essentially has the same plan form as Ben Dean. So you got this lobby entrance with the chimney stuck in the middle, back to back, fireplaces, side rooms, and a third room on the side that was unheated. And the beauty of this ground floor is that also names the rooms and tells you how big they were. So this is a whole 16ft long, 18ft wide.
And it says chimney, chimney, stairs on the side of the chimney.
And then it says lounge doors and doors. And then you go the parlor, which was 14. 14ft.
And then the battery.
[01:09:14] Speaker C: Right.
[01:09:15] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:09:16] Speaker A: So it's a great document because also we know what solver terminology was used.
[01:09:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:09:22] Speaker A: To call these names because again, based on inventories, based on location, they tend to change.
The whole keeps appearing, especially in the, in the early years of the 17th century.
Exchange with parlor or kitchen based on.
[01:09:38] Speaker C: Yeah. On.
[01:09:38] Speaker A: On different household. But essentially here we. We got the kitchen and the hall. And that comes from the inventories that we know survive from this house.
I haven't said this, but this house was built by Richard Clare and then his family lived here for a number of years. He actually bought the property. And when he bought the property, there was already a house here. So it is understood that this house replaced a much earlier house. I understand the earliest document found for pending is from the late 15th century and is described as a tenement, which means there was already a house in place. So it would have been this in a much, much earlier. Earlier house.
[01:10:23] Speaker C: So can we go upstairs? Because obviously we. We're down. Is this the kitchen side we're in at the moment or the. The sort of parlor side of the house?
[01:10:31] Speaker A: The one with the biggest fibers is the kitchen, which I believe is this. Is this one. Yes. Oh, this one, yeah.
[01:10:37] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: Because they got the, the painted cloth here with the table. So. Yes, that would have been the whole. Yeah. There's a much smaller fibers. You can tell.
[01:10:45] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.
[01:10:46] Speaker A: And even the way that the fabric is being treated is even nicer. Should you go the best sort of like timber for the lintel for the pilot. Because obviously if you've got guests, they will be, they will be here. And you go a few.
[01:10:59] Speaker C: The apotrope. Yeah.
[01:11:01] Speaker A: To Protect.
[01:11:02] Speaker C: I was just going to ask you about those, whether they were. So, you know, we did a big. We were at home, Horton Tower in Lancashire recently, and they have pottery paint marks everywhere and obviously that's a high status house, but you're still seeing. Obviously you can still see these kind of marks even in.
[01:11:18] Speaker A: Everywhere.
[01:11:19] Speaker C: Everywhere, yeah, everywhere. Same belief system.
[01:11:21] Speaker A: Same belief, yeah.
[01:11:22] Speaker C: How long did this sort of central fireplace tend to endure? I mean, sometimes you still see them in modern houses, but generally speaking.
[01:11:29] Speaker A: So as I said, we find the. In the early six samples I found, they.
They are from the 1560s is the. The earliest I found.
No, sorry, that's a lie.
1555 is the edit I found in Rye, where it was a house built just like this. The main difference is because it was a townhouse, you not enter from. From the side facing the Tibney Stack, you enter from the narrow end of the house because the house had to be 10, 90 degrees.
So, yeah, mid 16th century.
And they could go all the way into the mid 17th century. And again, there's a geographical element.
So this is just an orientative sort of like context. They're going to still exist beyond the 1650s. But it's true that in the late 17th century there's another level of change in the platform with the fireplace goes to the back of the house. Sorry, to the ends of the house and you got a passage in the middle with your staircase. And then your rooms remain in there on either side, but now they are heated by independent.
[01:12:37] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[01:12:38] Speaker A: Fireplaces. And that's more that you see from the late 17th century, but especially during the Georgian period.
[01:12:43] Speaker C: Okay, so should we just nip upstairs so we complete our tour?
[01:12:49] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a room here as well.
[01:12:50] Speaker C: There's another room at the end. This is the unheated bit that you're talking about.
[01:12:54] Speaker A: It's been set up as a dairy and that comes from. From the inventories that we got related to this house.
But again, this unheated rooms we were talking before, they were mostly used for service, storage.
[01:13:12] Speaker C: Storage.
[01:13:12] Speaker A: And again, sometimes even you can find beds in them. Not the case here in this, in this setup for the museum. But in this case it's pretty much a dairy full.
[01:13:22] Speaker C: Is this a butter churn?
[01:13:23] Speaker A: That's right, yeah. It's made butter.
[01:13:25] Speaker C: So you just, what do you just literally sort of pummel, do you? It's, it's, it's a wooden. It's a lot. How would you describe this at all?
[01:13:35] Speaker A: Conical.
It's not really.
I don't know how to. How butter was really made. I know you had to do. I know you had to sort of like palm.
[01:13:43] Speaker C: The palm of cream and.
[01:13:45] Speaker A: That's right, Angelina, go. Solid.
[01:13:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, well, that's maybe another course they could do here at.
Teach me how to make butter.
[01:13:53] Speaker D: Right.
[01:13:53] Speaker C: Okay. Are we going upstairs just to have a peek?
[01:13:56] Speaker A: Sorry. Something that. Before we go upstairs.
[01:13:58] Speaker C: Yes, of course.
[01:13:58] Speaker A: I just really like this detail of a painted cloth, which is quite recent because I think it's been for a year or two, I think.
So we know there were painted cloths in. In houses for this.
Of this glass, which obviously was much cheaper to. To get than actual tapestry that you find in the. In the big houses. But the actual song. So I would describe it is. It's a very ornate painted cloth with Renaissance influence and baroque influence elements in it. And it has this medallion in the center with a psalm written in Latin.
And the sum translates. It will say something as, the father is compassionate towards the children.
The Lord will be compassionate to those that fear him. And that actually illustrates the hierarchy of the household very well, because the house in this moment was understood as a. It was referred as a little commonwealth or even as a little church.
And it was very patriarchal in most cases. So the idea of the father would act, as I said, that element where he was the God figure there, the power figure, and he should be feared, but he will also show that compassion.
So I think it's a very good detail from the museum to bring that here in that context of the household.
[01:15:23] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's referring to God, but it's also referring to the killer nature of
[01:15:28] Speaker A: the patriot of the head of the. Of the household. Yes.
[01:15:31] Speaker C: Nice, nice.
Right, so let's passing back through in the kitchen, another little staircase tucked in the corner to take us up to the first floor.
Oh, I was expecting to see a bedroom, but it's not set up like that.
[01:17:04] Speaker A: No, it's set up as another service room with more storage.
And for me, the most important element of this room is this, which I will describe who it is for the listeners. So you have the wall that will basically separate in this room for the rest of the walls. Sorry, for the rest of the rooms. And it's a full timber frame wall. And there's a cupboard being built within the frame. And you got this.
This cupboard door that when you open it, you see the chimney stack inside. And there's a hole and a lot of, like, suit that has been coming from it. This is a smoking cabinet.
So you will put your meat inside. You will close the door and then the smoke for the chimney will just come through that hole and it will fill the whole cabinet with the smoke.
[01:17:52] Speaker C: I've never seen one of those before. That's fascinating.
So I mean it's not very big, is it? But I guess what, there would be hooks up there.
[01:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah, you just hung your meat from it.
[01:18:01] Speaker C: What a clever device. And then you can see that hole going through into the chimney stack. So we'll get a photo of that. So that.
Excellent. It's all got. It's all done. That's really clever.
[01:18:11] Speaker A: It's fantastic. Yeah. I only seen once apart from the museum. There's only seen this feature in the building because obviously they get blocked up and they're difficult to spot. But there was one that you can still see this arrangement of the. The double timber which will indicate the. The shape of the. Of the opening.
[01:18:29] Speaker C: Right, okay.
[01:18:30] Speaker A: Yeah. But yeah, they're difficult to. To spot. It's quite rare that the most common will be just to get hooks inside the chimney stack and.
[01:18:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:18:38] Speaker A: And because I'm in the fireplace. That's right. Basically like in the smoke bay. Just you get inside the engel nook or the tiny stack and then just hang it from there.
[01:18:45] Speaker C: Yeah, great. And then a very low door.
I guess this was just necessitated because of the ceiling required.
[01:18:54] Speaker A: This. Yes.
[01:18:55] Speaker C: You really have to duck down to get through.
[01:18:58] Speaker A: They weren't that small.
[01:18:59] Speaker C: Yeah, they're not that small. Into the bedroom.
[01:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah. So bedrooms.
[01:19:03] Speaker C: I should say there's a couple here, isn't it?
[01:19:05] Speaker A: It's fantastic this one.
[01:19:07] Speaker C: So we've got the bigger bedroom with the four poster sort of style bed here and then this much smaller one for children, I guess.
[01:19:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Children. Yeah. In this case you likely have like servants or laborers just working in the farm with you and they will be employed sometimes. There was also like seasonal. So they will just come here, sleep for a few months. They will just go to different farms. So. So again it's the idea of using the space quite multifunctional.
[01:19:34] Speaker C: So how many kind of just. I know you probably don't know exactly but how many people might sleep up in. Up here with. With you know, family, children, laborers. Servants.
[01:19:48] Speaker A: That's a difficult question actually.
I mean most of the family will be sleeping upstairs even within the same room. Because you sometimes got this
[01:19:59] Speaker C: truckle beds.
[01:20:00] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:20:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:20:00] Speaker A: Come from below. The best debt.
And again it's the idea that yes they were privacy but not privacy as we understand it today. So. But yeah, the whole family would Just live here.
And again, we were just mentioned before that this rooms were normally named after the room that they go below. So this will be the, the whole chamber because we're just about the whole.
And it's the base. This is the best room in the house. So normally it would be either above the hall or the equivalent, the parlor. And it was heated as well.
[01:20:43] Speaker C: We have a fireplace exactly. In the bedroom.
[01:20:45] Speaker A: Exactly. That gives you that level of stuff status within that room.
[01:20:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:20:49] Speaker A: And this is the, you know, the only bed that has a proper framing is what we call a best debt.
[01:20:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:20:56] Speaker A: And that appears in documents. And they were so valuable that they used to be left as part of the wheel. So you find that in wheels constantly where the, the best best goes to my wife or to my, my Tudor or my son. So it's always one of the elements that tend to go through wheels together with pewter elements as well. Brass was very valuable and windows as well. And I have another image that I will show you and read for you, which I think you'll find very interesting, which is from a wheel.
And again I'll pass you that so
[01:21:33] Speaker C: you can, you can put that.
[01:21:34] Speaker A: And it says item my will and mine is that all the glasses of the windows of my now dwelling house.
Or shall be at the time of my disease shall not be taken or accompted as movables, but shall continue and remain to my set house as standals to the only and proper use of the earth of me. They said Thomas Tane.
[01:22:09] Speaker C: Oh, great.
[01:22:10] Speaker A: So that goes with inventories because. Inventories, they're great because they tend to sort of like mention the, the name of the room, although not always all the rooms, but most of them, but also practically everything that was of value and movable within the house. So that will form your gross estate and all its value. And that will include cattle, your farm production, barley owed, hops, furniture, pewter, brass, anything that you know can be of value sometime because it was actually carried out by friends or family or neighbors. They won't declare everything that was in the house and they might take things by themselves. They didn't have anyone to double check.
So yeah, there's also a degree of speculation with inventories because. Because as I said, there's no every single room named and not every single item.
[01:23:04] Speaker C: Yeah. But nevertheless incredible source. I, I know myself when I come across an inventory if I'm looking at a grand house. It's so exciting because I like to reimagine these places as they were. And you.
[01:23:14] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[01:23:14] Speaker C: Get the names of the rooms, it's just wonderful.
But it. It does just go to show me. It amuses me that people are talking about their windows, and you. You never think today of putting in your will, bequeathing your windows to somebody. So it just shows how what people valued and what was valuable. So it's very interesting.
[01:23:33] Speaker A: Should we move to the next room?
[01:23:35] Speaker C: Yeah, there's one little. One little final room to finish with, I think.
And we duck again under a very low door frame into a smaller, quite cozy bedroom.
[01:23:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's quite. Quite nice. Quite small and cozy. I mean, it's a single. Single bed with a couple of stools and bedside tables and a chest on the other end of the room.
And again, a room that will be used for storage for more children or servants, leverage, anything that might just be needed.
And, yeah, I can see you looking up. So, yeah, we got.
There's no ceiling, so we still got the vaulted roof above us.
[01:24:19] Speaker C: Yeah. And I'm looking at the beds and there's all sorts of debris that's coming from the bed. So you just see how much it, you know.
[01:24:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it wasn't. Wasn't really too comfortable.
[01:24:29] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:24:30] Speaker A: This one doesn't have these famous ropes or the. The best that has. We have got actually, actually slats of timber, but the one you got on the main chamber that we just came from, you got those ropes that are holding the mattress.
And there's a very nice story, which is the expression slip tight comes from there because it will actually tight your rose just to sleep comfortably.
[01:24:56] Speaker C: Yeah, that's great. I love the origins of those sayings. They do crop up from time to time in our podcast, that's for sure.
Good. So does that conclude our exploration?
[01:25:08] Speaker A: Yes, it does. What I will say is you can go beyond this and explore Tyndall's cottage. That we won't see this today, but Tyndall's is sort of the next level of this evolution that goes now into the early Georgian period, and it has a very similar form as a poplar cottage. But that's exactly how poplar will become in the late 17th or early 18th century, with a chimney stack inserted and a lean tube built to the back just to provide more service accommodation.
[01:25:43] Speaker C: I think there's one final thing that I'm going to maybe ask you, and I think it comes from my exploring and getting to know, because I'm not trained in anything to do with architectural history, but you kind of see buildings and you learn about how to recognize the period that they're from.
And I think it'd be quite nice maybe for our listeners to know, you know, what would they need to look out for to help them? Data building. You know, I sometimes members of my family go, oh, what date do you think it is, Sarah?
How do people, you know, what would you say are the absolutely key things to look out for that distinguish a medieval house from a sort of Tudor house and maybe from a kind of Jacobean sort of period onwards?
[01:26:36] Speaker A: That's a tricky question because there's not an actual direct answer, I'm afraid. I would say if you got access to the roof space, you might need to be a bit cheeky and say, can I go to your loft?
Yeah. They will give you the clearest cue because the moment you see any blackening on the timbers, that will give you that suggestion. This was at some point open, it has an open fire or maybe a smoke bay. Based on how many rafters are actually blackened, the roof structure itself will tell you as well the period. And that can be a bit tricky to identify it. Obviously, the, the medieval roof truss by definition is the crown post, which is the one you see in bay leaf, which is essentially a vertical post with curve braces coming from it. Just imagine sort of like palm tree, so to speak.
And then that will have a color, which is a horizontal timber on top of that post that will connect to the rafters.
[01:27:42] Speaker C: I see.
[01:27:42] Speaker A: And it will have another timber crossing across there will be the purling. So that's one of the earliest sort of like type of roof forms that they start getting overlapping with the kind of truss we see here, which is a. It's a queen trust, which essentially you call your tie beam, which is the horizontal beam that goes from one wall to the other one, you know, at eighth level. And then you go two vertical stats and then you go another horizontal timber that forms the color and that connects to the purlings on either side that support the rafters.
And those were normally identified with more lysist in the 17th century. But we know now, thanks to dental analysis and very intensive research, that we can find that even in the medieval period overlapping with the crown post. And again, this is a geographical sort of like element.
But yeah, you can find those elements. Sometimes you can still see timber frame buildings where mullion windows were. So later windows tended to be inserted inside existing windows. So it's as simple as taking the mullions off and getting the glass window in.
[01:28:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:28:55] Speaker A: So sometimes you can still see this diamond shape holes on the top or the bottom of your. Or Your window frame.
That means that was definitely a mullum window. You know, there will be a glaze. So that would be obviously not later Most likely than 1650 if you are in the Southeast.
[01:29:16] Speaker C: It was a pretty unfair question really because houses are evolving all the time and just like we do today, people upgrades. And there's, as you've all pointed out so beautifully today, there's different parts of geographic locations that could determine. So there's lots of different factors here. But nevertheless, I seem to now be thinking you need to get into the roof.
[01:29:36] Speaker A: Really the roof is what touch you the most. Definitely. Obviously then you get onto some elements that more. If you can go to the roof, because you've not been invited to, you can, you can see elements, for example, like chamfer stops, which is that, that lovely carving elements. I can show you that downstairs.
[01:29:52] Speaker C: Oh, let's go downstairs. Yes.
[01:29:54] Speaker D: Show me what, show me what that is.
[01:29:56] Speaker C: Oh, make them bend right now.
So what are you showing me?
[01:30:04] Speaker A: So we call those chamfer stops, right. So literally you got the chamfer which is this cut of the corner of the. Or the bridging beam. The bridging beam is the main timber in the inner ceiling. In this case, you don't have any chamfers decorating the joists, which are the smaller elements of the. Of the ceiling. But if you were more wealthy or you want to spend a bit more modern, you have your carpenter to also chamfer those timbers. So it's a way to decorate the building and you know, again display that status.
So chamfer stops really change through different periods. Again, it's difficult sometimes because they tend to overlap and then also they change geographically.
But you can identify roughly like three, three types really.
Which is the. I would say two types just to make it a bit more simple. The, the curve step chamfer stop that, you will probably find that in bay leaf.
And that was quite fashionable all the way up to the mid, almost 16th century.
A bit earlier, depends on the region, will be later as well. And then you got the one that's called the lambtongue chamfer stop or oji champra stop, which is the one we got here, which has a bit more of a shape.
This one is slightly curvy. It's more still quite close to the curved one.
And the lambtongues chamfer stock that gets more increasingly popular from the late 16th century all the way into the 17th century.
By the late 17th century they got a bit old fashioned because they were covering timbers. They wouldn't bother to jump for timbers when they do, they do quite rudimentary. So yeah, they began to disappear.
[01:31:57] Speaker C: So maybe we can get a picture of the other type when we go back down through.
[01:32:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
[01:32:01] Speaker C: This is for the ultra nerdy.
[01:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean this is. This is really blogger speaking.
[01:32:07] Speaker C: I've definitely learned something new that.
[01:32:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a really good book and a really good website written by Andy Moy. He has done a lot of like dendro analysis in houses, mostly in sari. And he managed to sort of like put a frame, a time frame for this sort of like really niche features based on what he found through the end analysis.
So.
[01:32:28] Speaker C: So that's for the people who want to do really deep dives into architecture, but thank you for that.
[01:32:33] Speaker A: No problem.
[01:32:34] Speaker C: So. So I think we've come to the end of our exploration today.
[01:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. The only thing I will say is of course these buildings are as said before, kind of like textbooks buildings and they're fantastic to give that sort of information. But in reality they. They came in all forms and colors and. And as I said before, during that transition period there you will find that they evolving to have crosswings more. More fireplaces to the side to the back, not only in the center. So obviously the.
The wealthier you were, the more you could spend on your building. You might, you know, not only convert your open hall, but maybe just knock down half of the building and extend or just like happening impending. Just knock the medieval house and then build again from. From the reuse some of the timbers because we know some of the timbers actually are reclaimed. So there's a lot of recycling elements always involved in these houses.
Never from ships or at least that's a myth. There's only one building that we know comes from a ship and that's.
I don't know if I'm going to pronounce this correctly, so I apologize if I don't.
It's called Tis a peak mill. It's in Hampshire and It is from 1820 when timbers, timbers in the UK were scattering and difficult to find for construction that was built partly for. From an American ship.
[01:33:56] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:33:56] Speaker A: That's the only one that I'm aware with.
[01:33:59] Speaker C: So you've done a bit of myth busting.
[01:34:02] Speaker A: Yeah. So no. No Spanish Armada ships using any. Any team verse.
[01:34:05] Speaker C: Thank you for clarifying that. Okay, so where might people find out more about you?
Do you have a website? Do you have anybody anywhere people can follow you or contact you if they want more information?
[01:34:18] Speaker A: I'm going for this appointment point I'm afraid I'm not a social media person, I'm quite sort of like discreet. So the only thing is LinkedIn, they can follow me there. I tend to publish things through there and then also they can contact me for most of life planning related information through Maeston Borough Council. But that will be more like work related.
Yeah, I would say LinkedIn is probably the. Yeah, the way to. So, yeah, that will be a bit disappointed, I'm afraid.
[01:34:47] Speaker C: Well, we need to get you sorted out with the website.
[01:34:49] Speaker A: Yeah, we just do something.
[01:34:51] Speaker C: Okay. Well, thank you so much for being our guide today. It's been most illuminating.
[01:34:55] Speaker A: Thank you for having me, Sam.
[01:35:56] Speaker C: Well, we've come back to meet with Hannah because before I go I love to let people know all or to help people find out about. How do they find out more about the museum and maybe some of the events that you have coming up over the next few months?
[01:36:11] Speaker D: Absolutely. Well, the best place to go is our website, Weald and Downland Museum, for all the details about all the kind of events that we've got coming up through the year. We also have a year round program of one day courses, adult learning courses. It's a big part of our mission as well, lifelong learning.
So we have events and activities for general visitors all year round, including some living history events that we've got coming up over the summer, particularly the War of the Three Kingdoms, which is a living history group who are creating a Civil War reenactment group who are coming in and they'll be here for the weekend. But we also have Lammas Day celebrations. Lammas Day isn't something that we really celebrate nowadays, but it was a very big celebration in the medieval times on the 1st of August.
So over that weekend we'll have another group coming in, but we also have our MSc courses as well running through the year as well. So if you have a look on a website, you'll have see all kinds of different events happening through the year.
[01:37:22] Speaker C: What classes do you have and where can I sign up?
[01:37:24] Speaker D: Well, we have everything from making a longbow up to MSC timber framing, which again. Or we have a preschool session as well.
So people like to come along with their children or the grandchildren to that as well.
But if you have a look on the website, it's got all the details. You can learn how to to plough, you can learn how to make a longbow, you can learn how to do baking.
There's lots of different courses like that through the year here, so.
[01:37:54] Speaker C: Sounds fabulous. I'm now regretting that I've just moved to West Wales and you're five hours away.
[01:37:59] Speaker D: Do come, Come back, Come back.
[01:38:01] Speaker C: Anyway, thank you so much for hosting us today and I do recommend to people it's a fabulous museum. It's kind of unique, I think.
And so if you have any interest in in history, particularly architectural history, this is the place to come and visit. So thank you again.
[01:38:18] Speaker D: Thank you.
[01:38:20] Speaker B: Well, as ever, that's a massive thank
[01:38:23] Speaker C: you to our expert guest today, Roberto Labrador.
[01:38:27] Speaker B: It was such a fun day exploring these two properties with him and learning
[01:38:32] Speaker C: more, as ever, as I always do
[01:38:34] Speaker B: when I do these podcasts, and I
[01:38:36] Speaker C: hope you did too.
[01:38:37] Speaker B: And of course, I'd also like to thank Hannah and the Wealdon Downer Museum for hosting this visit.
So next month we change tack completely. We're back in Wales, just over the border from England in Monmouthshire, and we are exploring a place called Tretower Court, which is another intriguing and actually really rather beautiful property from the Tudor period, but made even more interesting because standing next to it is the ruins of the original medieval castle. This is a place with fantastic and memorable stories to tell, and I fell in love with it when I first went just a couple of years ago. So I'm thrilled to be able to bring you next month's podcast. So do stay tuned for that. But until then, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the summer. We've got another month or so to go before autumn arrives, so make the most of it. So many events happening all over the UK at the moment as we make the most of this lovely dry sunn
[01:39:42] Speaker C: weather that we're having at present.
[01:39:45] Speaker B: So before I go, just a quick reminder, don't forget to enter our giveaway if you haven't yet already. And fancy finding yourself on an adventure in time next autumn, next September, as we follow the rise and fall of Amberlynn, you could be the lucky winner. Again, the link is in the description
[01:40:06] Speaker C: associated with this podcast.
[01:40:07] Speaker B: Okay, good luck, my friends and I will see you on the road again soon.
Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Tudor History and Travel Show.
If you've loved the show, please take a moment to subscribe, like and rate this podcast so that we can spread the Tudor love.
[01:40:46] Speaker C: Until next time, my friends.
[01:40:48] Speaker B: All that remains for me to say is happy time traveling,
[01:41:03] Speaker A: Sam.
