Inside story on medieval living

David Glew, former chair of EMESS (East Midlands Earth Structures Society) and retired architect, looks back at the history of Lincolnshire’s mud and stud buildings.

It is 25 years since Rodney Cousins’ book Lincolnshire Buildings in the Mud and Stud Tradition was published by The Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire. This year is also 10 years since Rodney sadly passed away.

At the time the book was written, Rodney knew of about 400 mud and stud buildings still standing, and also about 600 which had been demolished, making a total of about 1,000. Subsequent research by Rodney and others has put the current total at about 1,200. The village of Mareham le Fen has the most of any location in the county.

Generally it was recognised that some of the existing cottages now have only parts of their original structures. Others have had their original shape altered or rebuilt, but still retain their original characteristics and overall form.

Not all of the existing buildings are cottages, as there are several pubs, barns and a café. Some of these have been listed by English Heritage as being of architectural or historic interest, if they have not been too much altered.

In his book, Rodney defined and illustrated four different basic types of medieval timber framing for buildings, of which, to form a finished wall, wattle and daub is still the most well known.

This is a structural frame which has a woven lattice-work of thin sticks fixed to it, and so that is the wattle.

The daub is clay, water and chopped straw trampled together, and pressed onto the outside and inside of the wattle.

Walls which have only solid daub (without any framing at all) are usually referred to as cob, which is more frequently found in the West Country.

Traditional materials
In Lincolnshire we have mud and stud, which also uses daub, and is a surprisingly firm material once it has dried.

With mud and stud, Rodney explained there was a structural timber framework onto which were nailed, only on the exterior, vertical timber laths (pronounced ‘latts’). These were thin, narrow strips of wood which completely covered the outside.

Daub was applied to the laths both externally and internally. As the laths were continuous externally, the daub formed a complete ‘overcoat’.

However, internally, the structural frame was still on show, and this arrangement is one of the features of mud and stud walls which helps to identify this particular type of construction.

In early medieval times, the base of the frame was probably rested on the ground, either on a continuous timber or with the posts secured in the ground. Obviously, experience showed that any timber in or on the ground would rot away even if it was oak.

A little later, flat stones were used under the feet of the upright posts. Eventually, three or four courses of bricks were laid to lift the vulnerable timbers above the dampness of the ground. The two long front and back walls were usually only one storey high, but the two gable ends mostly went up another half storey as the style of construction evolved.

The roof structures of these buildings were similar to those on many small buildings of the past, and all were made of timber. They had ingenious joints held together with dowels going through them, to make the whole structure rigid.

The front and back walls had timbers called wall plates running along their tops. The gable end walls had timbers called tie beams running across them at the same height as the wall plates. This meant that all four walls could be linked together securely as a rectangle when looking down from above.

Rafter timbers spanned up from the wall plates at a sharp angle of 45 degrees or possibly more, to meet at a ridge board. The rafters were this steep to suit the most economical (i.e. cheapest) covering, namely thatch. The gable ends usually did not rise to an apex: instead, the tops of the gable ends were framed in the same way as the main roof, but angled back slightly towards the chimney.

They were thatched continuously with the rest of the roof to form what is known as a ‘half-hip’. This is another distinctive feature of these buildings.

Interiors
In the main, the mud and stud buildings still standing were simple cottages for poor people, and so their plans were simple as well. However there are so many variations that obtaining an exact history is difficult, although more research could clarify this point.

A central brick chimney stack helped to stabilise the whole structure, containing up to four separate flues for different functions (heating the two main rooms, cooking generally, and bread oven). This central chimney was an essential feature.

Typically there was an external entrance door in the middle of the long front side. When it was opened there was a space in front of the chimney. Internal doors to the right and left then led to the two main rooms which had fireplaces, one of which in later years would house a cast iron cooking range. This side was therefore a combined kitchen and living room. The other side would be a parlour for entertaining visitors, or a work room. However, it’s thought that originally there could have been separate families living on each side.

If looms were being used, there might not be a ceiling over the second room, to provide height for the equipment.

On the opposite side of the chimney to the entrance door, there was a matching space for a ladder to reach the two bedrooms upstairs. The headroom upstairs was quite low in the middle and so, together with the sloping sides of the roof, there was not much space for walking about. In earlier times there might not have been an upstairs floor at all.

Usually, there was one window in each of the first floor gable ends. Each of the ground floor rooms had a window at the front and back, and occasionally one in the gable end as well. Windows were all quite small as glass was still expensive, with the frames in the style now called Yorkshire sashes: within the main frame, the window was in two halves, with one half fixed and the other half sliding horizontally inside the first half.

If the owner could afford it, the internal walls had lime plaster applied to the mud, but if necessary mud plaster was used. This was similar in principle to the basic mud mixture, but instead of using a coarse straw such as wheat, a finer straw such as hay was used.

Limewash (lime and water) was the usual wall paint for both outside and in, and inside it went on the timber frames as well. Because of the smoke given off by candles and fires, it was usual to re-paint the interior each spring. The joinery (windows and doors) would have had lead-based paint outside and in.

Withern Cottage
The cottage which stands now at The Village Church Farm Museum in Skegness is known as Withern Cottage, as Withern was the village where it stood until it was salvaged.

It was due for demolition in order to build a modern bungalow when Rodney intervened and asked for it to be saved. It was donated to Lincolnshire County Council and Rodney was given the task of moving it to Skegness!

So it was actually dismantled and not demolished, through a job creation scheme based locally. Firstly, the thatch was bagged up and taken to the new site. What was left of the daub went in bags as well.

After a pause for the winter, the frame was dismantled ready for transportation, with the laths, doors and windows also salvaged. There had not been any planning or building regulations when the original cottage was built, which was estimated to have been in about 1790. Negotiations with the modern departments of planning and building control were successful.

Nonetheless, the building control officer did insist there would have to be concrete foundations for the perimeter walls and the central chimney. On these were built short brick plinths for the walls, with the chimney being built directly on the central foundation. Once the whole frame had been built up, a new thatched roof covering was laid, as this would protect all the subsequent building work from most of the effects of the weather. Thatch always projects a long way out from the walls to shed the rainwater clear, and it’s not possible to fix guttering to thatch.

It was then time to learn about the ‘mud’ part of mud and stud: in its constituents, its mixture, and the way of applying it so it would stay on the laths. Basically, on a large board or in a tin bath, the clay was wetted and broken down, and the chopped straw gradually mixed into it. The mix was turned by shovelling and the ‘mixing’ part was done by trampling on it time and again (a good exercise for the legs!). Experience was gradually built up regarding when to use the mix: for example, mixing in the afternoon and applying the next morning provided a mud mix that was more workable than if it was used straight away.

For the flooring downstairs, a traditional mixture of mud, ash and lime was used, laid on the sub-soil; for the first floor, the original boards were reused, supplemented by some necessary new matching boards.

Further research and experiments revealed the best proportions of lime and water for the internal wall limewash. The building was made waterproof on the exterior by following the traditional method of adding to the mix melted rendered animal fat (tallow), which we know as candle wax.

The end result was a typical Lincolnshire vernacular mud and stud cottage, all carefully re-built and ready for future generations to enjoy visiting.

Whilst further research is needed, this shows that earth – a very natural building material used all over the world – can still have a place in modern life.

For more information on EMESS, contact chair Trevor Oliver, tel: 07801 065291 or visit
www.mudandstudblogspot.com

Photographs: Robin Brittain

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