| Wood House | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The restoration of a 14th century English Country House | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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HI! Welcome to the Web-site of Wood House- a medi�val hall house standing in the shade of the Malvern Hills, England. The house is being restored by David and Sue Furnival with the help of their son, Ben (who created this site) and Jo. Historical Context. Woodhouse is a Grade II* listed house (this means that the Government has registered it as a building of special architectural or historic interest) and is constructed of timber (oak). We bought the house in 1994 and were attracted by its wonderful romantic setting and centuries of history which it must have experienced. Work started on Phase I in 1995 after we had lived in the house for one year. This section is the solar cross-wing used for the ladies to relax and the family to sleep. We think that this dates from the early fifteenth century. The larger great hall is at right angles to this. The results of dendrochronological analysis (counting the rings of the wood used to build the house)have suggested that both were built about 1433-34. The site, however, has obviously served as a place of human settlement for much longer. During initial work on Phase I, an Iron Age flint thumb- scraper was found by a member of the Hereford Archaeological Unit. Architectural Context. Of late medieval origin, the house contained an open hall with a probable service area beyond the screens passage and a cross-wing. The structure was originally described in the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments of the 1930s as having a central cruck but this does not appear to be accurate; the hall has four bays with a central truss which has posts, principal rafters and a double set of curved braces, the outer ones having been referred to as crucks. It has been suggested that the use of two sets of braces for the central truss may be unique. A quatrefoil motif is displayed above collar level. There is a single set of purlins at mid roof span, more or less "clasped" at the central and semi-truss and trenched on the underside of the principal rafters at the spere truss. The semi-truss (principal rafters, collar and arch-braces but no tie-beam,) is repeated in both bays of the cross-wing. There are windbraces in the roof of the great hall and the solar and much of the work is similar to that found at the National Trust�s house at Lower Brockhampton in Herefordshire,although all the work at Woodhouse is on a smaller and more modest scale. Evidence in the form of extensive blackening of the upper roof structure suggests that early inhabitants had an open fire in the great hall, the smoke drifting up and through the roof. The western gable of the hall rises up out of a large pond which according to the evidence of maps and soil structure in the garden, once extended further round the building and may therefore have been a moat for protection from the rather restless Welsh neighbours or, perhaps more likely, provided a source for the clay which was used in the original daub covering the wattle panels. Unfortunately the house was scarred with later modifications. The great hall has had a floor inserted at a later date, probably circa 1660. The ceiling beams have large plain stopped chamfers. A chimney has also been built backing onto the screens passage; it is likely that in earlier times there was a smoke bay or hood here. The chimney has certainly been rebuilt at some stage and indeed the stack itself is very modern. Three dormer windows have been added to the hall and a lean-to along most of the north wall including the gable of the cross-wing. Early photographs show a simple lean-to porch which did not screen the gable, but in relatively recent years it was enlarged and its sides bricked up. A small, very modern porch was added to the east and a kitchen to the south. Windows are a motley collection and include some modern aluminium ones. The Web-Site: This initial web-site has only just been created (12/06/97) and is therefore very new and I have not yet mastered it. Please bear with me therefore. The information on this page has come from an architectural report and is therefore difficult to understand unless you are an expect which not many people (including myself) are not. Please do come back or e-mail me to find out about the traditional materials and methods being used to restore this lovely old house. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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