Summary

The two cottages were formerly one late medieval 4-bay dwelling with a two-bay central hall, one bay at least of which was open to the roof as a smoke bay.  The roof trusses are largely complete throughout, including heavily smoke-blackened battens and thatch (which rarely survives).

The original domestic arrangements are not clear due to it being subdivided, with the insertion of brick stacks, but it seems probable that a cross passage existed at the NE end of the hall where there is evidence for a blocked doorway at the rear.  One or more early windows survive at the NE end.

Description

The building is built of local limestone rubble, with a thatched roof.  It is set back from Market Square, and may have fronted a driftway into the common fields.

Each cottage now consists of two bays and were clearly converted at the same time by inserting rear bathrooms and new floors supported on elm spine beams and joists. Thus, the original layout can only be ascertained from the roof structure augmented by some window positions.  It seems highly probable that it was initially built of stone, although there is a fragment of a vertical stud visible externally by the bathroom window of No 3.  As it is such a small fragment there may well be another explanation.

The trusses are numbered on the plan.

The cottages form a single block, spanning 5.34m and 15.85m long, - not an insubstantial house.

Truss 1 (No. 3, Barnwell) has an additional vertical member between collar and crossed apex, and had a vertical stud (now absent) between collar and tie beam. The raking struts are scratch-marked III and II at the collar joint, suggesting assembly off-site.  

The centre of Truss 2 on the party wall has been cut away to insert the stack. Most of the original rafters survive over Cottage No 2, laid on their x-x axis, generally well squared; over cottage No 3, the rafters were of  hedgerow timbers, 4”-6” diameter, retaining the bark, split in half and laid flat side down on the purlins). The upper part of these has been cut off above the lower purlin.

Below the collar, on all trusses, wattle and daub infilling survives, as heavily sooted as the trusses themselves.

The bathroom window in the rear wall replaces a blocked doorway with well formed quoins, suggesting a point of entry to the house.  If this is so, and if the front window of the sitting room of No 2 is its counterpart (assuming the house had front and back entry points), then the location of the fireplace between the entry points is unusual, and may just be inevitable in a relatively small building.

Truss 3. at the centre of cottage 2, is less heavily sooted on the end bay side, and this may indicate it was the original parlour end of the building. 
It may not have had an upper floor, as one window on the back wall of No 2 does not relate to any reasonable position for an upper floor line, having its sill at approximately 1.7m above the ground floor and its head at c.2.75m.  This rear window seems to have been unglazed, and had a vertical ?timber mullion.  There is a second splayed window in the gable end (now at the end of the landing), set higher as appropriate for two storeys.

In Cottage No 3, the present kitchen was probably the SW end of the open hall which extended through to Cottage 2, which rose full height to the ridge as a smoke bay.

What is not clear is whether the narrow bay (between trusses 1-2) was ceiled, augmenting the first floor accommodation, as the evidence was removed when the central back-to-back stack was introduced.  There are no windows at unexplained heights at this end of the building.  The centre truss of Cottage No 3 is also blackened by smoke. 

The party wall still retains the remains of the collar beam, cut when the brick stack was inserted, and below it is infilled with wattle and daub, also heavily sooted. 

Conclusions

It seems clear that the early house was open right through above collar level, hence the spread of the smoke blackening, but below the collar all the truss frames were infilled with wattle and daub.  The leaking of smoke at high level through the house is not unusual – and can be seen in practice today at the reconstructed Winkhurst building at the Weald and Downland Museum.

The underside of the thatch is heavily smoke encrusted within the smoke bay, and the straw has clearly has not been renewed to foundation since it was first built.  It is secured by being tied on with withies to split oak laths, each up to 42mm wide.  Survival of medieval thatch is a rare phenomenon. The thatch over cottage No 3 has been replaced with reed.

A house with an ‘L’ shaped (in section) hall, together with the heavy degree of smoke encrustation seen in the smoke bay suggests a mid 15th to early 16th century date for the initial construction of this building.  A more precise date might be obtained by tree-ring analysis from cores from selected timbers, although this widely used technique has not been particularly successful in this area for the late medieval period.

Externally, a well was located in the front garden of No. 3.

During some building works which coincidentally located the blocked rear window in No 2, a collection of small mammal bones were located, together with fragmentary lace bobbins, buckles etc. These have yet to be identified, but as they were bundled together, they have the appearance of being a apotropaic (magic-inducing) deposit.

History

A Nicholas and an Isabel Barnwell are recorded by their wills as being in the parish in 1541 and 1555.  The date at which Nos. 2 and 3 became known as Barnwell’s Buildings is not known, but they appear as such in census returns from 1841.  It seems that this building was acquired at some point by the Feoffee Charity (which was formed in 1868 from a charity created by Isabel Barnwell in 1555). 

Recognition of the antiquity of Barnwell Buildings was acknowledged by the Gothic lettering on the 1881 OS map (a convention used for pre-1688 structures). They were in the same enclosure as Stafford House on a 1779 map, and shown as owned by the ‘Trustees of Hanslop Poor’, and recorded as “The Hospital or a Tenement”.  Strangely, Barnwell Buildings are shown in outline only on the 1779 map, unlike all other buildings, including Stafford House.  On the 1818 map Barnwell Buildings still appear in the same enclosure as Stafford House, but now drawn like all other buildings, described as “The Poor House, Tenements, etc” and belonging to the “Poor of Hanslope” (which is assumed to mean the charities).