The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter XXII

HERE may still be seen in Hallamshire a few survivals, more or less interesting and complete, of the old way of building; survivals which unmistakeably suggest the house built from forest trees, and with roofs and walls made watertight by wattle and daub. One of these was first brought to my notice by Mr. William Furness of Whirlow Hall. He told me of several old barns or other farm buildings near Sheffield, which were originally built of wood, and which still retained their old wooden framework. In these examples the wattle and daub are only occasionally seen, but the great oak timbers remain. They are massive and strong, and fastened together by big wooden pins. It will be seen from the sketch of the interior of a barn or farm building at Hagg Green, between Stephen Hill and Bell Hagg, that not only are the timbers old and big, but that all the interstices between the great beams were originally filled up with stakes and wattles. This wooden framework which fills up the interstices is locally known as "studding" or "stoothing." "Stud and stud-breadth," says Kennett, "is in Yorkshire the way of building the walls of a house in small frames or pannels of timber filld up with brick or stones or plaistering." Such panels may be seen in the wall at the end of the barn at Hagg Green. Laths were fitted, Mr. Winder tells me, into the panels or spaces horizontally by means of a notch; they were not nailed upon the wooden framework. Over the laths a mixture of clay and straw was daubed so as to form a plaster. At Hagg Green the stoothing at the end of the barn divides that building from an old part of the house, as is apparent by the windows, now blocked up, in the continuous wall. It was evident on inspection of this example that the wood-work of the building figured in the drawing is much older than the outer stone-work, and from this we may infer that, as the wattle and daub which completed the building decayed, stone-work was afterwards substituted as being more durable. As will be seen in the drawing, the "studs" on which the laths were laid still remain at the end of the building, and it is most likely that the whole building was originally framed of massive rough-hewn oak timbers, without any stone-work, and completed by wooden stakes and laths and a daubing of clay.

The big timbers which form, as it were, the arches of these buildings are locally known as "crucks." I have mentioned these "crucks" in the supplement to my Sheffield Glossary, and as the description there given was an exact copy of what Mr. Furness was good enough to write out for me, I will repeat what he said, because the evidence is valuable. "Strong oak trees," he said, "with a considerable bend towards the top were selected. They were fastened together at the ridge, and then the side trees were laid upon them for the support of a thatched roof. The outer walls, often low, were generally formed of boards, or plaster and lath, so that with a small stone foundation for each cruk little masonry was necessary." Mr. Furness then drew my attention to fine specimens of this kind of timber-work at High Storrs, Ecclesall, and at the farm of Mr. W. Fox, of Lightwood in Norton. The "crucks" at High Storrs are shown in the plate which faces the beginning of this chapter, and, apart from their antiquarian interest, they form, with their surroundings, a beautiful picture. The outside of the building at High Storrs is also shown in the drawing below.

Let me compare Mr. Furness's description of these buildings with a description which Mr. Seebohm, relying on documentary authority, has given of the Welsh tribal house. "It is built," he says, "like the house observed by Giraldus Cambrensis, of trees newly cut from the forest. A long straight pole is selected for the roof-tree. Six well-grown trees, with suitable branches apparently reaching to meet one another, and of about the same size as the roof-tree, are stuck upright in the ground at even distances in two parallel rows—three in each row. Their extremities bending over make a Gothic arch, and crossing one another at the top, each pair makes a fork, upon which the roof-tree is fixed. These trees supporting the roof-tree are called gavaels, forks, or columns, and they form the nave of the tribal house. Then, at some distance back from these rows of columns or forks, low walls of stakes and wattle shut in the aisles of the house, and over all is the roof of branches and rough thatch, while at the ends are the wattle doors of entrance." Mr. Seebohm then goes on to describe the internal arrangement of the house, with its beds, fire, chieftain's bed or seat, and so on. And he remarks that "the chieftain's hall is twice the size and value of the free tribesman's, and the free tribesman's is twice that of the taeog. But the plan is the same. They are all built with similar green timber forks and roof-trees and wattle, with the fireplace in the nave, and the rush beds in the aisles."

There are no aisles in the buildings which I have just described, and I have no evidence to show that they were ever intended for anything but mere barns. The prototype of the Gothic arch, and of the church, is quite apparent in them; and the two windows, one above the other, at the end of the building at High Storrs, shown in the plate, suggest the east end of an old church. Buildings of this kind must once have formed the dwelling-places of man in this district, for they preserve the shape of the old tribal house. In some parts of Sweden, says Ihre, so late as the last century, men and women used to sleep promiscuously together on a sort of platform suspended beneath the roof of a cowhouse, "and, to the glory of this nation be it remembered, not only without the least loss of virtue, but without any suspicion of such a thing, for if any man should herein impute vice to a girl he would forthwith be kicked out of the parish as a blackguard."

That family groups or tribesmen lived together in England in houses similar to the one which Mr. Seebohm has described is an inference which, I think, is certain. For the Norsemen, as well as the ancient Welsh, occupied large houses of this kind, and we may safely assume that such houses were built by all the men of Teutonic blood. "So long," says Mr. Seebohm, "as the head of the family lived, all his descendants lived with him, apparently in the same homestead, unless new ones had already been built for them on the family land. In any case, they still formed part of the joint household of which he was the head." "But," he observes, "all the inhabitants of Wales were not members of the tribes. Besides the households of tribesmen of blood relations and pure descent, there were hanging on to the tribes or their chiefs, and under the overlordship of the latter, or sometimes of tribesmen, strangers in blood who were not free Welshmen; also Welshmen illegitimately born, or degraded for crime. And these classes, being without tribal or family rights, were placed in groups of households and homesteads by themselves." Now there is a place near Sheffield—not in Hallamshire, but close to its borders—which seems to have once been a homestead of the "illegitimately born." The hamlet of Bassingthorpe near Rotherham, is, I believe, to be derived from the Old Norse bæsingr, the child of an outlawed mother, and þorp, a word which, according to Vigfusson, "was originally applied to the cottages of the poorer peasantry crowded together in a hamlet, instead of each house standing in its own enclosure." The bæsingr was not entitled to inherit, he was an outcast from the family or tribe, and it would seem that such persons did not live in the tribal homesteads, but, as Mr. Seebohm puts it, "were placed in groups of households and homesteads by themselves." If this derivation be correct it follows that in the district of which I am writing there once was a time when the tribal group of blood relations lived in homesteads like those which I have mentioned, rejecting from those homesteads the illegitimately born and strangers in blood.

There is a place between Sheffield and Ecclesfield known as Raisin Hall, which is mentioned as "Reason Haule" in 1624. This is the Old English ræsn, a covering, shingle, plank, roof, ceiling, Gothic razn, a house—a word which we may see in Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. Assuming that the word hall is here used in its old sense, we may infer, I think, that Raisin Hall was originally a wooden house of considerable size. I take it that the original name was simply ræsn, used in the sense of a roofed hall, and that the word "hall" was attached at a later time when ræsn had been forgotten. The word "Woodhouse" too, occurring in such old place-names as Handsworth Woodhouse, or Dronfield Woodhouse, implies that a house built of wood formerly stood in each of those places, of sufficient size to give its name to a village or hamlet. The village of Treeton near Handsworth Woodhouse seems also to have obtained its name from a wood house built there before the Norman conquest, being apparently derived from the Old Norse tré, wood, and tún, a homestead or house.

It appears from Harrison's Survey and other evidence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that country houses in this neighbourhood were frequently built in "bays." Thus in describing a tenement at Fox Hill in Ecclesfield he tells us that it consisted of "a dwelling-house of 4 bayes, a stable being an out shutt and other out houses are 7 little bayes, besides a barne of 4 bayes." In describing a tenement which still bears the curious name of Corker Walls he tells us that it had "a dwelling-house of 2 bayes." And elsewhere throughout his Survey these "bays" are often mentioned. In Gwilt's "Architecture" a "bay" is defined as "the division of a barn or other building, generally from fifteen to twenty feet in breadth." Dr. Murray says that "when the word is applied to a house, it appears to be the space lying under one gable, or included between two party-walls." The earliest quotation in the dictionary goes no further back than 1557. What the "bay" really is will be seen in the plate prefixed to this chapter. It is the space included between any two pairs of "crucks." In dwelling-houses, or in such buildings as were not halls or barns, the internal "crucks" were covered by timber and plaster-work, and so the spaces between them formed separate rooms. Examples of houses built in this way still survive in Hallamshire, though they are steadily disappearing. For instance Stubbing House in Ecclesfield is built with "crucks" like those in the barn or large building at High Storrs. A portion of the kitchen of this house is shown in the drawing. Here the "crucks" reach almost to the ground, and are continued up to the roof-tree. On the right of this drawing will be seen one of these timbers with a porch, all made of wood and plaster, beneath. This kitchen, which is very quaint and interesting, must at one time have been a parlour or better kind of living room. Upon a little cupboard which stands in the recess on the other side of the fire-place is a carving of a man in an Elizabethan dress standing by the side of a saddled horse, with the date 1569 carved in one corner. This cupboard measures one foot two inches on each side, and I am sure that it is genuine and in its original place. By this date we are enabled to see that the house is at least 324 years old, and it may, of course, be much older. The beams or cross-trees which hold the "crucks" of Stubbing House together form the supports of the bedroom floors, and the single storey above is shaped like a wigwam, or an inverted V. It will be readily seen that when an upper room of this kind did not stand at the gable end, but formed the upper portion of an internal "bay," it would be impossible, according to the knowledge of former days, to admit light without the assistance of some such contrivance as the dormer window. And consequently we shall find dormer windows in many houses built in this way, as for instance in some old whitewashed houses in the village street at Crookes, now pulled down, but represented in the drawing on the preceding page.

In this neighbourhood the kitchen of a cottage is known as "the house." Now a cottage of the smaller sort is usually entered through the kitchen, where a fire is kept burning. The entrance room or entrance passage of the modern house is now spoken of as the entrance hall, and it would appear that in former times there was one room, known either as the "hall," the "house," or even as the "fire-house," which formed a nucleus and centre for the rest of the building. In the typical manor house of the seventeenth century there is a great hall which forms the entrance, containing a large fire-place on one side and a staircase at the back. There are no passages or corridors, and from this hall entrance is obtained to the rest of the house by going out of one room into another. This principal room has degenerated into a mere passage now; it was once par excellence the "hall" or "house."

In this neighbourhood, as in many other places, there are traditions about underground passages between one big house and another, between a castle and a church, a church and an abbey, and so on. For example it is said that there is an underground passage between Fulwood Hall and Bennett Grange. One is accustomed to laugh at such things, and to treat them as mere nursery tales. But they merely afford proof of the value of tradition. A tradition about an underground passage leading out of Sheffield Castle has been verified by the discovery, a few years ago, on Castle Hill, of "a subterranean passage excavated out of the solid rock, and running in the direction of the Market Hall. .  .  .  It was partially obstructed with debris; but was still some four feet in height, and perfect as to its roof. It was never explored." About 280 yards to the north of the Manor House at Kimberworth near Rotherham is a very large oval mound with a few trees growing upon its north side. The mound stands in a field called Hilly Chapel, and near the ridge-way called Barber Balk, the adjoining field being known as Garden Chapel. There is a legend in the village that there is a chapel under this mound, and also that an underground passage runs between it and the Manor House. So convinced are the occupants of the Manor House of the existence of this underground passage that they have lately caused a considerable excavation to be made in the side of the mound, in the expectation of finding it. I have examined this cutting, and, so far as I was able to form an opinion, the mound is artificial and not, as one might have supposed, natural. It is composed of soft earth, whereas the ground on which it stands is rocky at a short depth. The present Manor House, built at the end of the seventeenth century, stands upon the site of a much older building, which appears to have been partly surrounded by a moat. The occupants have attempted to find the underground passage by digging in the mound of this moat. Such passages really existed, for the "earth-house" or underground passage was a common appendage to the dwellings of the old Northmen. It is frequently mentioned in their Sagas, and "was used for hiding or as a means of escape."

At a place called Under Tofts situate on the north bank of Rivelin Water and nearly opposite to Bell Hagg, I notice on the Ordnance map Hitching Cabin. This is an interesting local name, for it means moveable hut, or moveable little house. In the chapter dealing with "Mushroom Hall" I have said something about the rights of squatters on the waste, and an examination of the field-names will disclose the fact that, besides the towns or fixed homesteads, there were shifting homesteads in this district. Hitching Cabin was merely a squatter's hut, which very appropriately stood upon a piece of rough and untilled ground. There is a tradition that a sheep-stealer's hut once stood on this piece of ground, and that if you looked down the chimney you could see the stolen sheep within.

Some old houses in Snig Hill, Sheffield, appear to be built entirely of wood and plaster, and they are a survival from the time when all the houses in the town were of that kind. The wooden framework of these buildings is covered with lath and plaster, which might as well be called wattle and daub. Mr. Keeling has sketched the whole street, and these old houses, with their projecting upper stories, will be seen on the left of his interesting picture. The houses are in a state of great decay; the upper stories are quite uninhabitable, and, as will be seen in the drawing, the wooden laths are here and there exposed to view where the plaster has fallen off. Snig Hill was formerly much narrower; the old houses on the west side having been taken down during the present century. These houses were approached by steps.

The old street in Sheffield known as Waingate, meaning wagon road, and leading over Lady's Bridge, seems to imply that there were other streets in the borough which were not wagon roads, or which did not admit horses and carriages, and Snig Hill may have been one of these. Snig, as I have already shown, is here the same word as snug, and means narrow, close. In this respect there is a curious resemblance between the old English and the Roman provincial town. The streets in the Roman provincial town were narrow, and the upper stories of the houses, as may be seen in some of the Pompeian houses, often projected. "The street-traffic of the ordinary Roman provincial town seems to have resembled that of the Tangier or Tetuan of to-day. Heavy burdens were carried on the backs of horses, mules, or cattle. Walking was the rule, riding on horseback or in a litter was the exception, driving was almost unknown."

An extremely interesting house in Sheffield, originally built of wood and plaster, and mentioned in an old inventory as "the hawle at the Poandes." has lately been sold, and in the hands of its new owner has undergone severe treatment. A few details are, however, here preserved by the artist's pencil.

This building, with a garden on the north side, stood alone, and separated from other houses, in 1736. It was one of those houses which the Romans called insulæ, or isles, because they stood apart from other houses. It is, or rather was, built of massive oak timbers, and at one time contained much rich and beautiful carving. The exterior of the house has been so much altered, and so much of the old work has been destroyed of late years, that I have not thought it necessary to introduce a general view of it, especially as Hunter has published a drawing. The massive oak pillars or standards upon which the upper stories of the house are supported were decorated by carved capitals which projected from the walls of the building like corbels, and the horizontal spaces between the corbels were occupied by carved "tables" of oak in the style of the fourteenth century. Four of the capitals or corbels are here represented. Interesting and beautiful as some of this old work still is it has suffered much from the profane brush of the house-painter, who has daubed it without mercy. Figures 1 and 2 are the capitals of wooden pillars supporting the house, and are outside the building. All the heads are under canopies, and they were carved about the middle of the fourteenth century, if not earlier. Figure 2 is crowned, and another crowned head, said to be a king, has lately been taken from the interior of the house, and fixed on the highest part of the roof as a finial, so that it was impossible to make a drawing. So hard was the wooden pillar to which the last-named crowned head was attached that the workmen could not saw it asunder, so they took it to a steam saw mill where the workmen were told that it was "as hard as iron." Figure 1, which represents either a man or a woman coming out of a fish's mouth, is of ruder execution than the other carving, and is grotesque. The neighbours call it Jonah. Figures 3 and 4 are inside the house, forming the tops of wooden pillars, but alterations in the structure make it hard to say whether these pillars were originally inside, or whether they once formed supports of the exterior walls. Figure 4 is a fine relic of the old wood-carver's art, though it has suffered from coats of paint, and the graceful folds of the cowl or hood which surrounds the woman's head will be noticed in the drawing. It is the work of an accomplished artist. "The hall in the Ponds," or whatever its name was, has been a splendid specimen of an English house, standing alone in the fields, and close by the waters of the Sheath, yet within the precincts of the ancient borough.

We may infer from the wooden houses at the corner of Change Alley and those in Snig Hill, which have been already described, that the houses in Sheffield were mostly built of wood in early times. The streets were narrow, and were made still narrower by the projecting upper stories of the houses. What havoc a fire would make in such a place may be easily guessed, and it is on record that in 1265, or thirty-two years before the date of the Town Charter, the town was burnt by Hugh de Lassey and others, and damage done to the value of £3,000 —an enormous sum in those days.