“He that hewed timber out of the thick trees: was known to bring it to
an excellent work.”
Albeit this paper is to confine itself to the domestic or secular side
of the subject, and this quotation might even more suitably serve as
his text by the author treating exclusively of the ecclesiastical
examples of timber-framed buildings, yet its appropriateness may
warrant these words forming a sort of superscription for what is after
all part and parcel of one theme.
While it may be conceded that Cheshire can count many extant memorials
of greater historic importance and of longer lineage than any of those
remaining recorded in that particular kind of “black and white” coming
within our present immediate purview, it may nevertheless be claimed
that these specimens of the carpenter’s craft constitute by no means
the least charming and characteristic of the county’s architectural
possessions.
The “post and panel” work, the “magpie” style, to use the sobriquet
sometimes familiarly applied to it, so plentifully strewn throughout
its length and breadth, does certainly bring a very distinct
contribution to the picturesqueness of the Palatinate, whose now
fertile plain, studded with these timber structures, is where buildings
of this traditional type most do congregate. Indeed, it is a question
whether they do not serve to connote Cheshire quite as much as that
prosaic product the cheese, which has made the name and fame of
the county a household word! Another proof of the identification of
the county with the kind of buildings under consideration is that
when a building is referred to as being in the “Cheshire style,” the
description is always understood as implying a half-timbered erection,
and at the same time goes to show that its designer has been paying his
tribute of imitation to and admiration of the manner and method, which
formerly was so felicitously employed in several parts of the country,
but in none more extensively than in Cheshire--a fact happily still
capable of demonstration in the frequency of surviving examples.
Many a piquant touch of contrasted colour does the landscape owe to
these delightful buildings, one of whose attractive qualities resides
in just that faculty of focussing the eye they so eminently possess.
Here it may be a cluster of quaint cottages, or perhaps a single
cottage of comely proportions nestling in some sequestered spot, or one
of those moated granges or sturdy farmsteads that dot the countryside;
or there it may be a more elaborate and ornate example, some “stately
home,” attesting the skilful handiwork of the _faber lignarius_ who
centuries ago followed his calling with such excellent and enduring
results, his fitly and soundly framing of the building together having
enabled it to withstand the action of time and weather--if so be by
good fortune it managed to escape that more fatal enemy fire, whose
ravages are no doubt responsible for the disappearance of many an
architectural treasure, which, had a more resistant material been
employed, might have survived to shed additional lustre on the county,
already so renowned for its half-timbered treasures.
The explanation of the prevalence of this species of building, and of
Cheshire having become _par excellence_ a centre for it, is, of course,
to be found in the fact of the county having possessed an abundance of
raw material in the “thick trees” ready to the hand of the hewer.
In his _Story of some English Shires_, as told by the late Dr. Mandell
Creighton, speaking of the physical features of Cheshire, he says:
“Three great forests covered much of the surface of the ground. From
Chester to the sea stretched the forest of Wirral, from the Mersey to
the Dee extended the forest of Delamere, and the forest of Macclesfield
formed an impenetrable barrier between Cheshire and Derbyshire”; and he
adds a remark not altogether irrelevant to the matter in hand: “There
was so little agriculture that the men of Cheshire used to leave their
homes and serve as harvesters in districts where corn was grown, in the
same way as did Irish labourers in our own days.” These copious sources
of timber have long since disappeared, and the once afforested area has
given place to those broad acres under cultivation now covering the
county.
In _Domesday Book_, under Cestrescire, these forests are often referred
to, but we are left to conjecture what were the trees growing in them;
doubtless there was the ash and the elm, and also “the monarch oak,
sole king of forests all,” ready to hand for those who, in the elder
days of the carpenter’s art, erected the dwellings from which those
later buildings now being considered are either lineal or collateral
descendants. The earliest extant of these may only carry us back some
500 years, but this had not only Norman but Anglo-Saxon progenitors.
It is well known that the latter employed both in their churches and
houses timber as their staple building material, and although all
these have perished there remains the testimony of their language; the
Saxon word “timbran” signified to build with wood, and builder meant
carpenter. Their rude halls may be regarded as the origin of the old
English timber-built houses.
The oldest form of rectangular house was erected in “bays,” the
simplest form of construction being the house of one bay. Two pairs of
bent trees (whence the term “roof tree” seems an outcome) were set up
in the ground about 16 feet apart, each pair making a sort of pointed
arch, united at their apexes by a longitudinal beam. The gable end of
many an old Cheshire cottage shows the persistence of this traditional
type.
Before bringing under review some few of the many specimens the county
contains, a word or two with regard to their method of construction
may not be out of place. Scarcity of stone and difficulties of transit
account for this material being so sparingly used. Upon a few courses
of stonework forming a plinth, horizontal beams were laid, and into
these angle posts and intermediate uprights were framed. These carried
the sill of the upper storey, whose floor joists were often made to
project, producing the “overhang,” frequently coved, which is one of
the most effective features of the style.
It is not, however, so much the general disposition of their main
timbers as the varied patterns and devices of the panels filling
in the intervening spaces that provides one of the distinguishing
characteristics of these Cheshire buildings. As one may often determine
a person’s native place by his dialect, so do these lozenges and other
chequer patterns enable one to recognise the place of their origin;
they are, as it were, a sort of idiomatic architectural expression.
When the carpenter had finished the skeleton of the structure,
there remained, to complete the wooden walls, the filling in of the
interstices of the framing. For this purpose, what is known as “wattle
and daub” was commonly employed. By this primitive process clay could
be used in its natural state. The method was to make a foundation
by interlacing osiers or hazel twigs, thus forming a sort of basket
work, and then to daub over with clay mixed with straw or some stringy
weed, and upon this put a thin coating of plaster on both the inside
and outside faces. In his _Cheshire Glossary_, Colonel Egerton Leigh
remarks, “The daub seems to have given a name to a trade,” and in
support of this statement a quaint old couplet is quoted:--
“The mayor of Altrincham and the mayor of Over,
The one is a thatcher, the other a dauber”;
and then follows this favourable comment on the old process: “Clay,
being a non-conductor, makes a warm house in winter and a cool one in
summer.”
Whether this “post and panel” work originally presented the study in
black and white it now does, is open to question. Most likely the
tarring of the timbers was resorted to rather with the object of
preservation than with the intention of producing the contrasted effect
between the wood and the plaster, now so conspicuous a characteristic.
It may be that the dark brown and yellow ochre colour combination one
sees in the corresponding manner of building on the Continent was more
like the original appearance of these Cheshire buildings. Space forbids
going into side issues and demands the taking into consideration some
of the specimens of the “excellent work,” in which the county is so
rich as to make the task of selection by no means easy.
The mere enumeration of notable examples would occupy many pages, and
to deal with them in detail according to their deserts would call for a
treatise instead of this cursory survey. But for a complete chronicle,
is there not Ormerod’s _magnum opus_?--that mine of information and
monument of industry which is indeed itself one of the county’s
“memorials”; and for pictorial treatment there is that gallery of vivid
illustrations, Nash’s _Mansions of the Olden Time_, wherein are to be
seen, splendidly set forth, several of Cheshire’s celebrated “stately
homes,” both as regards their outward aspect and their interiors,
and containing, moreover, counterfeit presentments of their former
occupants in their habits as they lived.
Any one unable to visit the actual building and desirous of getting an
idea of their peculiar charm, aye and the splendour, of these fine old
halls of Cheshire, would be well-advised to turn to that artist’s views
of Bramall, of Adlington, and of Moreton, which constitute a trio of
half-timbered treasures not perhaps surpassed by any buildings of their
kind in any other county, or indeed country.
By right of seniority, as well as by reason of uniqueness, Baguley
or Baggily Hall, in the neighbourhood of Stockport, claims first
consideration. In Parker’s _Domestic Architecture_, remarking upon the
difficulty of finding timber houses of the fourteenth century, Baggily
is referred to as a “rare example.”
[Illustration: BAGGILY HALL: SECTIONS THRO’ LARGE HALL
SECTION SHEWING KITCHEN END
SECTION SHEWING SPERE OF SCREEN.
]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE HALL: BAGGILY HALL, CHESHIRE.]
On this account and because of its intrinsic interest, it is now
illustrated by two sectional views and by a sketch of the interior
showing the purely Gothic spirit of its open-timbered roof, and giving
an idea of the massiveness of its oakwork.
There being but few surviving specimens for the purposes of further
illustrating the period between the reign of Edward III., when Baggily
was built, and that of Elizabeth, certain almshouses from Commonhall
Lane, Chester, dating from about the time of Henry VII., may with
advantage be here adduced. Unfortunately they are no longer standing,
but, before they were pulled down some forty years ago, drawings were
made which have rendered possible their reconstruction by means of
this sketch; and by the reproduction of the window details to show the
distinctive character of this earlier type of timber work.
[Illustration:
ALMS HOUSES:
COMMONHALL LANE, CHESTER,
PULLED DOWN ABOUT 1870.
]
[Illustration:
ALMS HOUSES: COMMONHALL LANE: CHESTER
PULLED DOWN ABOUT 1870.
]
It is on reaching the spacious times of Queen Elizabeth that there is
no longer any paucity but a positive profusion, and there ensues an
_embarras de choix_ in the examples available.
Her reign and that of her immediate successors constituted what may
perhaps be called the classic era of half-timbered architecture. A
period of not much more than a hundred years sufficed for the style to
attain its zenith and reach its decline and passing in the seventeenth
century.
The frequency with which one comes across the royal cipher E. R. and
the many corroborative arms and date panels, both in Cheshire and
elsewhere, bring to mind the marvellous outburst of energy and activity
that marked her times in all departments of life, one of whose outlets
was in the building operations of the period, and especially in the
domestic direction, some of the evidences of which we are now concerned
with. England, as has been truly said, is awake after the slumber of
the Middle Ages, and for a brief period the national life blazes with
unprecedented brilliance and splendour.
Adherence to the traditional manner of timber building in Cheshire
would be accounted for and be encouraged by the abundant supplies of
the requisite raw material still available; for this and the adjoining
counties of Shropshire and Lancashire, where this type of building also
flourished, were at a safe distance from the iron-smelting works and
ship-building yards which made such inroads on the woods and forests in
other parts of the kingdom.
In the attractive appearance of those Elizabethan erections, that
Baconian dictum (certainly challengeable, at all events, from an
architect’s standpoint), “houses are built to live in and not to look
on,” found plenty of contemporary refutation in the picturesque and
delightful halls of this county.
As in the Edwardian Baggily Hall, so in its Elizabethan successors
the “great hall” continued to be the chief feature, the principal
pivot, so to say, of the general plan. But, whereas in the earlier
examples it was invariably open right up to the roof, it gradually
began to be divided into two storeys by the interposition of a floor.
One consequence of this change was the disappearance of the minstrels’
gallery and the dais. The cause of the decline in importance of the
great hall may partly have been the introduction of Italian ideas, but
was mainly due to the alteration in the habits of life. The progress
of civilisation brought with it the multiplication of apartments,
and hence the space once entirely occupied by the lofty hall could no
longer be afforded.
[Illustration: BRAMALL: THE PORCH E´. END.]
[Illustration: BRAMALL: A CORNER OF THE SOUTH WING.]
An exemplification of this is provided by Bramall, where the “great
hall” has a flat ceiling, and above this is the drawing-room; an
apartment growing rapidly into importance in Elizabethan times. This
upper chamber, as is the case of Bramall, becomes more handsomely
treated with raised plaster and other ornament, and is, moreover,
much loftier than the hall below it. Access was by means of a spiral
staircase of solid blocks of oak. Bramall, like other contemporary
halls of its class, was originally built in quadrangular form; but when
peaceful times came, the owners, desiring a more open outlook, secured
this by doing away with one side of the quadrangle, and with it swept
away the gate-house. The south-eastern wing contains, as houses of this
period commonly do, a domestic chapel and also the fine banqueting
room. One of its most noteworthy features, “the long gallery,” of which
Ormerod gives a sketch, has disappeared. Bramall originally belonged
to the Bromeales or Bromhals, but passed by marriage to the Davenports
as far back as the reign of Edward III. From the sketches an idea of
the general rich character of the timber framing can be gathered.
Rivalling it in some respects, one may next mention Moreton or Little
Moreton Hall, near the Staffordshire border. It is surrounded by a
moat spanned by a stone bridge, and sentinelled by a gatehouse of
striking proportions, through which one enters the courtyard, where the
many-angled bays at once arrest attention.
[Illustration: MORETON OLD HALL: GATEHOUSE.]
By whom they were contrived or, at all events, actually constructed,
and when, can be learned from the inscriptions carved above the upper
windows, which run thus:
“God is al in al thing.”
“This windows whire made by William Moreton in the yeare of Oure Lorde
mdlix.”
“Richard Dale Carpeder made thies windows by the Grac of God.”
Vying with these charming bays in interest and importance, there is
occupying the entire length of the main wing a magnificent room on the
topmost (the third) floor which, tradition has it, was graced by the
presence of Queen Elizabeth, and danced in by her Majesty.
[Illustration: MORETON HALL. IN THE COURTYARD.]
It is at such places as Moreton Hall, with its fine ballroom, to quote
some reflections which resulted from an architect’s--the late Mr. H.
Taylor, of Manchester--study of this old house, we see the provisions
made in the past for enjoying life in the country. In this old house
the disturbed state of former times is brought vividly to our minds
if we have sufficiently narrow shoulders to creep through the sliding
panel into the apartment which was a harbour of refuge for those
whose life was in danger. When hotly pursued, the fugitive escaped
down a sort of well and through an underground passage. At Moreton
Hall, built when Italian ideas were creeping into the country, it is
instructive to notice how the architect was apparently puzzled by the
conflicting principles of our humble and beautiful Gothic and of the
more pretentious Italian style, _e.g._ the ballroom, which is on the
third storey, has an open-timbered, pointed roof, with a thrust upon
the walls. This thrust he evidently thought it not proper to counteract
by buttresses as his brethren a hundred years before would have done,
and from this cause the stability of the building has for some time
been threatened. The inhabitants at Moreton, we cannot but feel, must
have been put to sore inconvenience many a time, inasmuch as no one
had then invented corridors, and so there are four or five staircases.
This arrangement must have been very disagreeable on a wet night, as
the bedrooms could only be reached from different sides of the building
by crossing the courtyard with or without candles or lanterns. Much
as one is tempted to linger at Moreton, there is that other member
of the famous triad of half-timbered treasures on this side of the
shire awaiting consideration--Adlington. This is the home of one of
Cheshire’s oldest families, in whose possession it has remained for
many centuries. Of considerable exterior interest and entered by
an admirably-proportioned, two-storeyed porch, it is, however, the
interior of the great hall that constitutes its chief glory. A very
noticeable feature is the cove-shaped panelling that runs right across
one end and contains a large number of shields of arms of the various
families connected with the house of Legh.
The roof is of remarkably fine character with principals of hammer-beam
design, and is a most effective and decorative piece of richly-moulded
carpentry and carved work; the whole having an obviously Gothic
character.
Upon some other “memorials” in this part of the county, all deserving
to be dealt with at length, a very brief reference is all that can be
bestowed--the little priest’s house at Prestbury, with its quaint and
curious square-ended bays and four-way gables; Gawsworth Hall, now the
rectory, with its remarkable three-storeyed octagonal bay; Handforth
Hall, displaying a finely carved doorway; Alderley Edge with its
farmhouse, “Eagle and Child” Inn, and cottages, with gables dressed out
in the local fashion of draughtboard or chequered devices.
Of these examples it may be said that, while they all may have a
certain family likeness, yet each possesses an individuality of its
own, needing but a closer acquaintance for recognition and appreciation.
To pass to the opposite corner of the county, the Wirral. Contrary to
what might have been expected, having regard to the fact that the
whole of this peninsula, “from Blacon Point to Hilbree,” was formerly
one continuous thickly-wooded tract, the region yields practically
nothing of half-timbered work. The deforesting which took place under
Edward III. may be mainly answerable for the absence alluded to.
This district did, however, once possess in a home of the Stanleys,
Hooton Hall, what Ormerod describes as “a very large quadrangular
building in timber,” and of which he gives an illustration. It was
demolished in 1778, and in its stead stands the present stone-built
successor.
Mid and Southern Cheshire well make up for the Wirral’s shortcomings.
To cite but a couple, Carden Hall and Broxton Old Hall. The former must
have been a superb example, beautiful alike in situation and in itself;
though now somewhat marred by sundry modernisings. Its neighbour,
Broxton, has undergone restoration, but retains a good amount of the
original framing. As fairly representative of its kind, a detail of a
gable is given, “_ab uno disce omnes_.”
[Illustration: BROXTON HALL.
PART ELEVATION OF A GABLE.
]
Seeing that several towns capable of supplying scores of opportunities
for pursuing our subject--_e.g._ Stockport, Sandbach, Middlewich, and
Nantwich--have been left out of sight, it is obvious that not a tithe
of the county’s wealth has been touched upon in this slight survey.
If, however, none of these towns has been laid under tribute, a similar
course with respect to the capital city would be indefensible.
Inasmuch, however, as Chester’s half-timbering has so often been
dealt with from the standpoints of antiquary, artist, and architect,
more than an abbreviated review seems unrequired, and anything like a
complete _catalogue raisonné_ uncalled for of the possessions of what
must once have been a veritable “black and white” city, and can still
claim to be one of the chief places for studying the style.
Chronologically the Chester timber buildings may not number any
quite comparable to Shrewsbury’s “Butcher’s Row”; howbeit there is at
least one example running that noted Gothic specimen fairly close, as
regards age, at all events--the house at the corner of Castle Street
being probably one, if not _the_ earliest--(_pace_ a placard on the
seventeenth-century house in Lower Bridge Street proclaiming _it_ to
be the oldest house, adding a mere matter of 600 years by converting
the figure six on the beam into a nought! and by this doctored date
duping, it is to be feared, many an unsuspecting visitor!).
This corner house is closely associated with the names of those Chester
worthies, the Randle Holmes, of heraldic and antiquarian renown. An
examination of the mouldings and other details of this house points to
it having been erected in Tudor times.
Happily still confronting us in Lower Bridge Street is that old
hostelry known as the “Falcon,” and also “The Bear and Billet,” once
the town house of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Talbot. The former has
a most engagingly picturesque appearance, with an effective row of
quatrefoils under the range of many-mullioned windows. Looking at the
proportion of the fronts of both these buildings taken up by their
ranges of windows, stretching from side to side, brings to mind that
Derbyshire doggerel, coined to suit a somewhat like case--
“Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall.”
Some reference must be made to the famous fronts in Watergate Street,
where is “God’s Providence House.” About the only piece of the original
timber-work remaining is the beam with the inscription reminiscent of
the plague, which in 1647 so ravaged the city.
Lower down the street is “Bishop Lloyd’s Palace” with its series of
panels containing interesting and quaint renderings of sacred subjects.
Further down the street one comes to Stanley Palace, which now has no
frontage to the street, and hides the attraction of a fine flank up a
passage. This is a notable specimen of Jacobean Renaissance as applied
to timber work, showing but few traces of the almost forgotten Gothic
which dictated its construction.
Among the minor examples may be mentioned a row of quaint little
dwellings in Park Street facing the city walls. Of these “Nine Houses”
but six are now standing. They have suffered from the insertion of
incongruous sash windows, but this has not deprived them of all their
interest. One may still admire the handiwork of the old carpenters who
there so effectively employed the billet-moulds to the timbers and the
chevron cutting on the beams.
[Illustration: HOUSE: WHITEFRIARS: CHESTER.]
Exemplifying a later manner and different treatment, the house in
Whitefriars is reserved as the last of this brief review. This bit of
seventeenth century work with its widely overhanging upper portion,
and the raised plaster ornament in the gables, with the date 1658, may
claim to be regarded as not the least interesting of the “memorials” we
have been considering.
Those who esteem the half-timbered work as among the county’s chief
antiquarian attractions and architectural assets--indeed all who feel
the fascination of the style--cannot but welcome the reversion to the
type and the revival of the manner in recent years.
Among the patrons of the building arts none was more susceptible
to the peculiar charm of this “nogging-work” than the late Duke of
Westminster, who caused to be erected on his Eaton estate numerous
buildings faithfully reproducing the forms and features of their
Cheshire prototypes. In this work his Grace was fortunate in having
at command the services of an architect, Mr. John Douglas, than whom
no one has been more successful in recapturing the spirit of the old
timber-work. To the late Duke’s liking for and desire to keep up the
“Cheshire style” of architecture, Chester itself owes much that has
been done towards preserving and also perpetuating the traditional
character of its buildings. It is a matter for congratulation that the
lead given has been so loyally followed, both by the Corporation and
by the citizens. Another notable instance of revival is to be seen at
Bidston Court in the Wirral; when this fine half-timbered house was
built a few years ago, an actual and accurate reproduction of those
bays at Old Moreton Hall was embodied therein.
By way of summing up the subject, the following words from Ruskin may
perhaps be not out of place:--
“If indeed there be any profit in our knowledge of the past, or any
joy in the thought of being remembered hereafter, which can give
strength to present exertion or patience to present endurance, there
are two duties respecting national architecture whose importance it is
impossible to overrate: the first, to render the architecture of the
day historical; and, the second, to preserve, as the most precious of
inheritance, that of past ages.”