Over 60 people attended this evening with Dr. Annabelle Hughes, many of whom were new to the group, and some obviously very knowledgeable about the subject!

There are a total of 68 timber framed houses in the parish of Henfield: 17 medieval houses up to about 1525 where the house is built with an open hall; and then 51 post-medieval houses which were built with a floor throughout. Within those groups there are sub-groups and changes, and the 1500s are now regarded as a time of experimentation, with some interesting variations, including in Henfield 2 properties with mathematical tiles, and 3 with Ogee bracing. While it is impossible to show all the properties, Dr. Hughes did show examples from 3 periods, and also looked at the background to set the scene and show the construction.

It is worth remembering that today we are looking at the better houses of the period, as we have lost perhaps 30% of the lower standard houses, which may well have disappeared because of fire, or because the building fell into disrepair.

These buildings then were vernacular buildings (that is, built with the materials to hand) constructed very much by what was under the ground, and the vast area of the Sussex Weald was ideal for growing oak. Timber was being managed from the very earliest times to get the sort of product needed. Woods were coppiced, where by rotation they cut the timber down, and then among the coppiced areas would grow the tall straight standards. The coppicing would force the standards higher and prevent them sending out side branches, while the thicker oaks would grow among the hedgerows.

These timber houses were an early 'kit-building', something similar to a wooden mechano. A master-carpenter would oversee the construction of the frame flat on the ground. Whereas masonry buildings are held together by gravity, these are held together by wooden pegs. Each timber was numbered, and in some properties it is still possible to see the sequence of numbers. This, of course, helped the Open Air Museum at Singleton when it reconstructed the properties which it has rescued.

Timber framed houses are described in 'bays'. The 'bay' is the distance between 2 timber posts. If a post is found on one side, you know it had to have another post on the other side. Bays usually flanked the open hall, which had a high end and a low end. The high end would have had a table for eating and a bench, and there might have been a dias beam and a decorated wooden screen to mark this out as the best end of the house, and the bay at the high end would have been the master's parlour. The low end would have 2 doors to come in and go out, and that bay would have been used as a pantry and for serving, with sleeping accommodation above. There might also have been a detached outbuilding, almost as good as the main house, which was used just for cooking.

The most important aspect of these houses is the roof structure. Up till the 1530s they would have had a crown post roof, and over time the rafters and colour of the timbers would have been heavily sooted from the open fire. Often, crawling through the roof of a property to see whether the timbers are sooted is the only way to date a house. The biggest changes came during the 1500s, mainly through the desire to control the smoke from an open fire. At first a timber flu was put in (and Dr. Hughes knew of 2 of these which remained until fairly recently), but once brick stacks were used they realised that by having a fire in the central hall you only needed one staircase. So through the 1500s earlier houses were converted to this new design, while new properties were built taking smoke control into consideration.

Bottings Farm at Shermanbury (coming under Ewhurst Manor) is one of 3 oldest identified houses in West Sussex, dating to about 1260. The roof is not crown post, but there are coloured rafters. It was aisled along the back of the house (a sort of 'lean-to' area which provided some seclusion from the main business of the house). The high end of the hall has an unusual carved dias beam. The present owners of Bottings were at the meeting, as was Mr. Thorns who was born at Bottings over 70 years ago.

Apple Tree Cottage, located next to the venue of our meeting, was another house with a large single aisle along the back, approximately 12 foot wide. A date stone on the house gives 1700, but this is the date of the brick stack, until then it would have had a timber flue.

Buckwish (named after its tenants of 1373) is another early good quality house, with 2 bays and an early hall, with only one floored end. Pendrells in Nep Town has 2 bays plus open hall, with additions since the late 1300s. Ganders in Golden Square, gives a 1697 date for the brick infill, yet the original house (with 2 bays plus hall) to the left dates from much earlier. Barrowhill Farm and Rapley Colt are also examples of very early properties.

The George is one of the few crown post buildings in the village. This must have been a purpose-built building: inside you can see the jetty to the front and northern-side where it hung over. St. Anthony's in the High Street is another crown post building, as are Backsettown and also Harwoods.

Dears Farm in West End Lane is an example of a post-medieval house. Originally with 4 bays, there is soot-staining on the roof timbers, but evidence suggests that this was built with a smoke-bay roughly on the site of the present stack. Other examples include the Cat House (which was originally 2 bays) and also Neaves and Ameys (both situated close to the River). We were shown a photograph of the latter two indicating that c1947 they were still thatched, and this poses the question: were more of our timber framed properties originally thatched?