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Abstract
This article presents the results of an Historic England (then English Heritage) funded volunteer building recording project in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, conducted by the Southwell Community Archaeology Group under the direction of Dr Chris King (University of Nottingham) and Matthew Hurford (Trent & Peak Archaeology, York Archaeological Trust). Southwell, as a minster town with Roman and Anglo-Saxon antecedents, is one of the most important historic urban centres in the East Midlands and has an impressive and distinctive architectural legacy. The Group examined over 30 mainly brick structures which date to the eighteenth century or earlier, but this article concentrates on the six timber-framed buildings which survive in both the centre of the town and the outlying suburb of Westhorpe. These range in date from the first half of the seventeenth century back to the medieval period, with dendrochronological analysis carried out as part of the project by Nottingham Tree-Ring Dating Laboratory identifying the earliest known vernacular building in Southwell dating back to the mid fourteenth century.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was funded by English Heritage (Historic England) under NHPP call 4A1 ‘Early Fabric in Historic Towns’. Building recording was undertaken by volunteer members of the Southwell Community Archaeology Group, led by David Johnson and Andy Weaver. Drawings were prepared by Matt Hurford, John Laycock and SCAG. Paint analysis of the Saracen’s Head wall paintings by Andrea Kirkham was funded by a Thoroton Society of Nottingham Research Grant. We are particularly grateful to the residents of Southwell who allowed access to their homes and businesses for recording activities, especially David Donaghan and the staff team at the Saracen’s Head, Christine Measures, Maggy Milner and Stuart Blackwood.
Notes
1 Historic England, “Historic Towns and Suburbs,” National Heritage Protection Plan 4A1 (https://historicengland.org.uk/research/research-results/activities/4a1 [accessed 12 October 2017]).
2 Historic England, Understanding Historic Buildings.
3 Mordan, Timber-Framed Buildings; Arnold and McMillan, “Development of Newark-on-Trent.”
4 Daniels, “Excavations on the Site of the Roman Villa”; Elliott, “Roman and Medieval Remains.”
5 Stenton, “Founding of Southwell Minster”; Lyth and Davies, “The Southwell Charter”; Elliott, “Excavations on the Site of the Minster Chambers.”
6 Pevsner and Williamson, Nottinghamshire, 319–28.
7 Summers, A Prospect of Southwell; Pevsner and Williamson, Nottinghamshire, 318–34; Alexander, Southwell and Nottinghamshire.
8 The town was also the administrative centre of the Archbishop of York’s Liberty of Southwell and Scrooby, which operated as a distinct civil district with its own Justices of the Peace and Petty and Quarter Sessions Courts: Hardstaff, Georgian Diary 1781.
9 Jones et al., The White Book of Southwell.
10 Summers, A Prospect of Southwell, provides a full description of the prebendal houses, including building plans, and analyses their historical development in the context of the wider town. There were also communal lodgings in courtyard form for the Vicars Choral and the Chantry priests.
11 Ibid., 74–6.
12 Ibid., 90–3 and pl. LX; Mordan, Timber-Framed Buildings, 9.
13 Summers, A Prospect of Southwell; Pevsner and Williamson, Nottinghamshire, 331–2.
14 Summers, A Prospect of Southwell, 9–10.
15 Gover et al., Place Names of Nottinghamshire; Stroud, Nottinghamshire Extensive Urban Survey.
16 Chapman, “Eminent Local Families”; Chapman, “Burgage Manor.”
17 Byng, The Torrington Diaries, 140–2.
18 Shilton, The History of Southwell; Hardstaff and Lyth, Georgian Southwell; Kirton, Georgian Diary 1780.
19 Summers, A Prospect of Southwell, 78–82; one wing of this structure survived until 1970, with a first-floor chamber with roll-moulded roof timbers of mid sixteenth-century character.
20 Ibid., 88–91.
21 Robert Thoroton relied on now lost charters for this information: Thoroton, History of Nottinghamshire, 71–92. John Fyssher, senior, appears several times as a witness in the White Book of Southwell and was clearly one of the leading townsmen in the late fourteenth century: Jones et al., The White Book of Southwell, 302.
22 Thoroton, History of Nottinghamshire, 71–92; Shilton, The History of Southwell, 159–63.
23 The following building description is based on surveys undertaken by Graham Beaumont and Jason Mordan and unpublished plans and drawings held in NHER: Record no. M5710.
24 NTRDL, “Tree-Ring Dates: List 29,” 40; see Mordan, Timber-Framed Buildings, 23; Mordan, Dendrochronology Summary Report No. 9, NHER 3.70.142.
25 Dendrochronological survey undertaken by NTRDL in 1988: NTRDL, “Tree-Ring Dates: List 29,” entry 9(c), 40.
26 Davies, “Report on the Wall Paintings”; Kirkham, “Saracen’s Head.” Paint analysis was generously funded by a Thoroton Society of Nottingham Research Grant in 2018. The Group are continuing their research into the wall paintings, which will be published in full in due course.
27 Dendrochronological survey undertaken by NTRDL in 1988: NTRDL, “Tree-Ring Dates: List 29,” entry 9(a), 40.
28 Dendrochronological survey undertaken by NTRDL in 1983: NTRDL, “Tree-Ring Dates: List 29,” entry 9(b), 40; Mordan, Dendrochronology Summary Report No. 9, NHER 3.70.142.
29 Mordan, Dendrochronology Summary Report No. 9, NHER 3.70.142.
30 Arnold and McMillan, “Development of Newark-on-Trent.”
31 Sadly, the majority of the timbers with taper burn marks have been replaced in a 2018 restoration of this exposed truss.
32 Summers, A Prospect of Southwell, 14.
33 This building also had a long 12-bay post-medieval rear range built as a maltings: ibid., 15–16 and pls VII–IX.
34 NHER Record no. M13460; dendrochronological survey undertaken by NTRDL in 2001; Mordan, Dendrochronology Summary Report No. 10, NHER 3.70.229.
35 Mordan, Dendrochronology Summary Report No. 10, NHER 3.70.229.
36 Some of these buildings originated as detached kitchen blocks, which may also be the case for 40 Westhorpe: Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens: A Re-Assessment”; Pearson, “Provision of Services in Medieval Houses.”
37 Dendrochronological analysis was funded by the Historic England Scientific Dating Team.
38 Arnold and Howard, Home Farm Cottage, Westhorpe; the date ranges were estimated using a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 40 sapwood rings at 95% confidence.
39 Arnold et al., Urban Development of Newark-on-Trent, 75–85.
40 Jones, Norwell Buildings; Hurford et al., Old Farmhouse, Norwell.
41 Arnold and McMillan, “Development of Newark-on-Trent,” 59–60.
42 Laxton et al., “Nottinghamshire Houses Dated by Dendrochronology.” For national trends in tree-ring dated buildings that broadly follow the same pattern, see Pearson, “Tree-Ring Dating,” and Pearson, “The Chronological Distribution of Tree-Ring Dates.”
43 Jones, Norwell Buildings, 10–16; Hurford et al., “Tree-Ring Dating of buildings in Norwell”; tree-ring dating undertaken by NTRDL and Sheffield University Dendrochronology Laboratory.
44 Easton, “Ritual Marks”; Dean and Hill, “Burn Marks.”
45 Jones et al., The White Book of Southwell, 250–61, 423–5, 519.
46 Quiney, Town Houses, 199–208.
47 Jones et al., The White Book of Southwell, 250–61; Quiney, Town Houses, 255–68.
48 Pearson, “Medieval Houses,” 7–20.
49 Hurford et al., “Tree-Ring Dating of Buildings in Norwell,” 52–4.