First, the bad news. We have both been suffering from the stomach bug currently circulating in the UK: the logistical nightmare of who is first in to the single loo and who uses the sick bowl next has been a nightmare.
The good news. We are both improving and are not desperately beating each other up about who gets to the loo first: and the sitting-room ceiling is finished. We love the colours of the wood but realise that our small cottage room and ancient beams probably look very small beer to most of you. The filling of plaster cracks and undercoat on the walls is now underway.
Given that there are three types of wood here I think the colours actually look very good together. We haven’t stained anything or used a varnish which changes the colours: this is how they are naturally, just with a plain matt varnish on top. The planks are Yew, an inch thick and 16 inches wide: the rafters are old pine, many still with their bark on in places, and the central beam is very old oak.
At some point in the house’s history the ceiling was covered in lath and plaster and you can still see some of the plaster marks and nail holes: before that it was clearly open because there are the remains of ham and bacon hooks attached to the central beam. When it was plastered the hooks were just cut off level with the finished ceiling. Although we use it as a sitting room it was originally the kitchen with a range in the fireplace and the cured meat and herbs hanging from the ceiling.
We do not have the original deeds for the house as they are included on the deeds of the local Big House: this cottage and many others were all part of the landed Estate. Our dwelling was the house belonging to the Farm Foreman. But we do know that it dates from the reign of Queen Anne (1665-1714) so is between 297 to 346 years old.
The main beam has clearly been used twice before because you can see old rafter holes on the underneath and some different ones on the top from other ceilings in other places. Which makes it quite a venerable piece of wood!
It was quite usual to re-use wood from ships and other buildings, it was far too valuable to waste. In the pantry we found some carved, oak panels covered with old lime wash which have been dated to the 1400s, which had been used to build a partition. One of the things I love about old buildings which have not been ‘done-up’ or renovated is that if you are lucky there are little treasures to find.
In the house in which I was brought up we removed a fireplace in the sitting room: behind it we found three other fireplaces, eventually revealing a Tudor inglenook. Again the main beam over the fireplace had been used before elsewhere and there were a few deep round holes where wooden pegs had been used when it was in another building. And deep inside one of these holes we found an old letter: it had been written by a young housemaid living away ‘in service’ to her mother. In it she said that she had been given a half day to come home to see her mother and family on Mothering Sunday: this was a very important day to families when workers had so few days off from their work.
Houses, like the landscape, have so many stories and history to tell us if we learn how to read them.
stopping by woods 