| Pendean is a timber framed house from West
Lavington in West Sussex. It has been dendro-dated to 1609. This type of
three-unit lobby entry house with an internal axial chimney stack & back to
back fireplaces was the successor to Bayleaf (a yeoman open hall house) &
was common throughout the country. There is no longer a clearly defined
upper and lower end. The main living room (still called a hall) separates
the service room (in this case a milkhouse or dairy) from the kitchen.
Upstairs only the central chamber is heated. By the early c17th brick was
becoming common as an infill for timber framing. A comparable example is the
Titchfield Market Hall (1619). There was a substantial brick & tile making
industry in the Woolavington & Graffham area from c.1590 until c.1740.
We think that the house was built for
Richard Clare, a yeoman farmer, because in that year he bought the lease to
Pendean from John Coldham. The occupants of Pendean had 40 acres of land
plus rights of pasture for 100 sheep & 14 bullocks upon the commons. The
main grain crops were wheat, barley & oats. In the c17th the farm had a
number of agricultural buildings, including a barn or barns and stables. We
hope to recreate a complete farmstead in the future.
In contrast with medieval houses Pendean
has no open hall, instead a brick chimney heats two of the ground floor
rooms and one of the upper chambers and a vent lets smoke into a smoke
chamber for curing meat. The interior rooms are fully furnished with
replica furniture. This very atmospheric exhibit is used for our
Period Workshops and is often used for filming historical documentaries and
dramas.
Suggested
Topics
- Unit 2 What were homes like long ago?
- Unit 8 What were the differences between the lives of rich and poor
people in Tudor times?
Workshops Featuring
this Building
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