Church End Farm Building Record
From Hadas
Post excavation analysis at Church End Farm, Hendon: the building record
REVISED DRAFT 15 February 2005
CONTENTS Page
List of Figures
Key to abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Preface
Summary
1. Introduction
2. Topography
3. Summary and relational description of the three sites
4. Consideration of Site 1 and Site 3 as standing buildings in 1961
5. Excavated structural remains: Church End Farm farmhouse
6. Building materials: the surviving finds
7. Documentary sources for Church End Farm farmhouse and farm
8. Pre-excavation graphic and photographic evidence for the farmhouse, yard and buildings
9. A synthesis of the building record
10. Occupation and function at Church End Farm: the buildings in their general economic and residential context
11. Conclusion
Bibliography
List of Figures Page
Fig. 1 Plan of the holdings of the principal Church End farms in the mid eighteenth century Fig. 2 Plan of Church End Farm yard and buildings in the late nineteenth century Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Ground Plan Phase 1 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 First Plan Phase 1 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Roof Plan Phase 1 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 North Elevation Phase 1 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Ground Plan Phase 2 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 First Plan Phase 2 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Roof Plan Phase 2 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 North Elevation Phase 2 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 West Elevation Phase 2 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 of a Section AA Phase 2 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Ground Plan Phase 3 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 First Plan Phase 3 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Roof Plan Phase 3 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 North Elevation Phase 3 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 of a Section BB Phase 3 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Ground Plan Phase 4 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 First Plan Phase 4 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Roof Plan Phase 4 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 North Elevation Phase 4 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Ground Plan Phase 5 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 First Plan Phase 5 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Roof Plan Phase 5 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 East Elevation Phase 5 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 of a Section CC Phase 5 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 Roof Plan Phase 6 Fig. Proposal for Site 1 South Elevation Phase 6
Key to abbreviations:
LBBLSA London Borough of Barnet Local Studies and Archives Centre
Bischoff Bischoff papers, LBBLSA
TSa The Ted Sammes archive
References to ‘the archive’ in the text The Ted Sammes archive
OS preceded by year Ordnance Survey 25’’ to 1 mile (latterly 1:2500), editions of 1863, 1914, 1936 and 1956 for Hendon Village
CEF Church End Farm
MoLSS Museum of London Specialist Services
Post excavation analysis at Church End Farm, Hendon: the building record
National Grid Reference: TQ228894
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgement is made to the members of the post-diploma course in post excavation analysis and publication, Faculty of Continuing Education, Birkbeck College, University of London, to the course leader Jacqueline Pearce, Museum of London Specialist Services, and to those members of Museum of London Specialist Services and others who provided insights during the taught course into the archaeology and history of Church End Farm. Thanks are also expressed to the London Borough of Barnet Archivist, Andrew Mussel, Hugh Petrie, London Borough of Barnet, and to Gerrard Roots, curator of Church Farm House Museum, London Borough of Barnet. Thanks are also expressed to Pamela Taylor for a sight of her earlier work relating to the medieval history of Church End. In the context of this building record report special thanks are given to Terry Smith of Museum of London Specialist Services and his colleague Dr Ian Betts for their kind advice on the general context of the site, on elements of the photographic and map record, and on some of the surviving finds. Especial thanks are extended to Tim Nicholson, architect and building conservator, for his work on the ‘reconstruction’ of Church End Farm farmhouse from its photographic and other memorials, and to Jill Hooper of the project team for her work on the primary and secondary sources.
Preface
This discussion aims to consider the building aspects of the Church End Farm excavations, to support a wider interpretation of the occupation and use of the sites and immediate locality, as a farmstead and as a farm home, to complement the wider investigation and Report by the project group.
Summary
This discussion has four principal objectives:
a) to provide an analysis of some of the surviving building records for Church End Farm both in terms of its farmhouse and its farm buildings b) to relate this to economic and social function c) to note some of the difficulties posed by the gaps within the building record and to summarise the positive knowledge which may nonetheless be gleaned from the study of a range of sources including the site records and information from archive material gathered at the time of the original excavations. This positive knowledge will be used within the Church End Farm final report to meet, to a greater or lesser extent, the modern reporting conventions required by the integrated approach to post excavation analysis d) to demonstrate the resilience of earlier forms of recording and their eligibility, in the field of building records, for use in post excavation analysis. In this regard a purpose of this study has been to demonstrate the scope for bringing together the somewhat fragmented aspects of the building record produced by the excavation team (both physical and documentary) to show what can be achieved by retrospective study and further parallel documentary research. The successes and failures here may be useful to others analysing other excavations and their site building records where archaeological and other evidence may be similarly partial, or impaired. e) To propose phases of construction and use for Church End Farm farmhouse and those buildings probably associated with it
1. Introduction
1.1 Site background in 1961
The excavations in 1961-66 took place within land holdings historically forming part of Church End Farm. This farm, in its last incarnation from the late nineteenth century, was associated with and ultimately jointly owned with the Model Dairy Farm built in the late 1880s on land immediately to the north of Church End Farm’s yards which themselves followed an approximate east-west axis, opening off Church End above the present position of Rose Cottage to the south of Church House. The yard areas were known in the twentieth century as Hinge’s Yard after the last owners who appear to have taken a farm let on Church End Farm in the mid 1890s and who subsequently become freehold owners of the combined holding. Although the scope of the excavation was subsequently extended to include trial trenches within the standing barn located on the north side of the farm yard and in The Paddock (once part of the Hall Field), the principal excavation site and the sole focus of the excavations in 1961 and 1962 was that of Church End Farm farmhouse, believed to have been the precursor to the then standing Church End House and the earlier principal residential focus for the economic management of Church End Farm. The site of the farmhouse, together with that of its successor, was shortly to be used for the extension of Hendon Technical College, originally constructed as the Technical Institute in 1937.
Miss A E R Hinge, the last owner of the farm, provided three photographic prints of the north elevations of the farmhouse, (which additionally included partial views of the yard), together with a sequence of prints of the south ‘garden’ elevations, to Ted Sammes. Her recollections and information on the more recent history of the farm and old farmhouse are not recorded within the project archive but Miss Hinge’s support for and involvement with the excavation project ensured that Site 1 was dug within the ‘locus’ of the historic Church End Farm farmhouse.
1.2 Perspectives of the original excavation team and the site opportunity
It is apparent from the excavation reports produced for the 1961 and 1962 seasons1 that the excavation team was strongly interested in the wider archaeological insights that a dig at Church End Farm might supply. Some secondary source documents known to the excavation team had suggested that Church End Farm might be the oldest of the three farms with substantial holdings extending from the village centre immediately next to St Mary’s Church. This made it an important site for an archaeological group recently established with, as one of its chief objectives, the investigation of Hendon’s Saxon past, falling as the site did within the area of potential Saxon settlement. Documentary evidence collected and recorded (principally in note form) by Ted Sammes, in his role as documentary officer for the excavation team, supported the picture of the old farmhouse as the centre of the economic unit of Church End Farm, the land holdings of which, with some ambiguities, he also established. Ted Sammes’ general conclusions on this score have been confirmed by the current research but further work is required to more fully elucidate the economic purpose of the farm and the use made of its immediately associated buildings, both those still standing in 1961 when the first season of excavation began, and those already taken down.
1.3 Church End Farm as an economic unit
Notwithstanding Ted Sammes’ diligent investigation of the title history of the Church End Farm holdings, the excavation team, to judge from both content and emphasis within the excavation reports produced for 1961 and 1962, did not overly consider the issue of Church End Farm as an economic unit, its economic and social history or the functionality, over time, of the relationship of the farmhouse to its associated or potentially associated buildings and structures. This may have been due in part to an awareness of its recent history that rendered the making of a record seemingly less important, but also probably to the lesser (or rather different) emphasis on the economic and social context then prevalent in the approaches to excavation of the time. The excavation team itself was ‘starting out’ with limited experience, with limited time and material resources and a need to concentrate on its initial objectives as an archaeological unit. Academic study of vernacular farm buildings was then in its infancy2 and the interdisciplinary approach to both excavation and post excavation analysis now seen as conventional was in a process of development. That no concerted effort was made to develop an archaeology of the wider site beyond the ‘spot’ excavations was therefore unremarkable in the context of the time.
Notwithstanding the above, present research seems to confirm that the farming or economic use of all the buildings fronting Hinge’s Yard was indeed associated with the general output and management of the Church End Farm ‘entity’ or ‘estate’, and this view was probably implicit’ if not overt, in the excavation team’s approach to their work. In particular in considering the archaeology of the two known buildings excavated (Church End Farm farmhouse and the barn opposite the house) the premise that these were related structures with a shared history, based as it was on immediate local information, was reasonably founded.
In this context the excavation reports produced in 1961 and 1962 are an important source not only as a surviving ‘memorial’ for one of these demolished buildings but also in providing clues to the excavators’ ‘feel’ for what the farmhouse was and what type of use and occupation it demonstrated. It is a matter of some regret that the local knowledge which probably provided a context for some of the excavation activity has not transmitted more forcefully into the archive record. In this regard post excavation analysis and further documentary research can be of importance in remedying, to some degree, losses of knowledge which may have been unforeseen at the time of excavation.
Subsequently the Site 2 excavation in The Paddock, (intended as an extended trial to find evidence of an earlier structure believed to have been delineated on eighteenth century mapping), added little to hard knowledge of the wider building history, either of the associated Site 1 or the farm as an economic or residential entity, although it produced a wealth of finds.
These outcomes cannot be seen as exceptional for what was an early example of rescue archaeology. Without the 1960s excavation our knowledge of this important central Hendon village site would be partial indeed and the challenge must be to utilise the clues, which the determined excavations and associated archive research provide, to answer questions we wish to pose now, with the benefit of forty years of hindsight.
_________________________
1 HADAS, 1961 & 1962 – check authorship, titling, issue date from HADAS archive copies
2 See Brunskill, 1971, pg. 132. The situation is now a little remedied as Brunskill notes in his most recent Illustrated Handbook edition, 2000, pg. 148.
2. Topography
2.1 Geology and natural topography
Natural geological strata in the vicinity of the three sites is understood to consist of Dollis Hill gravel and London clay formation, which is described by the British Geological Survey for England and Wales as undivided, silty in part.1 A sketch presentation is given in the 1989 HADAS publication, A Place in Time.2 Soil samples from Sites 1 and 2 analysed in 1966 identified both green and brown clay intermixed with coarse or yellow sand and some fine gravel. It is not completely clear that these samples represented the natural deposits. It is known that local commercial gravel extraction from fields in the immediate vicinity of St Mary’s Church occurred in the early nineteenth century.3 The three sites are all located on the plateau occupied by St Mary’s Church Hendon, at or above the 275 feet contour line given on 1:25 000 Second Series Ordnance Survey map, with the Church End Farm field holdings running westwards, to the south and west of the previous Hall Lane, on ground falling approximately 125 feet to the boundary of the Silk Stream tributary.
2.2 Determinants and use of site building locations: farmhouse, yards and associated structures or buildings
It seems appropriate, in terms of original construction, form, designation and use to consider the buildings and yards of Church End Farm as a farmstead. This follows the definition given by Peters of a farmstead as ‘the farm buildings and house looked at as a group’ where, additionally, ‘it may help our understanding of the individual buildings which form it to look first at where it was built and how it was arranged’.4 While Church End Farm farmhouse appears to have irremediably lost its status as the home of the tenant proprietor in the early 1850s the farm’s origin seems to have been as a unitary farmstead, its farmhouse sharing with others close proximity to the parish church and the centre of Hendon village at Church End. The clustering of farms at Church End must have been one of the principal features of the village and its central main thoroughfare. Peters notes that farmsteads are typically found in nucleated or closely grouped settlements within a village or hamlet, in small groups of three or four farms, or they are isolated.5 The clustering of farms at Church End, falling within Peters’ first type, must have been one of the principal features of the village and its main thoroughfare, their immediately adjacent buildings, yards and garden grounds adding to the bucolic aspect of a place which, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was close to but somewhat off the beaten routes of the wider metropolitan hinterland.
The farmstead comprised farmhouse, yards, and buildings arranged in north and south ‘ranges’ to the major east-west axis of its yard enclosures. The farmstead comprised farmhouse, yards, and buildings principally arranged in north and south ‘ranges’ to the major east-west axis of a principal yard, which had its main point of entry off Church End, a little to the south of Church House. In form this corresponds to the parallel plan of Peters’ typology6, and notwithstanding new building the parallel form was stuck to, giving the older part of Church End Farm a ‘street’ appearance as viewed to the West down the axial yard. Peters identifies the parallel form with ‘small farms with but few buildings’7, and noting both Peters’ and Harvey’s commentaries on form, perhaps a principal feature is the lack of a building arrangement designed to shelter a yard.8 This may not have been that unusual in a village location in Middlesex, and comparison with other farms and forms would be of interest. To some extent the size and length of the yard and the final nineteenth century and early twentieth century development of buildings compensated for the lack of a more conventional central enclosure, and the layout achieved integrity and a clear sense of place.
The focus of farm activity will surely have been the yard opening to the west off Church End and running approximately 65 metres to what appears, from the evidence of the 1789 Rankin and Johnson estate plan9, to have been, by the late eighteenth century, a gated access to a further enclosure or inner yard, immediately beyond the western gable of Church End Farm farmhouse. The east-west orientation of the yard and its buildings suggests arrangement more consequent on ‘local circumstances and traditions’10 than the more formal planning of the later eighteenth century. The estate plan, however, and the scope the eighteenth century layout provided for the later order of the north range of buildings, (seen in the 1863 25’’ to 1 mile and equivalent later series Ordnance Survey mapping running west from the barn and fronting the farmhouse to the south) does not evoke the chaos which could constitute the seventeenth and early eighteenth century farmstead.11
The other known post-medieval farms with substantial land holdings located at Church End and with their farmhouses in the immediate vicinity of St Mary’s Church included Church Farm (whose farmhouse on the opposite side of Hall Lane is established as chiefly seventeenth century in date in its present form), and Coles Farm with its farmhouse opposite the Greyhound Inn public house. The origin of the land holdings traditionally associated with these farms (perpetuated, in the case of Church End Farm, by successive farm lets recorded by indenture12) must be ultimately obscure, but there is evidence to suggest very considerable continuity from the mid eighteenth century, with the hint that the eighteenth century forms of land use and agreement had their beginnings much earlier, in or preceding the mid-years of the seventeenth century. In this context political affiliation and custom could have cemented the continuity of farm lets resting with particular families.
The economic concerns of the post-medieval Church End community are likely to have been inextricably intermixed with the demands and opportunities presented by its close proximity to London. The relationship of London to the nation as a whole and to its more immediate environs has been recently re-assessed by Porter who summarises the growth of population: ‘London, …, continued to swell, rising, in round figures, from 200,000 in 1600 to 400,000 in 1650, 575,000 by the end of the century, 675,000 in 1750 and 900,000 by 1801, when the first census provides a definite figure.13 Porter goes on to note that ‘London’s unquenchable appetite for country produce stimulated dairying, market gardening, local specialization and new business chains among graziers, fruiterers and poulterers. Its pull spread. Market gardening flourished in the riverside parishes around Fulham, Hammersmith and Battersea; around 1600 the capital was said still to be fed ‘‘principallie … from some fewe shires neare adioyninge.’’14 As well as foodstuffs, other commodities and services were provided from the immediate London hinterland, with hay production, and at least later, stud facilities, features of the local Middlesex rural economy.
The site of Church End Farm farmhouse as excavated in 1961-66 and the standing barn immediately opposite were therefore survivals of a farmstead positioned close to the centre of a rural community that lived and worked in the environs of Church End, but which, by the beginning of the seventeenth century at least, was highly likely to be concerned in wider regional production for the London market.
In illumination or assessment of the determinates of site building locations and building use, some information on the character and principal activity of Church End Farm is required. A brief review of the project team’s documentary research, incorporating earlier work by Ted Sammes, is therefore given below.
In the mid eighteenth century the holdings and tenants in and around Church End were scrupulously recorded in the Catalogue of Sale for the Parish Lands of Hendon of 1754/56.15 This establishes a picture of tenancies at will or by lease that set tenant farmers to the land and their livelihoods. Figure 1 shows holdings of the three principal Church End farms by combination of the tenancy, map and land use information contained in the Catalogue with Crow’s map of 1754.16 These tenancies were amplified by individual and family cross holdings of smaller parcels of land or groupings of fields to establish the main land based features of the agricultural ‘nexus’ then obtaining in this small part of Middlesex. The inference can be drawn that these tenants were the ‘principals’ of the working agricultural economy, concerned with the primary outputs of their holdings, but also sometimes working with or for their ‘rentier’ owners on specific activity in line with the strict protocols of their farm lets. Thus gravel extraction or the supply of timber for a particular use might be the matter of agreement between landlord and tenant, where ownership of the resource rested with one but the labour to access or utilise it was held by the other. This role of principal did not, in a village environment, enforce habitation on the ‘steading’ or in the farmhouse. It seems probable, however, that such would conventionally have been the case in the early modern period into the eighteenth century.
Church End Farm is identified with the tenancy of Thomas Nicholl, a farmer and also a bricklayer/brickmaker, by a lease grant made in 1742.17 Although the tenancy appears to have been taken by a William Geeves Jnr in 179118 (the likely year of Thomas’ death) Thomas Nicholl’s immediate family, through his son Joseph, granddaughter Anne and great grandson, were associated with an adjacent parcel of freehold land, purchased by Thomas in 1763, through to the 1870s.19 Documentary sources and mapping for 1789 and 1863 potentially identify this land with two conjoined cottages immediately to the east of the barn. These cottages with (at least latterly) a sub-divided farmhouse diagonally opposite must have imparted something of a street like character to the eastern end of the farmyard.
Primary sources for the mid and later eighteenth century and the nineteenth century (Catalogue of Sale, indentures of lease, abstracts of title, and mapping) provide some information on the cultivation and use of land at Church End. While the terminology used may be somewhat variable, broad allocations as between arable cultivation, meadow, pasture and orchard are given for the mid eighteenth and the later nineteenth centuries. If we follow the classification in the Catalogue of Sale20, in the mid eighteenth century the Church End Farm fields were predominantly meadow, with only 8% or so arable cultivation. This allocation as between arable and meadow appears to be confirmed in a longhand annotation (undated) to the 1789 Rankin and Johnson estate plan where Collin Deep Field is again indicated as an arable field, with the field itself hatched on the plan in a way somewhat suggestive of furrow (or drainage?) lines. This is the only field so identified, thereby indicating probable continuity with the mid eighteenth century record. In a classification from the last decade of the nineteenth century the term pasture has been substituted for meadow in the field use listing, with no arable remaining.21 The use of the western section of the Hall Fields as orchard, delineated in the1863 OS mapping, had, on the face of our source, by then fallen away to use as pasture. Documents concerning the closely adjacent Coles Farm fields22 suggest a more even distribution of use between arable and meadow with perhaps a quarter in arable cultivation in the mid eighteenth century rising to perhaps half in 1873.
Map, standing building (1961), photographic and excavation evidence exists for the new glasshouses built immediately to the south of the western extension of the yard sometime after 1863. It is not clear if these were intended for commercial or domestic growing, or indeed whose introduction they were, the Sweetlands’ before, or the Hinges’ after, 1895.
Surviving mapping and a water-colour by Thomas Bailey of c.1800, (identified as ‘Church End Farm’, and almost certainly providing a view of the north side of the farm yard23), gives some useful clues to the later eighteenth century aspect of the farmstead.24 They indicate both the early presence of the barn still standing in 1961 and the limited number of other buildings then erected on the yard frontages, with perhaps only a single structure extending the northern yard range to the west by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Buildings immediately abutting the barn to the east, however, shown on the 1789 Rankin and Johnson estate plan (and still apparently in evidence on the 1863 OS) seem to confirm the existence of two cottages depicted in the water-colour, constructed with brick stacks, and with the larger of the two presenting a two storey sash windowed bay to the yard front. On the south side of the yard the house may still have been alone, with perhaps offices, enclosures and garden ground to the east, west and south. There is some indication that by 1796 there was new building to the east, perhaps the building on a north- south axis shown on the 1863 OS. Eight separated ponds are shown in close proximity to the house and garden. A field barn is marked and described in the Catalogue of Sale for 1754/56, with a similar structure shown in the 1789 estate plan. A hand written note on an estate plan prepared on the face of the then current Ordnance Survey edition and held with the Johnson Bischoff papers25 suggests this barn or a successor, then standing in the Rickyard off Hall Lane, was burnt down in 1911.
Hay production and pasture and associated food production may be inferred as the principal business of the land in the nineteenth century. The scope for mixed farming at Church End is illustrated by a list of ‘Live and Dead Stock of Church Farm and adjoining land’ prepared in April 1814. This records a flock of 94 Southdown ewes and lambs, 22 dry ewes, 6 cart horses and harness, 100 loads of hay, waggon, 6 hay carts and rick cloths. A similar list for November 1822 states ‘350 loads of prime meadow Hay. Several useful cart horses. …Fine Yorkshire, Suffolk, Alderney & Welsh cows in calf. 2 handsome polled heifers in calf. 4 capital 6’’ wheel hay carts with iron rims. Tumbril. Market cart. …’26 The listing for 1814 probably reflects the keeping of ewes for breeding and fattening for the London markets. In a letter to a Mr Walter written in 1955 J K Dunlop, (grandson of Andrew Dunlop of Church Farm), recalling the last years of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth century, states that Church Farm was then largely concerned with the raising of a hay crop27. By the 1890s a rick yard is separately identified for Church End Farm to the south-east corner of the old Long Breach field (accessed from Hall Lane) and part of Lower Rushworth field seems by then to have been re-named Rickyard Field, seemingly reinforcing function by nomenclature.28
The proximity of the Model Dairy Farm with its buildings immediately to the north from the late 1880s (standing buildings in 1961) and its clear association with Church End farm from the later nineteenth century suggests an immediate local need for feed and pasture. The Church End Farm farm buildings surviving in 1961 identified and recorded in this report were all situated within the confines of the linked farm ‘yards’ with the main range of buildings still following the northern boundary. A large structure at the western end of this northern range of buildings is shown (as of timber construction) on the 1863 OS map.29 The structure or structures seemingly also appears on the 1896 edition of the OS 25’’ to 1 mile series, and again in 1914 and 1936, now identified as two separated buildings. The structure is no longer evident on the 1956 OS mapping. This building (or conjoined buildings) is seen imperfectly in the prints of two exhibited aerial photographs held with the Ted Sammes archive and also, tentatively, in the photographs taken from the south-west by A R Cooper dated 1937 held in LBBLSA30 where weatherboarding to a south elevation may be conjectured. These pictures also seem to show the range of low shed forms (one probably a cattle shelter from open hatching on the 1896 and 1914 OS mapping) running to the north on the west of the Model Dairy Farm. Hendon borough archive except tentatively in one, and little else beside its building footprint can immediately be deduced. For the general arrangement of the early to mid twentieth century farmstead see Figure 2.
While further consideration is given to Site 1 and Site 3 buildings in Sections 3 and 4, both as excavated and as standing buildings in 1961 below, the absence of consideration of other possible ‘farmstead’ buildings by the excavation team may, as hinted above, be compensated to some extent by clues from the mapping and surviving photography. The possible functions of buildings visible in photographs held within the archive or sourced within the London Borough of Barnet Local History Archive (LBBLSA) are listed in the table over page, and referenced to Figure 2, which includes some additional margin commentary. Archive photo index references for Church End Farm’s associated farm buildings are given in Appendix 1.
Building Description Estimated date of construction Possible design use Building A (South range) To the east of Church End Farm farmhouse and fronting the yard this slated brick two storey building seems to have been built, in part, on the site of an earlier building (Building B) with a north-south axis, for which there is some uncertain evidence from Cook’s Map of 179631 and the 1840 Tithe Map of the Manor of Hendon.32 A timber structure orientated north-south is shown on the 1863 OS 25’’ mapping. The later Building A appears to have been for multiple use with the observable portions of the western end, seen in the pre 1939-45 war photography, having, at least in appearance, a residential aspect. This is manifested on the elevation to the yard front and to the observable part of the second floor flank return by gauged brick window heads, double hung sashes and sash boxes positioned behind the outer face of the brickwork following, like the adjoining farmhouse bay, the form prescribed by 1774 London Building Act. The flank window overlooks what is interpreted as a covered way between the building and Church End Farm farmhouse, giving access to the garden area of Church End House to the south. Appearing for the first time in the mapping on the 1896 OS 25’’ map and as evidenced from the pre1939-45 war photography of the yard, the building style of the western end of Building A seems to deliberately reflect the elevation of the fourth bay of the adjacent farmhouse. Although the possibility exists that the farmhouse’s ‘Georgian’ splayed bay as seen in the photography may have been a reworking of an earlier bay projection the balance of evidence from the mapping and the archaeology seems to suggest that this bay feature of Church End Farm which survived till bombing in 1940 was of late eighteenth century date. The western end of Building A was therefore probably designed to attune to the existing Georgian elevation, separated from it by the covered way whose bargeboard with pierced work is seen in one of the photographs of the yard. A best guess would be to suggest that Building A was built in the late nineteenth century in a ‘retro’ style, probably to the order of William Frost Sweetland (obit. 1891). The eastern bays are perhaps a double bay cart shed with storage/loft above with dormered loading bay. Western bay dwelling house or annexe (entrance within or via covered way adjoining east gable of farmhouse?), perhaps offices. Building B (South range) Shown hatched in Figure 2 as a timber structure33 preceding Building A. It does not appear to have overlain the position of the covered way described above, which itself may have been in existence before the construction of Church End House (see, for example the 1840 Tithe Map). Possibly of eighteenth century date. A shed or outbuilding immediately associated with the working of Church End Farm. Building C (North range) Timber, brick, tile and weatherboarded barn34 with porch and ancillary lean-tos to front (see further detail in Sections 3 & 4 below). Mid-eighteenth century. Lean-tos on the evidence of the Thomas Bailey water-colour are later additions. Threshing barn with sheds constructed to occupy porch angles. Building D (North range) Timber framed lean-to. No estimate. Building E (North range) Two storey brick with slated roof, gable fronting yard. Loft above large double leaf doors. Stone keystones and two opposing voussoirs to both openings, with brick noggin in panel above entrance lintel and to apex of gable. Probably last quarter of the nineteenth century. An undated plan, elevation and section, almost certainly for this structure (and combined as a single proposal with plan and elevations for Building F), is held with the Bischoff papers in the LBBLSA.35 Described in the proposal within the Barnet archives as a coach house, with dimensions shown as 18’ 6’’ internal depth and 8’ 6’’ internal width (yard front). A section of the upper storey shows a railed division front to back probably to retain straw or hay. It is interesting to note that a horse is shown in front of a building in this position in the Thomas Bailey water-colour. Building F (North range) Single storey brick with tiled (?) roof. This building is shown in the photograph by A C Cooper dated 1937 (PE00**). See above. Shown in the proposal within the Barnet archive as a six stall stable with drainage and roof ventilator. The roof was elegantly hipped with a ridge finial which complemented the cupola effect of the ventilator. Building F appears in a 1966 site photograph with block constructed pens or folds in front, also seemingly in evidence in the 1956 OS mapping. This is likely to have been an adaptation for the housing of pigs.
Building G (North range) A single storey shed with shallow pitch roof of uncertain covering, this building is shown in photo 19660002 and the copies of aerial photographs of Church End, PE000* and PE000*36, within the TSa. The later show a longer run to the northern pitch of the roof, which also seems to include two roof lights. In 1966 it is weatherboarded to the yard elevation with opening and two oblong windows (?) or larger openings now boarded (?) immediately below verge line. This building seems to be shown on the 1896, 1914, 1936 and 1956 OS mapping. Possibly has finial to tiled ridge similar to that on Building F. Last quarter of the nineteenth century. Could this originally have been a shelter shed or loose boxes with the yard in front available for use as a fold yard? Building H (North Range)
Further research is needed to establish the possible use of the farm buildings as developed or modified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The existence of the Model Dairy Farm as an immediate neighbour, with all its buildings still standing in 1961, does not in itself make attribution of the late nineteenth and twentieth century use of the other Church End Farm buildings certain. However, this adjacent set of purpose designed farm buildings backing on to the northern range of Hinge’s Yard (see plan), with its clear association with Church End Farm from the later nineteenth century, suggests a closely local need for pasture and feed. The land on which the Model Dairy Farm stood had been the subject of a conveyance from William D Garnett to Charles Frederick Hancock of Hendon Hall in January 1873.37 Leased to Andrew Dunlop in 1874 it formed part of a farm let of some 94 acres, the greater part of which we can identify as the traditional holdings of Coles Farm. Approximately one half of the traditional Coles Farm holding is described as arable cultivation, but with the inclusion of a ten acre ‘portion’ of the Hendon Hall Estate the proportion described as meadow or pasture rose to approximately sixty per cent. Part of this farm let was the subject of a further conveyance to Andrew Dunlop in March 1886, associated with a deed for the building of what was to be, by reasonably assumption, the future Model Dairy Farm. This was to be constructed on the site of Coles Farm farmhouse, yards, barns and outbuildings on land below Hall Lane at Church End, to the north of Church End Farm’s north range of farm buildings.38 Ted Sammes records in his abstract from the 1873 conveyance the identification of William Frost Sweetland, the holder of the Church End Farm let, as previously ‘tenant from year to year’ of the historic Coles Farm.39 Thus he may have been Andrew Dunlop’s predecessor as the tenant of Coles Farm. If so, for a period of years in the mid nineteenth century, Church End Farm and Coles Farm would have been effectively under the same day to day management. Some further insight into the management of these farms is provided by Thomas Downey’s personal recollections recorded in the Hendon & Finchley Times for 4 February 1955 which may be assumed to relate to the last years of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth.40
The buildings of the Model Dairy Farm were the subjects of a limited photo-survey by D M H Cogman in 1964, now held in the Ted Sammes archive together with some other small format black and white prints from the mid 1960s. D M H Cogman’s photograph of the Hall Lane frontage of the farm shows the main shed (integral with the dwelling house) bearing the inscription ‘Model Dairy Farm 1886’ (BARN000*). [Cherry and Pevsner, however, give the buildings as of 1889 by Wimperis & Arbour for C F Hancock of Hendon Hall, noting the chief survival as the long milking parlour at right angles to the road with its apsed-shaped hay loft and finial].41
Although the Hinges seem to have secured the freehold of the Model Dairy Farm by the early 1920s42 ! and became the freehold owners of what remained of Church End Farm sometime soon after 192743 ! the full detail of the economic inter-relation between the Model Dairy Farm and Church End Farm from the 1890s into the mid twentieth century remains to be established. By the 1960s a single management and ownership were of long standing. It is likely that more information on ownership, management and land use can be gleaned for Church End Farm and the Model Dairy Farm to amplify or modify the account picture given here.
The 1896 and 1914 OS mapping gives some clues to the physical interrelation of the Model Dairy Farm to the buildings more immediately associated with Church End Farm farmhouse through their diagrammatic representations of ‘gated’ or other routes of access. They indicates continued access at this time (also suggested on the 1863 OS map by an indicated footpath) to the west end of Hinge’s Yard from Hall Lane via what had by then become a yard area to the west of farm buildings abutting the Model Dairy Farm on the west. This seems to have been on land held under the Church End Farm farm let. On the 1896 OS map there is some indication of passage through or in the vicinity of the Hinge’s Yard stable block from Hinge’s Yard into the Model Dairy Farm’s farmhouse garden but in other respects the physical separation or otherwise of the two farms is difficult to determine. _________________________ 1 British Geological Survey, 1993, Solid and Drift Geology, Sheet 256. 2 Fig. 1.2, pg. 12. 3 Bischoff papers, London Borough of Barnet Local History Archive (LBBLSA), B1/135, an agreement between B F Johnson and E C Nicoll. 4 Peters, 1981, pg. 5. 5 Ibid., pg. 4-5 including Figure showing village settlement form. 6 Ibid., pg. 6-7. 7 Ibid., pg. 7. 8 Peters, 1981, pg. 7 and Harvey, 1970, pg. 78-79. 9 This delightful hand coloured plan is held in LBBLSA, Bischoff papers, unnumbered. 10 Harvey, 1970, pg. 76. 11 Ibid., p.76 and his note provided on pg. 101-102. 12 See various indentures held in Bischoff papers, LBBLSA. 13 Porter, 1994, pg. 131. 14 Ibid., pg. 134. 15 A copy is held in LBBLSA. 16 A copy of this map is held in LBBLSA. 17 Catalogue of Sale for the Parish Lands of Hendon, 1754/56; and Bischoff B1/15 and 16, 1757, both in LBBLSA. 18 Bischoff B1/25, LBBLSA. 19 Notation by Sammes held in archive, references Indenture & Bargain of Sale of 11 April 1763 (Andrew Reginer to Thomas Nicoll) of 26 perches of ‘garden ground’, fronting eastward on ‘ground then in the possession of Nicholl’, northward ‘the garden ground then in the possession of William Dalmer Esq.’, fronting west ‘in part a barn of Nicoll’ and ‘in other part on lands also then in the occupation of the said Nicoll’. This is arguably the land subsequently identified in an Abstract of the Title of Mrs William Bayley to a freehold cottage and premises situated at Church End Hendon associated with an Indenture dated 19 April 1876, transcribed by Sammes. The buildings are believed to be those shown in the Thomas Bailey water-colour of c.1800 (for this see pg. 9 and note 24 below). The 1763 sale is given by Sammes as Registered in Middx. 7 May 1763, B2 No 345. Enrolled in the King’s Bench Easter Term 3 George 3rd. 1763, Roll No 88. 20 This makes a distinction between meadow and arable under the heading ‘Quality of the Lands’. 21 Notation by Sammes within the archive from the Abstract of the Title of Walter Lyulph Johnson to freehold land at Hendon Middx. prepared in 1927. This provides a description of Church End Farm identifying Church End House, Church End Farm farmhouse, and listing associated buildings, field use and acreages. 22 Catalogue of Sale, and Indenture dated 28 September 1874 (Hancock to Dunlop) transcribed by Sammes. This refers to land known as Church End Farm but which can be identified as Coles Farm (following here the Catalogue of Sale long hand annotated denomination) with some confidence from a comparison of the field names. 23 LBBLSA, Print L6096. 24 An evocative image from 1715 of a Middlesex farmstead is given in Harvey, 1970, pg. 87. Stated by the author to be the first extant contemporary picture of an English farmstead, with its timber-framed, tiled and weatherboarded buildings (farmhouse, barns and housing for livestock) around a yard, and its location and size at 203 acres, it may allow us a hint of what Church End Farm may have looked like in the early eighteenth century. Coincidentally, Harvey cites Church Farm, Hendon as an example of a middle order ‘steading’. The buildings which served this 153-acre farm ‘pleasantly situated near Hendon Church’, as described in the Catalogue of Sale of 1754/56, comprised ‘two Barns, boarded and tiled: a good Stable, Cowhouse, Woodhouse, Yard and Garden, and a Cart-house or Hay-house, all in good Repair,…’. Harvey, pg. 81 and his note on pg. 102. A copy of original source is in LBBLSA, note 17 above. The field use can be approximated from the Catalogue of Sale as 75% meadow, (and therefore very similar to Coles Farm), with the remainder arable with the exception of an acre of pasture. The buildings are broadly similar to those listed for Church End Farm, see Section 9 below. 25 Bischoff B1/108 & 116, 1892, overlaid on 1863 OS mapping. 26 Details contained in a document presented on the death of a Mrs Lemon of Church Farm and held in a compilation for Church Farm, LBBLSA, ref. 728.67. 27 The hay was mown, stacked and then sent in trusses to London to feed the horses of the London General Omnibus Company and other such concerns. He continues ‘I have youthful memories of my grandfather’s hay carts. Two wheeled carts with high painted wheels going up Shoot-up-Hill in Brondesbury with the assistance of a trace horse, loaded with hay, on their way to the stables of central London.’ Copy of a letter held in LBBLSA. 28 27 July 1927 Abstract of the Title of Walter Lyulph Johnson held in the LBBLSA collection 29 See note 33 below 30 LBBLSA Prints L3089, L3090, L3092. It is likely that other photography [including an aerial photograph from the mid 1960s held by Memories, 132 Brent Street, NW4] can provide further detail for these ‘western’ CEF buildings. 31 A copy is held in the LBBLSA, with its associated Field Book. 32 A copy is held in the LBBLSA. 33 On the validity of distinction between timber and brick or stone construction the Standing Building Survey Report on The Stables, Davies Lane, Leytonstone, London Borough of Waltham Forest and MoLAS, 2002, considers the impact of weather boarding on the recording completed for the Ist edition of the 1:1250 Ordnance Survey, surveyed in 1863 at 25 inches to 1 mile, for Essex, (sheet 73-3). It notes that this edition ‘is one of the most detailed maps of its kind, and distinguishes systematically between structures that were wholly or mainly brick or stone from those that were largely of timber.’ The description of a brick building as being principally timber could arise from the surveyors recording ‘what was most evident externally of a building’s construction’, with weatherboarding or clapboarding obscuring the load bearing structure beneath. The surveyors may, however, have considered stub walling, as at Building 4 at The Stables, with timber superstructure above, as essentially a timber structure, and the timber elements of our Building B may, in the process of mapping, have obscured or taken priority over brick elements, for which the pre 1939-45 photography gives some hint. See pg. 33-34 of The Stables report. 34 References to barns in the technical or academic literature naturally tend to focus on their pivotal role in corn or other grain production. The features which identify them as characteristic of a threshing barn form, however, will still be evident where other uses have prevailed, perhaps as a result of a new primacy of pasture over arable land use. The adaptation of the use of a barn to changes in agricultural method is reflected in both erstwhile threshing barns and those diverted or created for other uses. Any change to rick storage at Church End Farm is likely to have affected the day to day use of the two barns identified with the farm and more precise information on the use of the barns at Church End Farm would therefore be useful. For hay storage in the form of hayricks or haystacks at Church End Farm see the poor quality glass negative prints in LBBLSA, Prints L12904/1-2. For a more general adaptation of use see Woodforde, 1983, pg. 135, where he notes the conversion or part conversion of corn barns as far back as the eighteenth century for the raising of calves and for housing cattle in winter. 35 Plan of proposed stable at Church End farm for Mr Sweetland, undated, Bischoff B1/122, LBBLSA. 36 TSa, print (PE00**) of an exhibition photograph with longhand note on the back: ‘Church End Hendon Aerial Photo. Copy of Photo in possession of Albert ?Green.’ Followed by a separate longhand note ‘Pre 1939-45 War’. Authors’ note: possibly from 1933 (the ancient Clerk’s Cottage still stands in both copy prints). 37 Ted Sammes’ notation, Conveyance of an Estate called (sic) Church End Farm situate in Hendon in the County of Middx. Dated 14 January 1873. Registered B2 No 933. TSa. 38 The farm buildings south of Hall Lane included a farmhouse ‘now converted or used as two cottages’, a labourer’s cottage, barns, stables, garden and yard. The farmhouse seems to have survived as the numbers 1, 2 and 3 Vine Cottages until the spring of 1935 but most of the rest was swept away on construction of the Model Dairy Farm. John Linnell’s watercolour of September 1881 shows the large barn (probably early to mid eighteenth century) with the farmhouse beyond, with the rooflines of some of Church End Farm’s buildings glimpsed in the right background. 39 TSa, see note 37 above. 40 LBBLSA MHS 2/119. Downey states that Andrew Dunlop ‘farmed a fair number of acres northward from the parish church, …’. This suggests that the land below Hall Lane, including the Model Dairy Farm, was by then managed by others. The recollection continues ‘Opposite Dunlop’s was Hinge’s Farm. Jim Hinge and his brother Will did well here for a great many years, and Miss Nellie Hinge carries on the good work today.’ 41 Pevsner and Cherry, 1998, pg. 163. LBBLSA have an architectural drawing as reproduced in ‘Building News’ for 19 July 1889 as Print L3393. Built by Prestige & Co., of Cambridge Wharf, Pimlico a description (LBBLSA Model Dairy Farm file) runs ‘The block of buildings contain large cow-houses, barns, provender stores, & necessary offices: cart-house, stabling, engine and machinery houses, dairies, foreman’s cottage, which together with the farm house now being built, will form a very complete and perfect set of buildings.’ 42 Further leases, W L Johnson to John (sic?) Henry Hinge and William Hinge, dated 3 January 1921 for ten years from 29 September 1916 and dated 29 November 1926 for 11 months from 29 September 1926, are recorded in the 27 July 1927 Abstract of the Title of Walter Lyulph Johnson held in the LBBLSA collection. The rental is now only £140 per annum. This may reflect land sales and lease grants over time to the Midland Railway, Graham White and others, recorded in the Abstract. 43 Middlesex Deeds Official Search Reference. No 3895/39, LBBLSA. 3. Summary and relational description of the three sites
3.1 Site 1 Farmhouse
Church End Farm farmhouse suffered bomb damage during the 1939-45 war. Although the western sections of the main building appear to have been standing in 1945, the building projection to the south and east including a conservatory area and the eastern section of the main building had either been destroyed by enemy action or subsequently cleared to make safe. The excavation report for 1961 records the post bombing demolition of the farmhouse but the date is not given. NEW FOOTNOTE: Transactions No. 2 (New Series) of the Mill Hill and Hendon Historical Society on the Kempes of Hendon and Church Farm House notes on pg. 4 that the old building at Church End Farm was twice struck by bombs in 1940 before being pulled down in 1945.’ F W H Abrams BA. Copy in LBBLSA. The 1956 Edition of the 1:2500 Ordnance Survey shows the area occupied by the farmhouse as cleared ground with the superimposition of a freestanding greenhouse within the building footprint (referred to as the east greenhouse by the excavation team). Clearance of an accumulation of rubbish and the presence of standing walls to the west, with additional guidance from the proprietor, will have allowed the identification of the probable limits of the site, which was also identifiable from earlier sequence OS mapping. This site was seen by the excavation team as the likely principal focus of farming activity and occupation at Church End Farm.
3.2 Site 3 Barn
The immediate proximity of the standing barn across the yard to the north and opposite the eastern end of Church End Farm farmhouse, with available local knowledge, identified the building to the excavation team as a farm barn, and probably, from its size and location, the principal barn of the farm unit. Although permission was obtained to dig two trial trenches within or abutting the building footprint and a record was made of elements of both the interior and exterior of the barn, the limited number of finds and the general imperatives of the excavation led to only limited excavation activity on this site.
3.3 Site 2 The Paddock
The excavation of Site 2 The Paddock in 1965 was intended as an extended trial to find evidence of an earlier structure believed to have been delineated on eighteenth century mapping and where certain unevenness of the ground was suggestive of possible footings or other features. Known as The Paddock since the 1890s, this remnant of the eastern section of The Hall Field was, following the building of the Technical Institute from 1937 and the further development of the Technical College, retained as a public open space. It was therefore accessible for excavation with appropriate permissions. In its full extent The Hall Field had once bordered the immediate areas, gardens or offices of Church End Farm farmhouse and it is likely that in 1961, and certainly by 1964, the excavation team was aware from local knowledge, if not immediately from documentary sources, of The Paddock’s long term association with Church End Farm. However the excavation near the boundary with The Burroughs, relatively distant from the farmhouse, while producing a wealth of finds, added only a little to hard knowledge of the wider site history.
4. Consideration of Site 1 and Site 3 as standing buildings in 1961
It should be noted that some surviving low level ground features for Site 1 were exposed by clearance during the course of the digging seasons. For the purpose of this report features which can be assumed to have been obscured by vegetation, site rubbish or demolition debris are generally dealt with in Section 5, since the evidence for them was revealed by preliminary clearance. The distinction here between standing remains and excavated features is a fine one and elements of crossover between categories are to some extent unavoidable.
4.1 Church End Farm farmhouse Site 1
General dimensions of the farmhouse rounded to the nearest foot, excluding the front bay projection and the rear extensions, are given below following Ted Sammes 1963 drawing scaled at the somewhat unconventional 1 cm = 3 feet, and as approximated from the 1914 OS 25 “ to one mile mapping.
Ted Sammes’ drawn dimensions 1914 OS approximation
Length (gable to gable)
64 62
Width (at gable ends assumed main building)
20
20
These figures should be treated with some caution but are probably a reasonable guide to the dimensions of the main range. [The 1961 excavation report gives the excavators’ estimate of the length of the main range east to west (but including the cellar steps) as approximately 60 feet, and forty-six feet excluding the bay window. Although there is a discrepancy here, this should perhaps not be the cause of too much concern, given the debris and overgrowth on the site and our uncertainty now as to the extent of the local clearance carried out to precisely dimension the site].
Ted Sammes’ site plan (IMAGE), the photographic record and the mapping all show a building with an elongated ‘L’ shaped ‘footprint’.
There is indication from the mapping that the footprint of the building varied over time, although comparison of variously scaled mapping following different mapping priorities must be intrinsically unreliable, requiring caution in interpretation. In respect of the twentieth century mapping, within the area of Ted Sammes’ plan, a change is indicated to the footprint of the rear extensions or ‘outshuts’1 as between the 1914 and 1936 OS series, suggestive of a partial demolition or opening up (perhaps the removal of a section of roofing) behind the main range of the house and to the west of the conservatory feature. The wisteria, so much in evidence in the sequence of photographs of the rear garden provided by Miss Hinge to Ted Sammes (PE00** and probably from the 1930s) and in the magnificent photograph (PE00**) of the southern elevation of 1940 by A C Cooper, appears to have taken support from an external wall in this area which features in both the excavation photographs and as much reduced ‘standing walls’ in Ted Sammes’ 1963 site plan. Its relationship to a possible ‘open’ area within the rear extensions is seen, very imperfectly, in one of Miss Hinge’s photographs (PE00**), providing corroboration for the 1936 mapping. This external wall is therefore likely to have remained standing at the time of the building alteration, if such there was, to provide support to both the wisteria and an area where a covering was maintained. While this is somewhat tentative, the mapping does suggest that some limited alteration took place at the western end of the building addition to the south of the main ‘house’ range. All the elements of the southern/rearwards extensions of the main ‘house’ range appear to have suffered either destruction or safety demolition during or soon after the 1939-45 war. The photograph of the bombed farmhouse dated 1945 appears to show either a temporary frame erected to provide substitute support to the wisteria, or an original frame now free standing which may have abutted the wall discussed above.
The walling of the west gable and adjoining north wall are the only standing remains mentioned in the excavation report for 1961, other than the reference to a doorstep component still in situ on the line of the north wall, probably in the most easterly section. There is no reference in the report to the standing walls of the building projection or addition to the south and east, (including the conservatory area identifiable from the photographic and map record) although these are shown in Ted Sammes’ site plan noted above, and are mentioned briefly for 1962. Besides the recorded standing walls, the building features marked to this plan are the cellar steps, visible early on in the summer of 1961, the principal footings known or evident in 1963 when the plan was drawn, the location of the tiled floor (see elsewhere in this report) and the drain in the southern outshut.
When the excavation commenced in June 1961 standing walls also included what appears to have been a full width section of the western gable end of the farmhouse, as originally constructed or as subsequently extended, executed in structural brickwork, with a short return of walling to the east, which can reasonably be assumed to have been a partial survival of the north elevation fronting Hinge’s Yard. Photographs taken in August 1961 and again in July 1964 by D M H Cogman provide a record of the standing remains in this part of the house. It can be suggested tentatively that the construction of a new north elevation had the effect of widening the building by something in excess of one foot. There is some very limited evidence in the photos 5/52/30, 5/85/11, and 5/86/13 (1964) of an old gable ‘line’ where brickwork appears to commence to fall back towards the ridge, necessitating some compensation on the inner skin visible at the north-east corner. These photographs, with photo 5/53/6, also show a rectangular window opening in the west gable with some surviving framing at approximately seven feet above the then site ground level, which, by analysis of the photography, seems to have been very close to the internal floor surface as subsequently excavated. This window is centrally positioned in a panel of brickwork, to which the surviving section of north facing wall abuts, but without obvious tying in on the exposed internal brickwork face. This window seems to correspond to an opening shown in the photograph by A C Cooper held by LBBLSA dated to 1937 (ref. L3091), which is similarly offset (i.e. closer to the south west angle of the farmhouse) from the mid point of the gable. Its position suggests it was close to the ceiling in the most westerly ground floor room.
There is some indication of jointing pegs to the upper frame or plate of the window as positioned on the side posts. The lower framing is apparently displaced. In the central section of the gable as visible in the photograph at intervals of approximately one and four feet beneath the surviving opening, the photography suggests the existence of timber wall plates to which the brick coursing is superadded. Similar features are visible in the surviving brickwork of the north elevation. There is no clear brick bond evident in either of the two adjoining panels of brickwork shown in the photograph. There is some visual evidence of surviving internal plaster or render to the west gable wall. The lower limit of this (see 5/85/11 especially) may suggest the old floor level.
Photo 5/85/10, also from 1964, shows the standing remains of the west gable from the south-west. These rise to some eight feet above an estimated original external ground level if the rolled edge brick plinth feature (discussed in Section 5.4 below) is indeed a foundation level to a ground wall. The brickwork return of the north elevation of perhaps fifteen inches can be seen to the north-west angle of the farmhouse, providing a clean finishing line to a hard render elsewhere applied to the remains of the wall. The finish of Roman, Portland, or similar cement displays hard edges where fractured, with one area broken along a coursing ‘line’ of the fake ashlar which covers this part of the gable end. (See also 5/87/33 taken after partial demolition). Perhaps as a result of application to a brick structure jointed with a soft lime mortar, cracking is evident to the rendered face but the original work appears to have been careful and to a high standard of finish. The use of the hard render suggests a probable date of no earlier than the second decade of the nineteenth century for this work.2 The absence of tying in to the brickwork of the north elevation and the west gable, as seen in the photographs of the internal face of the gable taken from the east and south-east is typical of eighteenth and nineteenth century work, and it makes precedence of construction more difficult to assess. The author’s view on balance, based on the photographic evidence, is that the brickwork to the major part of the west gable is of earlier or broadly simultaneous date to the face brickwork of the north elevation, with the hard render finish probably applied later, perhaps after a period of weathering from the west. In this uncertainty, photo 5/85/11 of 1964, showing the west wall after ground clearance, provides the best opportunity to compare the two areas of construction. This photograph shows a close alignment of the brick coursing to both areas, albeit without any significant tying in, and the close alignment of the lower of the two levelling and strengthening timber plates in the main gable end to a similar plate to the north elevation. If the work was executed at the same time it is possible that that of the main gable end was of lower cost face brickwork, acceptable for a return less visible from the more public area of the yard.
In respect of the section of the north elevation standing in 1961 the fragmentary remains of window and door openings and thresholds in situ appear to conform to pre-destruction photographs of Hinge’s Yard.
The south wall of the outshuts to the south (proposed central two bays) was also standing to a height of five, six or seven brick courses above internal floor levels for all or most of its length. Additionally a section of return walling from the south-west corner of these structures remained in place.
A brick feature to the south-west of the main range is discernable in photos 5/85/10 and 5/87/33. (Regrettably this cannot be seen in the planting obstructed views provided by the pre-destruction photographs supplied by Miss Hinge). It appears to have been constructed of London stocks in stretcher bond probably with lime sand mortar jointing. A minimum of four courses high, it had a coping of mortar or rolled cement, suggesting this was possibly the designed form. It is therefore included as a standing feature. It is orientated broadly south-east to north-west and may be a garden planting bed retaining wall or possibly a feature associated with the adjacent free standing stack at the south west corner of the main range of the farmhouse (see Section 5. 20 below).
Note: Most other conjectural ‘house’ features were only exposed by excavation – they therefore appear below in Section 5.
4.2 Barn Site 3
The dimensions of the barn can be approximated from the photographic prints of scaled drawings (in plan and elevation) prepared in 1965 prior to demolition. They indicate a building of approximately 40 feet in length and 30 feet in width including the porch projection. An approximation from the footprint assumed from the 1956 OS map suggests a slightly larger structure (perhaps 45 feet by 33 feet) but this must be uncertain and the presentation of the 1965 drawings suggests careful scaling.
The barn’s general form in 1965 can be established from photographs held in the archive. These include two large format prints taken in August 1964 from the south and south west, the photographic prints of drawings prepared in 1965 of the interior and exterior of the structure, a set of 8 colour slides (probably, but not certainly, from 1965 or 1966 – three could conceivably have been used as the basis for drawings in the previous sequence), three small format monochrome prints of the barn and yard (one only dated 1966 to the reverse), and ‘accidental’ views included in the excavation photographic sequence, 6/19/3 from September 1964, and 6/32/35a from August 1966. The large format prints by D M H Cogman are included in the photographic index, references 6/3/19 and 5/100/37. There is some reason to believe that the photographic print record now held in the archive is only part of a more extensive record prepared in 1965. This may originally have included the slide sequence referred to above. More importantly, and sadly, the original drawings, with perhaps a more extensive record of the form of timber joints, appears to be lost. There is no known photographic record of the barn’s north elevation.
An exploratory trench was dug within the ‘footprint’ of the ‘lean-to’ to the west of the barn porch in 1965. For convenience and to reflect this as an excavation within a standing building, information from the trench is dealt with here.
The excavation record includes two drawings of the 1965 excavation trench (Trench 1, with extension), one in plan, and one the stratigraphy of the southern section of the west face. The trench was ‘L’ shape in plan, having also a north section and an eastern extension and was dug in the south-west corner of the building within the west front ‘lean-to’. While not intended to show constructional details, the two drawings provide some information on the structure of the barn floor within this area to the west of the porch but outside the area of the main bays. If the identification of the Thomas Bailey water-colour is to be relied on, the lean-to structures to east and west of the porch are of later date than the original structure. The 1965 trench plan and the section stratigraphy suggest that timber floorboards in this part of the structure were carried on timber plates bearing on brick foundation walls, with the voids between plates packed with ‘burnt ballast’ and the voids between brick filled with soil fill. There is, however, some ambiguity about the precise constructional form arising from the key convention used. The stratigraphic section of the west face of Trench 1 (South) which was carried down to a depth of some six and a half feet shows evidence of considerable disturbance to the ground in this area, where, for example a layer of dark soil and brick rubble is shown at some four and a half feet below the datum line. There is no surviving record of the floor structure within the area of the main bays. The composition of the layer of ‘burnt ballast’ is not amplified. There is some indication from the mid 1960s building record of re-making and the re-use of burnt timber. The possibility that this barn or its predecessor was burnt down at some time in the eighteenth century was referred to in a note, almost certainly prepared by Ted Sammes himself, held amongst miscellaneous papers within the Ted Sammes archive, which is corroborated by another reference, with source, provided by Sammes in a documentary note probably prepared in 1969.3
From the standing building records prepared in 1964 and 1965 and from the wider photographic record, the barn may be seen to have been of gable construction, orientated east-west, with a projecting south facing hipped porch, with the main roof and porch coverings of plain tiles. In its final form the porch was flanked to east and west to the full length of the building facing the yard by weatherboarded and slated sheds of lean-to construction.
The standing building record of scaled drawings and sketches prepared in 1965, as now held within the archive, presents some issues of interpretation. It appears to indicate a building of partial or partially surviving timber framing raised on brick footings, which, to the north wall, may have been of some elevation above the ground, due to the falling away of the ground. A small area of four and a half inch brick walling constructed in stretcher bond is shown in the large format prints at low level to the front of the eastern shed and brickwork in this position may also be indicated in the 1965 scaled plan, (Barn photograph reference 8b). This may have been introduced by way of repair to the original framing in this position. The plan from 1965 also seems to suggest that the north wall up to the level of the loft, as well as part or all of the east wall to the same height were constructed in brick, possibly by way of reconstruction following fire or other contingency requiring repair, but one of the other representations in this record (Barn photograph reference 12b) may indicate survival of timber framing to the east gable. Weatherboarding to structural timber framing is clearly in evidence to the western loft gable, to the front faces of the porch and elements of both east and west lean-tos. While other areas present only as weatherboarding (areas in reasonable repair showing no gaps) it is probably safe, on the basis of the 1965 drawings, to suppose that much or most of this is indeed affixed to structural framing in situ. The large format print of a photograph by A R Cooper in the Barnet archive dated to 19374, which includes the western gable of the barn, also appears to show weatherboarding to the upper part of the gable. It is not, however, possible from the mid 1960s record to say definitively that weatherboarding was evident to the north elevation above the plinth or ground wall or in position on the east loft gable, although sketch drawings indicating this are included in the record, (Barn photograph references 6b and 12b). These could possibly be interpretations of the original structure rather than a record of a continuing feature of the standing building, but on balance the author considers weatherboarding was probably in situ in these positions in 1965, here superadded either to timber framing or brick walling. A reproduction of a watercolour painting said to be from September 1881 is shown in a newspaper clip from 1996 held within the Barnet Local History Archive. This appears to show upper portions of the north and west elevations of the barn viewed from the north west (Hall Lane) compatible with the 1965 drawings and photography within the TSa, and both portions indicate weatherboarding. ADD FOOTNOTE. The presentation/covering of the lower section of the east gable end below the loft is uncertain from the evidence; Barn photograph reference 12b hints at surviving timber framing protected or infilled by plaster. ‘Mix and match’ use of timber framing and brick walling for barns is not unknown.5 The use of weatherboarding as cladding on a farm or estate building and its scope to obscure underlying structure is discussed in the Standing Building Record prepared by MoLAS for The Stables, Davies Lane, Leytonstone.6
The 1964 print and a background view (photo reference 6/19/3 September 1964) shows the plain tiles of the main roof and hipped roof in reasonable repair with two ventilators on the main ridge (assumed to be later introductions) and what may be a later introduction of a timber framed glazed skylight. Detail of the organisation of the skylight, light well and ventilators are shown in the 1965 record (sketch of internal arrangement within loft and section drawing, Barn photograph references 5b and 7b). The arrangements are purposeful and suggestive of considerable investment.
The 1964 print shows large dimension double doors, apparently set back on the main building line. If this was originally a barn for hand flail threshing, with the threshing floor centrally placed within the building, doors of this dimension would have enabled carts to enter for unloading. It seems unlikely that there was a second door opposite that to the yard, although this was a feature of some threshing barns.7 The eighteenth century (and later) ownership of the strip of land immediately behind the barn and other buildings of the North range of the yard is a little uncertain but there is some reason to think that it was either in the Church End Farm ‘let’, or associated with it, both before and after January 1873, when the future site of the Model Dairy Farm is shown associated with the Coles Farm holding (and separate therefore from land to the south) in a conveyance of that date from William D. Garnett to Charles Hancock.8 It is not apparent, however, from this mapping that there was any egress from such a strip in 1873 although there may have been earlier in the barn’s history. No door opening to the north is shown in the sequence of 1965 drawings, where Barn photograph ref 6b depicts weatherboarding covering all of the north wall. Notwithstanding the possible scope for original construction of a second large dimension door, the site considerations and the absence of other evidence for a door may militate against there having been such a feature. If this was the case, carts and wagons brought in for unloading would probably have had to be backed out, which Brunskill notes was ‘not too difficult or unfamiliar a manoeuvre for a horse.’9 The watercolour by Thomas Bailey, estimated as c.1800, and held in print form within the Barnet Local History Archive10 which almost certainly portrays the same barn earlier in its history, shows doors positioned at the entrance of the porch, rather than set back, as in 1964. Neither the doors depicted in c. 1800 nor the 1964 print feature doors cut short of the threshold, with a removable board below, again a feature of some threshing barns noted by Brunskill and Peters11, who uses the term lifts for boards of this type. In a threshing barn a projecting porch of the character seen here would have provided protection to the threshing floor, allowing the last cart of the evening to be left under cover to be unloaded next day.12 A tiled hipped porch with conjacent weatherboarding is depicted in a photograph by P Street, 1928, reproduced in Fowler.13 This shows double doors framed in similar fashion to that delineated in the Thomas Bailey water-colour.
The Thomas Bailey water-colour also shows a small opening close to the apex of the east gable. This has the character of and may have served the purpose of an owl hole as described by Peters, ‘…a nearly square or circular opening of about 6 to 9 inches (152-228 mm) across, set high up in the gable of the barn.14 These first appeared in the eighteenth century to let owls into the building to catch vermin.’ See also Brunskill.15 The 1965 drawings, Barn photo refs. 1b, 2b, 7b, 11b, and 12b, show rectangular and apparently unshuttered and unglazed openings in the apex of the east and west gables, essentially similar to the opening shown in the west gable in the 1937 photograph by A R C Cooper (note 4 below). It can be noted that the feature seen in Barn slide 4 of internal ‘twin lancet’ framing16 is not evident in the internal sketch view of the east gable and this may indicate either a different arrangement here or a loss of this non-structural joinery at some point before the 1965 record was made. The openings seen in the print from 1937 and the 1965 record may be modifications or alterations of originally smaller apertures.
The precise date of demolition of the barn is not directly available from the Ted Sammes archive material but a note prepared by Ted Sammes, probably in 1969, for the HADAS dig at Mount Pleasant (on the other side of Church End) records the demolition as having taken place ‘only a few years ago’.
_________________________ 1 An outshut is described in Brunskill, 2000, pg. 101 as a projection from the main plan shape, in this case the two bay central fireplace form. 2 See Brunskill, 2000, pg. 60 for details on the introduction of cement, for bedding and jointing and Summerson, 1962, pg. 129-130 for a discussion of the timing for the introduction of stucco (applied cement render) to metropolitan London. Parker’s Roman Cement was an introduction of 1796, but not extensively used until after 1812, (Summerson, pg. 130), and Portland Cement was an introduction of 1824 (Brunskill, pg. 60). Summerson equates ‘coursing’ on stucco as a principle feature of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century stucco work. The view of Church End Farm from the Technical College site taken in 1937 by A R Cooper (LBBLSA ref L3091) seems to show the render turning the south-west corner of the main range and butting to the weatherboarding. This render ‘return’, however, is slightly speculative due to the quality of the print. 3 The first note was prepared in the autumn of 1965 for a display screen for the exhibition of finds from CEF, 1961 –65, held at Church Farm House Museum and which ran from Sept-Nov 1965. The screen included drawings and plans by A R Leeds, a partial record of which survive within the archive. The note refers to a memorandum of 1753 by Thomas Brown, agent for the lord of the manor, which recorded that Thomas Nicoll, the tenant of the farm, ‘had his barn burnt down one year ago, cost £200 to rebuild.’ This seems to be sourced from the document A Particular Valuation of the Manor of Hendon, of 1753, which is referred to again by Sammes in a note prepared for the HADAS Mount Pleasant dig of 1969 (see also note 1 to Section 7). The display screen note continues ‘Certainly an examination of the timbers of the barn shows that a quantity of charred wood has been re-used in the present building.’ It further records the finding, within the single trench sunk within the western lean-to, of a fragmentary Chinese rice bowl (then apparently on display in the exhibition), giving a mid to late seventeenth century date to this piece. The note also records that the rear of the barn could be seen from ‘the windows of the museum’ and concludes with the following assessment of its importance as a standing building: ‘The barn as it stands today is important because it is one of the very few remaining barns of its type left in Middlesex; a similar building on Coldharbour Farm, Hayes, Middlesex, with the date 1806 on the tie beam has recently been demolished. It was decided therefore that as accurate as possible a record should be made of the barn… .’ 4 LBBLSA ref L3091. 5 A photograph by H E S Simmons, 1935, reproduced in Fowler, 1983, illustration 56, shows a weatherboarded barn at Firle, East Sussex with a tiled roof and hipped porch with brick entrance piers and possible brick ‘cheeks’. 6 See note 26 to Section 2 above. 7 Brunskill, 1987, pg. 40. 8 Transcription and zerox copy of estate plan by Ted Sammes, held in the Ted Sammes Archive 9 Ibid., pg. 40. 10 LBBLSA, Print L6096. 11 Brunskill, ibid, pg.40. And Peters, 1981, pg. 14. 12 Brunskill, ibid, pg. 42. 13 Fowler, 1983, illustration 46. The print is of Church Farm, Ruxley, Bexley, Greater London. Fowler comments that the brick, weatherboarding, plain tiles and pantiles shown are ‘reflective of locally-available materials’. 14 Peters, op. cit., pg. 16. 15 Brunskill, ibid, pg. 41, and pg. 114-15. 16 See Appendix 2.
5. Excavated structural remains: Church End Farm farmhouse
This section concerns itself with the structural remains as revealed during the digging seasons in 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1966, based principally on the excavation photographs since the references to building features within the excavation reports and site notes are limited. They are often restricted to conjectural interpretation, and other references are impaired by lack of datum and grid information. The reports for the 1961 and 1962 seasons, however, have been used when possible to identify correspondence or any possible inconsistency with the photography. For completeness a note1 at the end of the section lists references in the 1961 report to finds of building materials (and some of the excavated features), possibly originating from the structure of Church End Farm farmhouse which are not alluded to in the following discussion.
The excavation photographs show a significant number of footings and other floor and sub floor features.
A very careful casting of the structural relationships and dimensions suggested by these features, based on Ted Sammes’ 1963 site plan utilising the excavation photographs in support as scaling data proved somewhat problematic. The variety of and uncertainty as to type and sizing of bricks and other building materials visible in the photographic sequence and the effect of perspective on both features as viewed and excavation rods shown in situ on the photographs suggested a need for caution in an exercise where precision would be likely to be limited. In our figure presentations based on the excavation record’s evidence for structures, therefore, (see Section 9.4 below), an approach centred on the broad visual features displayed linked to a knowledge of likely or possible forms has been adopted. The 1930s and 1940s photographic evidence, as ‘overlaid’ on Ted Sammes’ 1963 ‘footprint’, was also used to support or contradict hypothetical or possible floor plans, with some hints from the mapping, to establish outcomes potentially consistent with a house likely, from other evidence, to have undergone significant change over time.
It was originally hoped that some of the stratigraphic section drawings, where available, might assist in elucidation of points of uncertainty. The drawings are of value in their careful depiction of building features, such as the possible housing for a ‘copper’ in the south east corner of the farmhouse site and the deep north-south brick and tile drain. In respect of illustrated features they confirm relational (if not datum) excavated levels, and give some clues on the likely sequence of construction on the site. However, the order of the excavation as a whole was impeded by the need to work round two important features of the site until demolition gave access: the very substantial post war greenhouse occupying the greater part of the most easterly ‘bay’ of the farmhouse until 1966 and the structurally unsafe remains of the west gable, taken down in 1964.
These features and their effect on the programme of excavation rendered the interpretation of ‘levels’ shown within the photographic sequence more difficult, encouraging a more intuitive approach.
The following is a consideration of the main features established or conjectured from the excavation photographs and other site records. Conclusions are tentative, and may be tested by others by reference to the photographic sequence and other archive material. As a matter of convenience the original reference numbers for the excavation photographs cited or relied upon in the text have here been given a new reference combining the excavation year and a sequence number, the lower the sequence number the earlier in the photographic record, thus 19620001 represents the first print listed in the original date sequence order for the 1962 season as prepared for the excavation team. Other photographs and images held within the archive referred to in the text have also been given their own unique reference.
5.1 Conjectural building ‘bays’ of the main east-west range Consideration was given to the evidence provided by the excavation photographs in either demonstrating or suggesting the existence and extent of building bays2 within the main ‘footprint’ of the house, and, within these, indications of sub-division or intercommunication between bays, other parts of the building and external areas. This was of importance both for the definition of form for comparison to vernacular models and for the possible elucidation of use over time. The enquiry is of particular interest for Church End Farm farmhouse where sub-division into ‘cottages’ is hinted at in both primary sources and the later mapping. Although there is no absolute certainty about occupants of the farmhouse in either the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries (sadly, official census records for the nineteenth century are indistinct as to precise domicile within our ‘farmstead’ complex), the available sources do suggest the farmhouse’s use in the later modern period as a multiple dwelling, something seemingly supported by the pre-war Hinge’s Yard photographs (PE00**/) and by the variation in the internal sub-division of the farmhouse footprint as between the 1914 and 1936 OS maps. That multiple use could have been of long-standing might be more definitively demonstrated if the architectural clues can be satisfactorily read.
The excavation team was interested to find evidence of building sub-divisions within the footprint of the main east-west range. There is some indication, however, of destruction in the southern half of the footprint which may have impeded such identification. While no conclusions were drawn, some possible hints are contained in the early excavation reports which either support or do not contradict a reconstruction based on timber framing raised on ground walls. Thus Trench B, dug in the northern half of the footprint, appears to have encountered some features which could have been associated with a north-south ground wall. Interrogation of the excavation photographs allows further assessment. It is suggested here that the excavation photographic sequence does provides evidence for building bays in corroboration of other evidence, principally that of the pre-destruction photography. What may be the footings of a north-south aligned wall within the footprint of the main range is shown in photo references 19620009 and 19620010, and photos 19640051 and 19640060. This could potentially have been part of a ground wall of the eastern gable of a two bay house. Photo 19640051 is interpreted as showing the eastern gable wall of the proposed ‘third bay’. Building bays are also strongly suggested by the pre-demolition photographs, most emphatically the photograph of the south elevation taken in 1940 by A R Cooper (PE00**) and the photograph of 1945 (PE00**) showing the bombed farmhouse. The former shows a centrally positioned stack to the west end of the farmhouse. The latter, while of poor quality as a print, provides strong evidence for a timber bay end frame. The conclusion drawn from the excavation photograph sequence is that Site 1 as excavated represented a building of eventually four bays with outshuts2 or outbuildings to the south. The original bays are believed to have been those to the west, with further bays added, progressively, to the east.
5.2 Main range: foundations of north wall Photos 19610024, 19610025 and 19610026 of Trench B2 (from the west and south respectively) and photo 19610027 of Trench B1/2 show what appears to be a splayed foundation to the north wall within the proposed ‘third bay’ to the east. (See comments on door openings below.) It is assumed that this structure supported the eighteenth century work above.
The 1961 excavation report in the section ‘The Excavation’ comments on the shallowness of the foundations of the ‘north front’, which are described as typically ‘two or three layers of brick and then natural soil’. In the subsequent description of Trench C this is somewhat modified with the shallow foundations found at the east end of this trench described as ‘no more than two layers of bricks and four to six inches of disturbed soil, below which was natural earth’. Further west, however, on the same line and running to the remnant of the north elevation then still standing, the foundations, while still shallow, are reported as ‘noticeably more solid, although they are only two feet deep.’ A ‘cutting’ of about two feet by two is also noted in the report at the southern end of Trench A. This position may be inferred as effectively on the line of the face brickwork of the ‘Georgian’ north wall. While the noting of the level of ‘natural soil’ in the introductory description and trench reports may militate against it, it is conceivable that this cutting could have been associated with an earlier original foundation trench.
In the report on Trench B what might be interpreted as a description of the ‘Georgian’ ‘splay’ foundation is given, which is supported in the archive by the photographic evidence cited above. The following is added: ‘In the north west corner of this trench there is a fairly solid mound of rubble, which at the moment defies explanation; it may merely be the result of the demolition contractor’s work or it may possibly have supported part of a wall or floor.’ The north-west corner of Trench B may be estimated as close to a possible junction of a north south ground wall with a possible earlier line for a north wall foundation. A layer of burning is reported within Trench B, about one foot from the top of the trench and above the ‘mortar base’ discussed in noted in Section 5.11.3 below.
No indication of an earlier foundation line is reported in the description of Trench E, positioned within the footprint of the house to the south of the ‘Georgian’ north wall and in terms of the proposal for house ‘bays’ given here, wholly or very substantially within the proposed ‘second bay’. The description states ‘Natural soil was reached in this trench at a depth of twenty-five-and-a-half inches, while about sixteen inches down the black discolouration, probably due to the burning of (sic) the wooden floor, was noticed on part of the south and west sides of the trench.’
The photographic evidence appears to support a statement that the foundations of the assumed ‘Georgian’ north wall and the south wall (main range) as excavated were different in scale, with the very substantial foundations found in the area of Trench H on the line of the main south wall of distinctive robustness. For the north wall this may indicate robbing out or re-use of an earlier foundation, although evidence for this is poor. Conceivably the ground conditions or contours dictated a different approach.
5.3 Main range: foundations of south wall The 1962 excavation report states that the foundations of the western part of the south wall (main range) were ‘on average two and a half feet deep and about three feet wide and had, in this area, as many as six courses usually stepped in some degree.’ The report also notes the ‘solidness’ of the foundations of the eastern part of this wall, ‘although they tended to be somewhat narrower in width’. These descriptions are assumed to refer to, first, the proposed bays one and two, and second, the proposed third bay, running west to east.
Photos 19620001, 19620005 and 19620006 of Trench H (all from the north) show the general form of the foundation to the south wall to the western end of the farmhouse, within the proposed ‘second bay’. This section of foundation is viewed from the south in photo 19620007. A further section of the south wall foundation, further to the east, but still within the ‘second bay’, can be seen in photo 19620008. Photo 19640065 showing the southern foundation at the junction with the west gable may be compared with photo 19640062 (showing an area included also in 19620008 above, but here expanded) to establish the degree of consistency of construction shown within the proposed bays ‘one’ and ‘two’. While there is some variation (the footing appearing wider to the right of 640062) all the work is level and regular, with what appears to be a consistent splay form, suggestive of careful construction. Comparison of photo 19640051 (proposed east gable junction) with photo 19640065 (west gable junction) is also possible.
A section of foundation of the proposed ‘third bay’ is shown in photo 19620012 in the vicinity of the chimneystack, and slightly further to the east another section in 19640024, from the south-east. Photos 19640057 and 19640058 also show an extensive run of this southern foundation from the south, corresponding to the full width of the assumed ‘third bay’. These also suggest regular and careful construction.
These sequences might benefit from further future study.
5.4 West gable: chamfered or rolled edge to brickwork Photos 19640011, 19640016, 19640018, 19640019, and 19640020 of the external wall of the west gable seem to show a rolled or chamfered edge to brickwork rising from the lowest foundation level. The chamfered edge or projection acts as a stop to the lined out render on this part of the gable. This can be seen generally in the photograph 19640001 taken from the south-west of the west gable before demolition and in close up in the photography of walling both within and external to the ‘western greenhouse’ (as this feature abutting the west gable was named by the excavation team). Photos 19640007 and 19640011 perhaps show the roll or chamfer most clearly, suggesting a single course of plinth bricks providing an offset inward to the vertical rise of the wall.3 It is difficult from the condition of the brickwork to establish whether the chamfer is of face or edge bricks, but interpretation of the photograph suggests edge bricks. Photo 19640020 shows the chamfer or roll itself stopped in its horizontal line at the junction with the ‘new’ walling of the north ‘face’ elevation. Just as this feature provides no clue to the age of the brickwork above, it similarly neither supports nor contradicts a contention that the building was widened when a Georgian north façade was added. The feature could, however, be a vestige of an earlier foundation level or earlier ground wall in this position on which the structural brickwork above has been raised. A comparison of two pictures of the west gable prior to demolition from the south-west and from the south-east (photos 19640001 and 19640002), also compared with photo 19640065 taken after demolition, suggests that the rolled edge is coursed in close alignment with a somewhat similar feature evident on the inside face of the south wall main range foundation, as it abuts the west gable end, and below the internal floor level in this part of the house. Consideration of probable original ground and floor levels in this location, however, may rule out the possibility that the rolled edge is the remains of a brick plinth intended for display; rather it may suggest that this feature was consistent to the form of the foundation work in this part of the house. If the courser walling above the rolled edge brickwork seen in 19640065 were also part of the original ground wall to the westerly bays some idea of the general form of construction might be formed. While the above is highly speculative, it is interesting to note the notches to the south east angle in the west gable brickwork seen in the pre-demolition pictures – could these have been formed round surviving timber framing? If this was the case, a hypothetical height to the ground wall could be deduced of some seven courses above the internal floor level.
5.5 Possible stair position serving western ‘bays’ The structure shown in photo 19640059 (here viewed from the north west) is interpreted as the foundation work for a spiral form staircase serving the two most westerly proposed bays. The brickwork in the mid ground (centre) is interpreted as the foundation to a bay frame between the two westerly bays.
5.6 Evidence for external door positions, main range The excavation photography provides corroboration for the pre-destruction photography of the Hinge’s Yard north elevation.
A ‘soldier course’ cill, more probably a cill foundation, to the west end of ‘bay 1’ (north elevation) is shown in detail in photos 19610007, 19610011, 19610012, and 19610014. This feature is almost certainly an old ground floor window opening extended to cill level, which appears as a probable doorway in the two pre-destruction Hinge’s Yard photographs taken from the north east. Making good of the brickwork abutting the western jamb of this modified opening is evident in photo 19610011 which also shows the quality of the original undisturbed Georgian work above. The OS mapping of 1914 suggests a variation of the sub-division of occupation or use at that time in contra to the position shown in1936. This variation may be associated with this westernmost doorway feature, with the sub-division of occupation or use shown in the 1936 OS presenting more conventionally to the assumed bay positions, while the 1914 OS presentation may reflect the introduction of this opening. Interpretation remains something of a mystery but the report of the 1961 excavation, in discussion of Trench C, associates the soldier course noted above with the use of this part of the building as a brewing house, suggesting that a remnant of wood shown in photo 19610012 represents part of the doorway. The juxtaposition of a possible drain or gully feature is also noted (seen in close-up in photo 19610012) – see commentary in 5.18 Feature H.
Photo 19610013 may show a ‘soldier course’ cill foundation to the original Georgian western doorway. The stone feature shown on the extreme left of this photograph, and in different perspective in photo 19610002, believed to be that described speculatively in the 1961 report as a lintel, two feet to the north of a feature described as a part section of doorstep in situ, does not seem to conform easily in this character to the pre-destruction photography of Hinge’s Yard. It is possible that both these features were remnants of a paved area in front of the Georgian western doorway as seen in the pre-destruction photograph taken from the north-west. A feature described as a section of ‘plaster wall’ also shown in photo 19610002 and visible in the context of the whole north elevation in photo 19610005 may be a surviving fragment of the rendered plinth visible in one of the pre-destruction photographs. It is shown in some detail in photo 19610022 where it can be identified as immediately to the east of Trench A (as confirmed in the 1961 report) suggesting a position below the window opening to the west of the Georgian eastern north elevation doorway. Photo 19610011 with the pre-destruction photograph taken from the north-west may indicate the existence of a brick plinth to the full length of the original Georgian façade.
Two of the excavation photographs (photos 19610004 and 19610006) show the general position of the eastern north elevation doorway from the north-west. The excavators noted its assumed position as correlating to a gap in the foundation walling, directly adjoining the western extremity of the bay window. The 1961 report comments that the two brick projections seen in these photographs to the west of the bay perhaps supported the doorstep. This seems likely. The doorstep of the western Georgian doorway seen in one of the pre-destruction photographs seems to have been of stone with some evidence of forward projection which may have necessitated brick footings.
The post-bomb damage photograph (PE00**) may show, in respect of the ground floor, a door arch to the eastern fireplace alcove of the proposed third bay of the main range. Given the quality of the photograph this can only be speculative but it can be noted that this feature, if it existed in this location, corresponds to an area of differentiated brickwork at foundation level noted by the excavators and recorded in photos 19660022 and 19660023. A cill foundation, however, is not immediately apparent here. It is likely that the south wall of the entire bay was of brick to the level of the first floor, closing the bay walls to other side of the stack.
See also 5.11.1 below on evidence for a door opening in the south wall of the main range within the proposed fourth bay, and in line with the eastern doorway of the north front.
5.7 Evidence for internal door positions and intercommunication between bays main range The excavation photography is difficult to interpret in this regard. It is unhelpful in respect of the area of the proposed first to third bays, and, in any event, for the building history here proposed, openings to the east could, at earlier periods, have been external doorways to garden or yard ground. Photograph 19640041 may show a brick partition ground wall/ foundation or a possible cill foundation for an internal doorway within the proposed fourth bay but this is very speculative. (PE00** of the farmhouse after bomb damage taken from the south-east does appear to show a doorway providing intercommunication between the third and fourth bays as proposed).
5. 8 Foundations and walling of outshuts
5.8.1 South wall A section of the foundation walling to the western end of the most westerly southern outshut is shown in photo 19640036 viewed from the south-west. The brickwork in this position has the appearance of more modern work, perhaps eighteenth century or later, with a depth below the external ground level of approximately three feet. The wall in this position seems to have acted in part, and at least in more recent times, as a retaining wall, (see photo 19640049 of a more easterly section of this wall with root growth intrusive at some seven or eight courses above assumed internal ground level). There is no evidence here of a splayed footing. The internal faces of two sections of the southern outshut wall, lying to the south of proposed bays three and two, are shown in 19640023, 19640040 and 19640049 (east) and 19640047 (west). There is some possible evidence of discontinuity (perhaps infill or remaking) to these sections, which may suggest the position of original or earlier openings (see Section 5.9 below).
5.8.2 North-south walls Photos 19640040, 19640046 and 19640051, with other photographs, show a section of brick footing orientated north-south and running from the main range south wall. This appears to have been the main dividing wall between the proposed original east and west outshut areas, which is seen, as reduced to at or just below the bedding level of the ‘tiled floor’, in the general view of the western outshut area in photo 19620002. In this photograph there is some indication that the tiles overran the line of this wall close to the south wall of the western outshut, possibly suggesting intercommunication between the two outshut areas at the time the floor was in use. The upper course visible in this north-south footing in 19620002 is brick laid on edge. A six foot section of the north return from the south-west angle is shown in 19640009 and 19640013.
5.9 Possible external door positions of outshuts to south of proposed bays two and three The 1962 excavation report states that there were traces of a doorway on the east side of the ‘tiled floor’, in the south-eastern corner of the outshut area to the south of the proposed bay three.
Closely proximate to this feature an infilled door opening may be indicated in the adjacent southern wall (see especially photos 19620003 [tiled floor area before excavation], 19640010, 19640012 & 13, 19640023 and 19640037). Although this remains speculative, the variation in the lay (and type) of the flooring (to the left and east) shown in photo 19620003 seems to support this conjecture. There is, however, some concern about the adequacy of head height clearance for a door in this position, for an assumed conventional ‘lean-to’ outshut construction. If there was a door here, notwithstanding the passage-like effect of the lay of the floor tiling, it may be of later introduction, after significant alteration of the outshut structure amended head-room in this position.
Additionally, there seems to be some indication of an infilled or remade panel to the southern wall of the most westerly outshut area (again, see photos 19640012 & 13, 19640021 and also 19640026). This may have butted to the line of the north-south orientated footing, spanning the greater part of the rest of the western section of the south wall. The land immediately behind the possible door opening, to judge by the excavation photography, was heavily embanked by 1961 (see photo 19640049) and photo 19640009 shows an apparent continuation of banking to the west. This, however, could be a topsoil accumulation, hinted at by the stratification visible in the latter photograph.
The presence of the path noted in Section 5.11.3 below supports the likelihood of a door opening or means of entry on the west wall of the western outshut area, closer to the south wall of the main range than the southern limit of the outshut. In support of this, the floor tiling seen in 19640010 within the outshut appears to continue over the line of the western outshut wall, orientated with the line of the path. Photo 19640015 appears to support this interpretation, where the line of the north-south wall is continued as a sub ground footing only towards the main range junction.
5.10 Intercommunication between outshuts to south of proposed bays two and three See Section 5.11.2.1 below.
5.11 Flooring and walking surfaces
5.11.1 Within main range In the discussion of Trench B (principally within the proposed third bay) in the 1961 excavation report, the excavators comment on a ‘mortar’ bed ‘which perhaps once contained the tiles that are known to have been laid.’ This is stated to be beneath a burnt layer, (a burnt layer is also reported in the discussion of Trench E). There is no mention of any tiles or other form of solid floor covering found in situ or disturbed in Trench B and the basis for the statement about the tiles is not elaborated.
Photos 19640042, 19640048 and 19640052 show brick flooring in position against the south wall in the south-east corner of the proposed ‘first bay’. Approximately fifteen inches below this floor, and again shown in the last two photographs above, pebbles were found in a configuration suggestive of an area of cobbled floor. This layer does not appear to have been recorded by the excavators as of significant extent and appears from the photography to lie below natural ground. It may therefore have been a natural deposit.
A further feature may be speculatively identified within the footprint of the proposed fourth (easternmost) bay aligned with and potentially at a compatible level with paving excavated in situ within the footprint of the south-eastern (early 19th c. or later?) outshut building. Both features are orientated north-south, positioned immediately to the east of the proposed later seventeenth century gable with its own outshut to the south. A flagstone (possibly aligned centrally to a door opening) and brick paving can be tentatively identified in photos 19640037, 19640038 and 19640041, and the interpretation of a walking surface taken from these photographs seems to be confirmed in photos 19660009 and 19660010 which show an area slightly further east, exposed after demolition of the ‘east greenhouse’. 19640009 shows an adjacent area of paving immediately beyond the south wall, which may be associated with a possible walking surface shown in 19640038 immediately to the west. There is some indication from 19640037 that this paving is substantially below the final occupation flooring level for the south-eastern outshut (conservatory/garden room area), possibly suggesting that the paving to the south of the south wall (main range) was once external paving or within an earlier outshut structure. Photos 19640037 and 19640041, by providing possible evidence of door cills or partition line foundations, one aligned with the main range south wall and the other some seven to eight feet to the north, approximately at the mid point between the main range south and north wall alignments, reinforce the possibility that this is indeed part of the proposed fourth bay ground floor passage.
Photo 19640037 may show an area of flooring in the south-west corner of the proposed fourth bay abutting what may be a doorway position to the south (see above). This presents as bricks laid flat with what appears to be a small flagstone adjacent. The area is shown again in photo 19660010 after demolition of the post-war ‘east greenhouse’.
5.11.2 Within rear additions
5.11.2.1 ‘Tiled Floor’ area – This lay within an outshut to the south of the proposed third bay. It is described in the 1962 excavation report as ‘a damaged brick and red tile floor’ with dimensions of approximately eleven feet nine inches north to south and twelve feet seven inches east to west. This dimension can be assumed to include the area in the north-west corner, not covered by tiles as cleared prior to excavation, which appears to have been an oven or similar feature. Some 60 per cent or so of the brick and tile covering (excluding the area of the possible oven) appears to have been in situ at the start of the 1962 season after ground clearance preliminary to the excavation. A section to the south and east, three and a half feet east to west and six feet north to south, is stated to be almost entirely laid with bricks ‘of various shades’ of average dimension eight by four by three inches. The red tiles are described as being some ‘four inches by two’, but with considerable variation. No third dimension is provided and the photography does not seem to confirm the size given.
The report suggests that the north-south wall to the west may have been reduced to allow a continuation of this floor into the outshut area to the west, a possibility seemingly confirmed by photos 19620002 and 19620004. It is also possible, however, that this feature represented continuous flooring through a doorway into the western area.
The excavation report states that the tiles were bedded on sand ‘under which was a not universal layer of small shingle’, with the area to the north of the brick and tile drain in the north east corner having ‘a much heavier concentration of pebbles than the rest of the area…’. ‘Natural’ ground is given as appearing at an average depth of two feet, with the disturbed ground producing a wealth of pottery and small finds.
5.11.2.2 Western area of south outshut Photos 19640010, 19640012, 19640013 and 19640021 show a somewhat irregularly laid tiled floor, with some larger tiles or small flagstones in the extreme south-west corner. There is some indication that indented paving blocks of a type similar to mid and later nineteenth century examples are visible in this area (eastern side in photographs), see photo 19640026 and the edge profiles shown in photos 19640028 and 19640030 of Trenches 4 & 5, eastern section. Photo19640010 provides the best panoramic view, with a hint that a flag stone path from the yard to the west at some point led into the outshut area to an area of flooring subject to local making or remaking distinct from the tiles and flags to the south and the north.
5.11.3 Path and yard to south-west angle These features were positioned west of the outshuts to the south of the main range. Photos 19640009 and 19640015 show what may be the vestige of a flagged path running east-west, positioned next to a possible cobbled surfaces both to its south and north (nearer to the main range of the house). This area lies south of the proposed ‘second bay’. South of the eastern portion of the proposed ‘first bay’ is an area of carefully laid brick or tile hard standing, also seen in 19640009, with the lay or ‘coursing’ clearly orientated north-south. This is visible to within eight feet or so of the south-western angle of the main range, but is then obscured in the photography by the trunk stump of a tree or large shrub, with earth banking and other root systems further to the west. The eastern extremity of this feature can be seen in photos 19620005, 19620006 and 19620007 (Trench H). This feature may possibly have been associated with a use of the western end of the main range as a brewing house, or was simply a desirable extension of hard standing.
5.12 ‘Western greenhouse’ A single 4’’ ceramic floor tile with quarter indentation to its face is visible in photo 19640008, possibly a remnant of the greenhouse floor.
5.13 Fireplace – proposed ‘third bay’ A number of the excavation photographs corroborate an anticipated position for a large fireplace feature within the proposed ‘third bay’. Photos 19620010 and 19620011 show, respectively, features which may be interpreted as the west and east cheek projections at foundation level, with what may be a section either of the fireback or its footing in the second photograph, seemingly very carefully laid. Photos 19640038, 19640045, 19640051, 19640056, and 19640060 show remains of the fireplace as progressively revealed.
19640038: Eastern fireplace cheek projection in relation to what is proposed as footings of ‘third bay’ east gable wall. There is some indication that the footprint of the full cheek projection at foundation level is shown here. 19640045: While somewhat difficult to locate, this shot is believed to be a view of the eastern cheek projection at its alcove junction with the south wall. It provides a detailed view of the lower foundation coursing.
19640051: Western fireplace cheek projection, with adjoining alcove and with ‘oven’ feature in eastern outshut area behind. INSERT POSS PHOTO 19640056: Considered with 19620011 this close up of the eastern cheek projection (from the north-west) appears to demonstrate four courses of fairly regular English bond.4 (See also 19640060 for this). 19640060: This photograph shows the more partial survival of the western cheek projection at base foundation level: the adjoining section of north-south walling appears to have suffered similar destruction. INSERT PHOTO
No readily identifiable evidence survives for the two eastern ground floor fireplaces which the pre-destruction photography, showing the position and orientation of the eastern chimney stack, suggests were located against the east gable end.
No record of the western fireplace/s survives, other than the pre-destruction photography which records the stack position.
5.14 Possible additional fireplace or ‘oven’ This feature was found in the north-west corner of the area named by the excavators as the ‘tiled floor’. On clearance in 1962 there was no overlay of tiles in this area. Described as a rectangular grouping of bricks ‘one inch below the level of the tiles’ with a central depression, its general dimensions are given in the 1962 excavation report as five feet six inches north to south and six feet one inch east to west. The area of the feature is shown before excavation in photos 19620002 and 19620004 and as excavated in photos 19640040, 19640050, 19640061 and 19640064. Its position in the north-west corner of the outshut area south of the proposed third bay placed it in an offset back-to-back position to the main range stack. INSERT PHOTO – 19640050
5.15 Possible housing for a ‘copper’ (described at one point by the excavators as a possible ‘cess’ but this does not seem probable) to south-east corner of the final farmhouse footprint. This feature, found within Trench 20, is seen in photos 19660019, 19660020 and 19660025. It is also shown in section and plan in an archive drawing dated 12 August 1966, identifying it as of brick and tile construction. The floor of the structure was some two feet below what is interpreted as the later nineteenth century floor level. The position of this structure is a little difficult to gauge, but it seems to be on the northern margin of an assumed position for the conservatory or garden room seen in the pre-destruction photography of the south elevation. If so, it seems most likely that the feature predates this structure, although its relative proximity to the small chimneystack seen in line with and immediately to the south of the eastern gable of the main building should be noted. It seems to have been of rudimentary construction, as excavated. Its level and form suggest it was of earlier date than the nineteenth century structure which later occupied this part of the site.
5.16 Unidentified feature Trench 19/20 Photo 19660021, described as of the south-east corner of Trench 19/20, shows a circular feature, hard to interpret and principally an imprint in the bottom of the trench, of perhaps twenty inches in diameter, at some two feet below what appears to be a brick path or foundation level. If accurately described, this feature would have been located outside the final footprint of the farmhouse close to the south-east corner of the main east-west range.
5.17 Cellar
This appears to have lain within the footprint of a ‘new’ later eighteenth century splayed bay and was almost certainly constructed at the same time. The general position of the cellar is illustrated in photo 19610008. The three uppermost brick steps are seen in 19610009 and 19610010, with a set back arrangement of the risers to treads visible to at least the two upper steps. The 1961 excavation report seems to indicate that the upper two cellar steps (at least) retained ‘wooden slats’ when exposed, which were interpreted as nosings placed to facilitate the movement of barrels. The cellar as more extensively excavated in 1966 is shown in photos 19660028 and 19660030, with what appears to be demolition debris obscuring the line of its south wall in the later photograph. This picture confirms that the north internal cellar wall lay directly below the north face of the bay. The excavation rod shown positioned in front of this wall suggests a possible depth for the cellar floor of some six feet below an estimated level for Hinge’s Yard. 19660030 shows the east cellar wall seemingly built on a line directly inside the line of the bay return to the east gable.
5.18 Evidence for domestic and other drainage within Site 15 The main drainage features are as follows:
Feature A A deeply laid drain carefully constructed out of two courses of brick on a tile base, orientated north-south and positioned within the outshut area to the south of the proposed fourth bay. Photo 19660017 (5 August 1966) does not seem to indicate any cover to the top of the feature. From photo 19660029 (20 August 1966) it appears to be approximately two feet below the lowest course of the outshut south wall and perhaps seven inches below the foundation of an east-west wall as it crossed Trench 17/18, assumed to be the south wall of the proposed fourth bay of the main range and as illustrated in the stratigraphic section drawn by ‘A.F.T.’ held within the archive. This drawing also shows no cover to the feature. 19660024 (Trench 18 from the south) provides a view of the drain as apparently cut by the line of an east-west wall, probably the footing of the proposed fourth bay partition wall. The line of the drain, if continued north, would have brought it to the yard. Continued south, it would have brought it to the head of the northern pond shown in the 1789 Rankin and Johnson estate plan (PE00**), some 110 feet to the south within the Hall Field. The tile base is of sufficient width to allow walls of two bricks laid flat rather than on edge, with tile projections to the east in photo 19660024 of some three to four inches.
No indication of direction of flow can be deduced from the excavation archive records, but the purpose may have been drainage from the level of the yard towards the south.
Feature B Photo 19660026 shows a ditch following a similar line and at a similar depth some two feet to the west. This would also have been positioned to the east of the ‘tiled floor’ outshut.
Feature C Photo 19660029 also shows a drain of rectangular form constructed of brick and tile, but with the side formed by brick on edge rather than two courses laid flat, underlying the south outshut wall, with its brick cover some seven inches below the lower foundation course. It appears to be broadly orientated north-south in line with the ditch feature, but with the base tile some twelve inches above its larger counterpart to the east.
Feature D The 1962 excavation report records that a brick and tile drain was found beneath the ‘tiled floor’ area at a depth of about eleven inches orientated approximately north-east to south-west. The report states that it was not possible to determine the direction of flow. From photos 19620014 (Trench M), 19640024 and 19640053 it is difficult to establish either the uniformity of the bricks used for the drain wall or definitively whether they were laid flat or brick on edge, but photographs 19640060, 19640063, 19660006 and 19660008 more positively suggest brick on edge. A sketch on a card note within the archive referenced to C.E.F. 1962 and ‘Report p. 4’, titled brick and tile drain, shows the form of the walls as brick on edge and this would be a more likely configuration for a brick and tile drain of smaller dimension. The photographs do not show any cover to the construction. Photo 19640053 appears to show this drain in relation to Feature A, beneath the ‘east greenhouse’, the latter at a depth of some two feet beneath the post-destruction ground level, with Feature D passing above. There is some suggestion from the 1966 pictures that this feature follows a curve to re-orientate north-south (see 19660009) but its closeness to the surface by the time it reached the south wall of the main range (that of the proposed fourth bay) leaves open the question as to whether it ever proceeded further north or had an origin close to the line of the south wall.
Feature E A gully or drain opening is shown in photo 19620014 to the south side of the ‘tiled floor’ area, close to the south wall. This is described in the 1962 excavation report as a ’fairly modern drain’ with no trace of pipework to or from it found in the areas excavated within the outshut.
Feature F The 1962 excavation report states that traces of a drain were found in the south-west corner of the ‘tiled floor’ area ‘but very little of it remained’. No further detail is provided and there is no identifiable photographic evidence of this feature.
Feature G Drainage at a depth of nearly six and a half feet broadly orientated east-west, approximately four and a half feet out from and parallel to the north elevation of the farmhouse, is possibly yard drainage in this position. It is inferred from the photography (photo 19610015, Trench A) to be of clay pipe sections.
Feature H The possible remnant of a brick (and possibly stone) drain or gully was exposed seemingly immediately below the foundations of the north wall (main range) in the vicinity of the most westerly doorway, which is believed to have been modified from the earlier Georgian window opening (see 5. above and photo 19610012). This feature is to the east of the western rainwater downpipe position seen in the pre-destruction photographs of Hinge’s Yard. There is no indication from the archive records of a tile or other base to the feature and if this is part of a drainage run there is regrettably no other direct evidence to assist interpretation of its purpose in this position. This feature may have been covered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the walking surface of a raised footway seen in the pre-destruction photographs. It could conceivably be a survival of part of that structure.
5.19 Barrel pits (external to the assumed farmhouse ‘footprint’) – These features were