Wall framing – decorative patterns

each timber with cusps on both sides, was a common design followed for the next thirty or forty years by all manner of shaped infillings as they became more and more elaborate. Concave lozenges, cusped, concave-sided lozenges, stars, crosses, quatrefoils and many other highly decorative shapes were all found. A variant form, widely used in Cheshire and Lancashire, was the sunk quatrefoil intended to be filled with plaster.

Early in the seventeenth century studs of the same outline as stair balusters and panels with round-headed arches were also employed. Wavy braces, used singularly or symmetrically to form a pattern, often used in conjunction with close studding, are also to be found in many parts of the country. Decorative framing can be found mainly in the West, in Cheshire and in some of the larger houses in southern Lancashire, with the highest concentration being in Shropshire and Hereford & Worcester. Again this form of decoration is not to be found in East Anglia and Essex, with the exception of a solitary panel found on a house at Eltisley. There are, however, scattered examples in the East Midlands – for instance, in Bedfordshire, as well as in the South and South-East, in Kent, Surrey and Sussex; there is also an isolated example at Taunton.

Like close studding, these decorative motifs were generally restricted to the front or more important elevation. One excellent example of

this is Sweet Briar Hall, Nantwich, Cheshire (18). Later, in the seventeenth century, decoration became more restrained, with timber more sparingly used in larger squares with the more universal adoption of long, straight tension-braces.

The northern school of carpentry (19) differs from the others in that, instead of the main posts being framed into the sill-beam, they rest on large stone foundations, known as ‘stylobates’, with sill-beams framed into them at ground-floor level – a feature known as ‘the interrupted sill’. The walls are framed with closely spaced studs arranged in two rows of unequal height framed into a horizontal rail spanning the main posts. Curved arch-braces are provided between the main posts and the wall-plate. A feature often seen in the northern school and in particular in parts of Yorkshire is the use of parallel diagonal bracing. This ‘herringbone-work’ often differs from that found elsewhere in the country for it is not confined to small panels but replaces two or three studs to form a large, bold pattern. Panelled diagonal bracing is a feature of many gabled walls in which the central panel has vertical studs with a central window, and the panels on either

side have diagonal bracing, as at Bay Hall, Birkby, and Elland New Hall. Often the gable has similar parallel diagonal bracing set at the opposite angle to those on the floor below. At Wormold’s Hall, Almondbury (20), the spaces between the studs are filled in with diagonal braces to form a herringbone or chevron pattern, another frequent feature. It can also be seen at Gunthwaite Barn, although here the studs are set wider apart and the panels are almost square. A large number of timber-framed buildings in the North were cased in stone in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and later in brick, so few can be recognized from the exterior, and even in those buildings where the frame is exposed, the ground floor has often been rebuilt in brick or stone.

So far, the timber-framing under review has been mainly of a substantial nature, generally constructed of oak. Even from the six­teenth century, however, timber-framed buildings using slight and inferior timbers were constructed. In the Lincolnshire Wold timber – framed houses and cottages were built in the latter part of the seven­teenth and the early part of the eighteenth century, using a very slender frame with the studs rarely having intermediate rails; the only cross rail was one fixed to the inside of the frame to support the floor joists. The panels therefore were of considerable size, and they were covered with thin staves fixed to the outside of the frame, with daub carried across the outer face of the timbers to protect them. Some of these cottages, known as ‘mud-and-stud’, still exist here and there in villages