Building
Materials used in Herefordshire |
Timber
Houses in the central and eastern parts of the county were often built with
a timber frame, usually of oak, but sometimes of elm wood. Oak trees were
plentiful in the county and not only used for the frames of houses, but also
for fittings and furnishings. Even the bark was useful for tanneries. The
Wych Elm tree was preferred for wood exposed to damp conditions as it is more
water resilient than the oak. It was therefore used for water pipes and pumps,
but also when very long beams were necessary, as it grew taller than the oak
tree. One historian believes that a 90 foot long beam used in the construction
of Upper Cross, Ledbury was of elm wood. 
The use of timber declined from the 17th century onwards, partly
because of the demand for oak in the ship building industry and partly because
the number of oak trees had been depleted by over-use in the preceding century.
Wattle and Daub
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Wattle frame in barn in Checkley
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Different types of material were used for the infill panels
between the timber posts, such as stone rubble or brick. The most popular,
however, was wattle and daub. Twigs of hazel, willow or cleft oak were
woven together and daubed on both sides with a muddy mixture of earth,
chopped straw and dung. If the completed panel is lime-washed and properly
maintained, it will last indefinitely. Sometimes barns and other outbuildings
used woven twigs without the daub as infill.
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Wattle
© Eddie Davey |
Daub
© Eddie Davey |
Wattle and daub
© Eddie Davey |
Thatch
| Broom, rushes and cereal crops were used for
thatching roofs. Already in the Middle Ages town dwellers were discouraged
from using thatch because of the fire hazard. However, in rural areas
many houses would have been thatched, depending on the part of the county
and the resources available there. It is said that in the 19th
century all the cottages in Eyton were thatched. Today there are only
a handful of thatched cottages in this area. |
Thatched cottage in Much Marcle
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In the south-western parts of the county where a suitable stone, such as
laminated rock, is available for making roof slates or tiles, thatch is less
frequently found.
Stone
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sandstone wall, Goodrich Castle, note the erosion
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As far as stone is concerned, much of Herefordshire is composed of
Red Sandstone and this has been used extensively by the building trade.
This type of stone, however, does not weather well and care must be
taken in its use. The Malverns are formed of pre-Cambrian rock which
is used in walls as far as Ledbury, especially in road building. Silurian
rock, such as the Wenlock limestone is also quite plentiful in parts
of Herefordshire and was used in buildings such as St.Katherine's Hospital
at Ledbury. In the north of the county Downtown Castle sandstone provided
an excellent building material. This buff coloured sandstone, for example,
was used for the construction of Downton Castle and parts of Croft Castle.
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In the west of the county suitable timber was not always available
and stone was used for most construction work. The Dittonian rock here
was a useful source of flagstones and roof tiles, in a damp area, where
thatch would have rotted.
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This dry wall longhouse is in the west of the county. Dry
wall means that no mortar was used to assemble the slates. The current
corrugated iron roof would have been made of slate.
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Bricks
Bricks became a popular building material from the Tudor period onwards.
Initially bricks were used for the construction of chimneys. A 1467 regulation
to prevent fires from spreading demands that either bricks or stone are used
to build chimneys: "No Chimneys of tre be suffered buyt
that the owners make hem of bryke or stone".
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Parts of Herefordshire are blessed with the Downtonian red marls
which is an excellent material for the making of bricks. There used
to be brick works at Hereford, Holmer, Grafton, Ledbury, Pontrilas,
Leominster and Bromyard. Often bricks were made and burnt on the building
site. Tudor bricks were more narrow than today's. A good example is
the brickwork in Hereford's Mansion House, (now
Black's in Widemarsh St).
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However, sometimes one can find bricks of a much larger than normal
size. Some of the bricks used in the headmaster's house at Ledbury
Grammar School, for example, are twice the normal size. It is said
that these were made at Colwall at a time when there was a tax on
bricks.
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From 1784 to 1850 you were taxed according to the number
of bricks you used in a building. The size of individual bricks therefore
increased.
244 brick works are listed on the HSMR database.
Brick became very fashionable in the 18th century when
many country houses were built using bricks. Sometimes timber-framed
houses were re-fronted with bricks, especially in the towns.
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Bricks from Hampton Court
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Wattle and daub panels too were sometimes replaced with brick panels, despite
the fact that some experts think that brick is too heavy, tends to hold the
damp and is a poor insulator.
Lime
Lime was an important ingredient in mortar and was won from limestone. One
can sometimes still see traces of lime kilns where the lime was burnt. C.A.Virgisnia
Morgan has written an informative article on lime kilns in Walford by Ross-on-Wye.
These and other lime kilns are listed on the HSMR. An interesting entry is
21757, a lime kiln near Ledbury, as the Ledbury enclosure award names field
number 1569 as Lime Kiln Field.
Lime stone for mortar
© Eddie Davey |
Crushed lime stone
© Eddie Davey |
A lime wash was also used for painting buildings. When the limewash was wet
it easily filled all the gaps and crevices and when it dried it turned back
into calcium carbonate. Tudor people believed that lime washing a house would
keep out the vapours carrying disease. This procedure would weather proof
the walls, albeit leave both the timber and the panels looking uniformly yellow
or ochre-coloured. This leads us to the question:
Were "black & white buildings"
really black and white?
No. There is no evidence that timbers were blackened before the 19th
century. When the timbers were left unpainted (as would mostly be the case)
they turned a silvery grey colour. If the timbers were painted to emphasise
the pattern, an earth red or ochre colour was probably used. The panels too,
were unlike the ones we usually see today. As they were painted with a lime
wash, the resulting colour would have been dependent on the impurities of
the particular lime wash. Often the panels were a yellow or ochre colour.
Sometimes sand was added to the lime wash which led to a pink colour.
TFM
