Inspirational homes (3) by Carolyn Hughes

The “inspirational homes” I discussed in my previous two posts represented the sort of mediaeval houses that might have been lived in by the poorer members of society and those of the “middling sort”. We saw how the way of life afforded by the homes of the wealthier members of society included more space, a little more privacy, a degree of greater warmth and light. The peasants might have thought the homes of the yeoman farmer and the merchant offered unbridled luxury compared to their own modest houses, even if, to us, those “luxurious” houses still seem distinctly lacking in comfort.

So what of the houses of the gentry? I am not considering here the great castles and palaces of the aristocracy, for none of the characters in my novels have such high status. But my novels do have knights and their ladies, the sort of people who held manors big and small, some of which (though not all) included a manor house. Manor houses might have been relatively modest, scarcely much different from the yeoman’s farmstead, Bayleaf, that I described last month. Others might have been quite grand, almost castle-like, with high crenellated walls, towers and moats. And of course there were manor houses of all sizes in between. But what perhaps they all had in common at this period was that they were centred around a main great hall, had a number of other rooms and most likely a solar on the first floor.

These posts concern buildings that have “inspired” me in my writing about the homes in which my characters live. For the previous two posts, the houses I discussed came from either the Weald and Downland Museum in West Sussex, or English Heritage. In today’s post, the “inspirational home” again comes from English Heritage.

Stokesay Castle is a 13th century fortified manor house 7.5 miles (12 km) north-west of Ludlow in Shropshire. It is perhaps not quite the right style for a Hampshire manor house, but nonetheless I love it and its interior in particular lives in my head as I write about the homes of my lords and ladies. 

Stokesay Castle, Shropshire
By Andrew Mathewson, CC BY-SA 2.0

This wonderful building was constructed in the 1280/90s. It was extended and refurbished during the 17th century, but it is the 13th century aspects of the house that are my “inspiration”. The house is another merchant’s house, built at almost exactly the same time as John Fortin’s house in Southampton, which we saw last month. In Shropshire, the wool merchant Laurence of Ludlow, one of the richest men in England, bought the manor of Stokesay in 1281, and soon embarked upon building his grand house.

Ten years or so later he obtained a licence to crenellate – or fortify – his house. Although Edward I’s conquest of Wales in 1284 meant that there was now relative peace in the border counties, it seems that bands of thieves continued to roam the countryside and Laurence wanted to ensure that his new house was secure. However, the fortifications did not detract from Laurence’s apparent desire also to demonstrate his sophistication and wealth.

The house is surrounded by a walled moat, though it is not clear if it ever actually held water. An entrance through a gatehouse (17th century, though there was probably an earlier one) leads into the courtyard or bailey. The huge courtyard area (the grass in the photographs would not of course have been there) would have contained additional buildings, such as a kitchen, bakehouse and storerooms.

The main house has an enormous hall and an upper private solar area, and there is a tower at each end of the main building, also containing various private rooms and facilities like privies. To the south is a high crenellated tower, and to the north a tower whose roof balances that of the solar block at the other end of the main central building. On the west side of the building, however, the upper storey of this north tower juts out in a grand jetty. You can see this jettying in the first photo.

By Tony Harrison from Farnborough, UK -
Stokesay Castle Shropshire IMG_8744, CC BY-SA 2.0

By LisaPB73 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

The great hall lies between the north tower and the solar block, beneath the wide span of roof that you can see in the picture above. On the east wall, overlooking the bailey, are four pointed gables, three of which have double lancet windows with a circular light at the top.

The vast space of the great hall has a magnificent cruck roof. Originally, the curving timber beams that hold up the roof – the “crucks” – reached further down the walls than they do now. Apparently they were replaced with stone in the 19th century when they began to rot. Nonetheless the roof is one of the glories of the hall.

Chris Gunns/Stokesay Castle, the great hall/CC BY-SA 2.0

By Nick Hubbard - Stokesay Castle-21
Uploaded by AlbertHerring, CC BY 2.0

The high windows on the east side of the hall are matched by others on the west wall, making the great space really very light. Today, the windows are fully glazed, but originally it is likely that glass was put only in the top windows, leaving the lower ones to be covered by shutters in cold or wet weather.

Another of the hall’s glories is the wonderful staircase, most of which is original – that is, remarkably, its treads are over 700 years old! It leads to the upper rooms in the north tower. You can get a splendid view of the hall from the top of the staircase. But it is possible that, on special occasions, minstrels played on the gallery area at the top of the stairs.

It is imagined that the lord, Laurence, and his family and guests would have dined at a table set at the opposite end of the hall from the staircase. This table might well have been raised up from the floor on a dais. The rest of the household would sit at tables set along the side walls. The central hearth – octagonal in shape – was located in middle of the U shape of the tables, the smoke apparently curling up and out of an opening in the roof. I suppose that with the room being so very large, one might not have really noticed the unpleasantness of the smoke. Though it might also be true that the fire would have struggled to heat such an enormous, and enormously high, space!

It is thought that a timber screen might have been installed between the dining area and the staircase, sheltering the diners from the draughts coming from the great main door, which gave access out into the courtyard and the kitchens. It might also allow for the dishes being brought in from the kitchen to be given a discreet last-minute once-over to ensure they met Laurence’s undoubtedly high standards.

The north tower reached by the staircase has its original tiled floor and the remains of wall paintings. Interestingly (given that the great hall has a central hearth), there is a fireplace on a wall in both of the upper rooms. The top floor room overhangs the one beneath by means of a supported jetty on three sides (see the first photograph), although the windows themselves were added in the 17th century.

At the southern end of the hall is the two-storey solar block, which it is thought Laurence and his family used as their private living area until the south tower was built. The ground floor of the block contains what was probably a storeroom. The upper room of the block was refurbished in the 17th century, converting it into a panelled chamber, so sadly there is no sense of how it originally appeared. This room was accessed by an external staircase (the existing one is not original), and it seems that the staircase was sheltered by a “pentice”, a sloping roof attached to the wall. You can see the line of it in the photograph below, just underneath the cut-off window.

The Solar, Stokesay Castle
By Tony Grist - Photographer's own files, CC0

Beyond the solar block is the tall south tower, the most castle-like part of the house, built perhaps as a further demonstration of Laurence’s power and taste. But it was also where he moved his private quarters.

The room on the first floor has six windows giving views in almost every direction. Four of them are large enough to accommodate window seats, where – with a cushion or two, perhaps – it must have been very pleasant to sit on sunny days. But the windows were not glazed and had to rely on shutters to keep the heat in and the weather out. Fireplaces and access to a privy were provided for both this room and the one on the floor above. Plenty of mod cons!

By LisaPB73 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sadly in some ways, English Heritage hasn’t attempted to furnish the mediaeval parts of Stokesay Castle, although there are a few pieces of furniture in the solar refurbished in the 17th century. It would be wonderful in particular to see the great hall furnished with cloth-covered tables, and benches, perhaps great tapestries on the walls, and to have a fire burning in the hearth, as they do in the houses at the Weald and Downland Museum. But I must put my disappointment aside and simply use my imagination and try to visualise what life in this wonderful building must have been like.

Clearly, Laurence of Ludlow’s fortified manor house was state-of-the-art in the 13th century. The grandeur of Stokesay Castle is undisputed, but the comforts of fireplaces and privies, the light offered by the large windows, the availability of lots of space and even a little more privacy, all of these surely contribute to its status as luxurious accommodation? But one presumes that, on his manor, while there might have been a few relatively affluent villeins whose homes were closer to the Bayleaf farmhouse we saw last month, the majority of his tenants undoubtedly lived out their lives in one of those small, dark, smoky cottages – with no luxury at all.

https://www.wealddown.co.uk/

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk

Inspirational homes (2) by Carolyn Hughes

“Inspirational homes” might suggest a strapline blazoned across the front of a glossy décor magazine. But the sort of inspiration I’m talking about here is where real-life ancient buildings “inspire” me in my descriptions of the homes of the characters in my novels, which are set in 14th century southern England.

Last month, I discussed two buildings, found at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex, that are my inspiration for the homes of rural peasants. Today, I am going to discuss two houses of somewhat higher standing: one the home of a well-to-do farming family and the other that of a wealthy Southampton merchant.

Both of these wealthier homes have two storeys, with a main “hall” downstairs and a “solar”, a private area for the family, upstairs. Both have additional rooms and, by comparison with the cottages, are really very spacious. Yet such homes would still be draughty and cold underfoot, the hearth might still be in the middle of the floor (though chimneys were beginning to be installed in wealthier homes), and the windows might still be pretty small and were almost certainly unglazed.

The Bayleaf Farmstead, again at the Weald and Downland Museum, is a reconstruction of an early 15th century hall-house, and is typical of “Wealden” houses, common in the Weald of Kent and East Sussex, which were mostly built by prosperous yeoman farmers or well-off craftsmen and tradesmen in towns.

Keith Edkins / Bayleaf wealden house / CC BY-SA 2.0

Bayleaf comes from Chiddingstone, about 10 miles (16 km) north-west of Tunbridge Wells in Kent. The house is timber-framed with a tiled roof, and is constructed with four bays, two of which form the central hall, full height to the rafters. The outer bays are both two-storey, and the upper rooms have “jetties” to the front of the house. To one side of the central hall is what is referred to as the “parlour”, with a solar upstairs. On the other side of the hall are ground floor service rooms, with a large chamber on the first floor.

The main door of the house opens into a cross passage, which separates the central hall from the service rooms, and has a door at its other end leading to the rear of the house.

The central hall is significantly bigger than the two peasants’ cottages I described last month. It is open to the rafters, and has a rather grand double-height – but unglazed – window, with hinged and folding internal shutters, that provides good light for the dining table. Overall the effect is impressive. Nonetheless, this hall does still have a central hearth, shown as a rectangle of bricks more or less in the middle of the floor. Because, I suppose, the room is bigger than the halls in the peasant cottages, the smoke from the fire – which was burning nicely when I visited – did not seem quite so unpleasant. The smoke was rising upwards (rather than billowing), escaping perhaps through the small gabled opening in the roof ridge, although, as I have read elsewhere, it is possible that much of the smoke simply finds its way out through gaps between the roof tiles.

While this central hall is still the main living area, there are other “living rooms” (in contrast to the peasant cottages): the parlour to one side of the hall and the solar above it. The family was not obliged to spend their whole lives in this one room, grand as it is. It would certainly be the dining room, and where the family would receive guests, and where everyday domestic tasks might be carried out. But sleeping would be done elsewhere – probably upstairs – and perhaps family members could escape from each other occasionally to the parlour.

It is thought that initially some cooking may have taken place on the fire in the hall but, by the 16th century, the kitchen, used for brewing and baking as well as cooking meals, would have been in a separate building, for safety’s sake.

The furniture and furnishing in Bayleaf’s hall reflects the relative wealth of the occupants. The wide trestle table is laid with a cloth, the bench and stools are well made. There is a decorated cupboard, with pewter ware displayed, and a solid storage chest. Curtains hang on the walls behind the table, presumably for decoration but also to combat draughts.

On the other side of the cross passage, doors lead into the service rooms: the buttery, used mainly for storing vessels and utensils, and the pantry, used for storing food. A stairway at the back leads up to the chamber above, its original use being unknown, but perhaps used as a bedchamber for servants and/or the older children of the family.

At the other side of the hall, an opening by the high table – closed with a curtain rather than a wooden door – leads to the “parlour”. The downstairs room may have been used for sleeping, storage and work, such as spinning for the lady of the house and accounts for the master. The room upstairs, the “solar”, was probably where the family slept, that is, the master, his wife and their younger children. Older children might have slept in the parlour or perhaps in the service chamber at the other side of the house.

Interestingly, the upstairs solar is shown with its own privy. The museum says that the reconstruction of this privy is conjectural, but it is not unlikely. A small jetty at the back of the room indicates where the privy might have been. Typically, the latrine emptied onto the midden heap or into an open cesspit or a covered conduit. Sometimes such privies were installed in a room referred to as a “garderobe”, essentially a wardrobe, on the principle that the odour of urine kept pests away from valuable clothing. This doesn’t seem to be the case here. However, if the reconstruction is anything to go by, this privy was exceedingly draughty, but perhaps preferable to finding your way outdoors to the privy in the garden!

   

Oast House Archive / Jettied Toilet of Bayleaf House / CC BY-SA 2.0

Oast House Archive / Toilet of Bayleaf House / CC BY-SA 2.0

The furniture in the parlour and solar reflects the rooms’ most likely use, with beds and storage chests. The “best” bed in the solar chamber is a wonderful robust four-poster, with a ceiling (a “tester”) and curtains for privacy and to keep out draughts. The bed in the parlour is of a simpler design without the posts or hangings. The principal bed is shown with a truckle, a bed on wheels that slides underneath the larger bed, often used by the younger children.

Bayleaf is a beautiful house. I often have it in my mind when I’m thinking about the homes of the more well-to-do in my novels.

I also love the late 13th century Mediaeval Merchant’s House in French Street, Southampton, managed by English Heritage. The shape and style of this house sometimes merges with that of Bayleaf in my head when I’m thinking about the homes of my wealthier characters, although this merchant’s house is clearly more of a town house than Bayleaf.

Medieval Merchant's House, Southampton
By Geni - Photo by user:geni, CC BY-SA 4.0

The house was built in about 1290 by John Fortin, a prosperous merchant, and has survived largely intact. The main walls of the house were built of limestone but the overhanging bay at the front of the house is timber-framed. The roof is of Cornish slate.

This house does have some similarities with Bayleaf: it is spacious, has private family rooms and its furniture is well-made and relatively elaborate. But this house also acted as business premises for the owner, for it has a shop at the front and a room at the back that was probably used as an office, as well as an undercroft beneath the house for the storage of the merchant’s goods: barrels of wine! A wooden sign in the shape of a wine barrel hangs from the projecting upper chamber, alerting potential customers to the goods on offer here.

The front door beside the shop front leads into a narrow passage, with a door off it into the shop, and a door ahead leading into the private accommodation. The shop has unglazed windows but also shutters which can be let down to form a shop counter to the street. The shop itself is kitted out as a wine store, but I think that customers probably did not enter the shop, making their purchases from the counter.

Beyond the inner passage door, the passage leads on to an opening to the central hall, which, as with all the other houses, was the main living room, where the family ate and entertained, and carried out their everyday tasks. As with all the houses, the room is open to the rafters. It has relatively large windows, unglazed but protected by shutters. It has a 14th century chimney, although when the house was first built it would have had a central hearth. But wall fireplaces were becoming more common by the mid-14th century, perhaps particularly in towns. Relatively spacious as this room is, one cannot help but wonder at the inconvenience of having a fire in the middle of the floor, especially for the mistress of the house, as she swept past it with her long skirts, never mind the unpleasantness of the smoke! The arrival of chimneys must have seemed a wonderful innovation.

Medieval Merchant's House - HallBy Hchc2009 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The passage continues on to a private room, probably used by the merchant as his office, which also has a fireplace. It is thought that a door led from this room to an external latrine.

The furniture in the hall consists of a long trestle table, a grand, painted throne-like chair for the master of the house, and a bench for his family. There is an elaborately carved and, surprisingly perhaps, brightly painted, cupboard, together with a couple of storage chests, hangings on the walls and an array of jugs and utensils on display. In the “office” is another table with stools, and yet another decorated cupboard and a chest.

Medieval Merchant's House - "Office"By Hchc2009 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Rising from the central hall, a substantial staircase takes you upstairs to the solar, where there are two chambers, located either side of the open hall and connected by a gallery that overlooks the hall below. The room at the back of the house is probably the bedchamber for the family, the one at the front for guests and perhaps also used as a day room by the women of the family, where the light from the relatively large window would be good for spinning or sewing.

The back bedchamber is furnished as a place for the whole family to sleep. The beds have testers and curtains, like the principal bed in Bayleaf, there is a very sturdy rocking cradle, a stool and elaborately carved and painted storage chests. There might have been a door leading to the external latrine tower.

Medieval Merchant's House - BedchamberBy Hchc2009 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

So Bayleaf and the merchant’s house in Southampton represent the homes of comparatively wealthy mediaeval people. They afforded a little more privacy for their occupants than the peasant cottages, although children still slept with their parents, or perhaps with servants, so privacy remained limited. These two houses are also much lighter than the peasant cottages, with their larger windows, but the windows were still unglazed and therefore draughty until the shutters were closed, plunging the rooms into gloom. Heating in the merchant’s house, with two fireplaces downstairs, would no doubt have seemed a great improvement over the smoky central hearth of Bayleaf. But there was no heating in any of the upstairs rooms and I assume that all the downstairs rooms would have had floors of beaten earth so I am sure these houses must have been pretty chilly for all their relative sophistication. 

Nonetheless, they surely represented luxury compared to the peasant cottages we saw last month. Next month, I will look at one house that represents the homes of the gentry – a manor house, if a fairly grand one. True luxury, perhaps?

Inspirational homes (1) by Carolyn Hughes

“Inspirational homes” might put you in mind of a strapline blazoned across the front of a glossy interior décor magazine, but that’s not the sort of inspiration I’m going to talk about. In this post, and my next two, I thought I’d reveal a little about the real-life buildings that “inspire” me as I write about the homes in which my characters spend their lives.

In my novels, set in 14th century southern England, my characters are peasants, artisans of various sorts, and the gentry. The peasants might be poor or wealthy, and free or unfree, so some are on the lowest rung of village society, whereas others, even if they owe service to their lord, are well off enough to be the equivalent of a middle class.

Depending on their station in life, these people would have lived in:

• One-roomed cottages, barely better than hovels, in which every part of life for a family was spent in the same space;
• Bigger two- or three-roomed cottages, perhaps with a platform for sleeping and possibly small storage spaces;
• Houses with two storeys, a hall downstairs, and a solar upstairs for sleeping accessed by a narrow staircase;
• Large manor houses with several rooms, but still centred on a main great hall, and with a solar perhaps divided into chambers. Some manor houses might be fortified. 

Above and beyond the manor houses there were of course great castles, but I have none of those kind of aristocratic folk in my novels, so I need no castles to inspire me!

To get some idea of what 14th century homes might look – and indeed feel – like, I am very fortunate to have quite close by, in West Sussex, the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, a living museum, whose mission is to rescue and conserve historic buildings from across the south of England. Buildings are saved from being demolished, or from simply falling down, by being carefully dismantled and rebuilt on the museum’s site. The museum has more than fifty buildings, spanning nine centuries. Most are open for you to go inside, so that you can get a real feel for what it was like to live and work in them. The museum is a wonderful resource.

As also is English Heritage, which manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and other places of historical interest, including both some modest homes and wonderful castles.

The buildings I am going to discuss in these posts can be visited either at the Weald and Downland Museum or at an English Heritage site.

Today I am going to discuss the homes at the bottom end of the scale, peasants’ cottages. Because they were the homes of the poor, and were often built of materials that were given to decay – timber, wattle and daub, thatch – few such buildings survive to the present day. Of course some houses with origins in the Middle Ages are still standing, but they were likely to have been constructed of stone, and presumably will have been maintained and refurbished over the centuries to keep them structurally sound.

Two of the five mediaeval houses re-erected at the Weald and Downland Museum are the 13th century cottage from Hangleton in Sussex and a house from Boarhunt in Hampshire that dates from the 14th century. These are both small peasant houses.

Some peasant houses might have been designed to accommodate animals in one end of the building, but that is not the case with either of these. It must be presumed that animals would have been kept in a separate byre or barn.

The two-room cottage from Hangleton is a flint cottage reconstructed using archaeological evidence from excavation of the mediaeval village. The cottage was probably built in the 13th century and abandoned in the 14th. Hangleton itself, which is about 4 miles (6.5 km) north-west of Brighton, seems to have been already in decline by the middle of the 14th century as a result of the climatic and economic upheavals of the early part of the century. The arrival of what we call the Black Death in 1348-1350 might have been the last straw.

Oast House Archive/Mediaeval Cottage at Weald & Downland Museum,
Singleton, West Sussex/CC BY-SA 2.0

Although this is an entirely flint-built cottage, other cottages from the area were built with a framework of wooden posts, and the spaces between filled with wattle and daub, though later this was replaced with flint. The walls of this cottage are about three or four feet (one to one and a half metres) high. Above the eaves is the timber framework of the roof, which is covered in thick straw thatch, although apparently the roof could have been wooden shingles or turf, some other type of thatch, or possibly even clay tiles.

The cottage has two rooms. The main room is where the family – on average five people – would have lived their entire lives: cooking their food, eating it, sleeping and carrying out all the essential tasks of everyday life. It must have been very cramped! I don’t have the exact dimensions, but I don’t think it can be much more than 15 feet (3 metres) square.

The second room has an oven, which is not usual for an ordinary cottage at a time when villagers were expected to have their bread baked in the lord’s oven, but perhaps the occupier of this house was a baker...

Most of the homes at this time (even relatively wealthy ones) would have had a hearth in the middle of the floor of the main (or only) room, and this is true of the main room here. A circular stone hearth has been laid on the floor, not quite in the middle but somewhat to one side. The room is open to the rafters, and the smoke from the fire would have risen and found its way out through the thatch. Most people assume that there would have been a hole of some sort in the roof’s ridge through which the smoke escaped, but I have read that the gaps in the thatch would have provided sufficient egress. It is also said that the smoke was good for keeping the thatch insect free, though I daresay creepy-crawlies were pretty abundant in mediaeval cottages.

The museum has dressed the room with a couple of small tables, a bench and a few stools, a fairly strong-looking chest, perhaps for storing linen, clothes and any valuables, and an array of baskets, tubs and cooking and eating utensils. Tools and other items are shown hanging from the rafters, or stored on the top of the wall, but there is clearly little space for much in the way of furniture or possessions. No bed is shown here, so we must assume that the family would lay down their pallets when they were ready for bed, at a suitable distance from the open hearth.

There is just one small window and, of course, it is not glazed. It has vertical struts offering a measure of security, and a sort of blind – oiled cloth perhaps – has been installed to keep out the weather. I suppose that a shutter might have been added for greater protection, but one isn’t shown here. It must have been very dark indoors, even with the blind open, and exceedingly gloomy with it closed. Given that these poor folk’s only source of light after sundown was the fire and smelly tallow candles or feeble rushlights, one presumes that, as soon as evening came there was no point trying do anything other than rolling out their straw pallets and seeking sleep!

I have spent a day (well, more like a few hours) in this little cottage, dressed in medieval clothes, learning how to spin, crouching round that central hearth, making soup (“sowpys dorry”) and cheese pottage. I discovered how very hot and smoky it was inside, and thought that maybe I wouldn’t have much enjoyed being a 14th century peasant...

The author, enjoying being "mediaeval" for the day

The “hall house” from Boarhunt, 7 miles (11 km) north of Portsmouth, in Hampshire, dates from the late 14th century (1355–1390). It is a bit larger than the Hangleton cottage, having three bays, and is built with a cruck frame over the middle of the central hall. In the museum’s view, this building was particularly well constructed for its size.

Keith Edkins / Boarhunt Hall / CC BY-SA 2.0

The central bay is the main living room – the “hall” – again with the hearth in the middle of the floor. The hearth is shown as a rectangle, taking up a surprisingly large portion of the space available. The roof timbers in this central hall show the blackening effects of smoke from the open fire. Although this is a somewhat larger house than Hangleton, the main living area is still quite small, say 20 feet (just over 6 metres) square. The furniture used to dress the hall is much the same as for Hangleton, and again there is no sign of a bed.

It is thought that the bay to the right of the main entrance was probably a service or storage room, while the third room accessed by a door to the left of the hall is thought to be a “solar”, a private room. This inner room has no windows, so perhaps it was simply used for sleeping. It was also completely sealed off from the smoke-filled hall, whereas the service room was only separated from the hall by a screen below cross-beam level.

I have spent time in both these buildings so, when I am writing about peasant cottages in my novels, I can recall what it felt like to be inside them and I try to replicate that feeling in my descriptions of domestic life. Some of my peasant characters do live in one- or two-room cottages, while others' houses might be a little larger. I have seen it conjectured that some people might have constructed sleeping platforms under the rafters and, liking that idea, I have given one or two of my families that arrangement. It would seem to me to be a safer place to sleep than clustered around the hearth, though it would presumably be quite unpleasantly smoky up there!

I think it would be true to say that, for mediaeval peasants, their homes would mostly be cramped from lack of space, dark from a lack of windows, smoky from the central hearth and, in bad weather, cold, draughty and damp. But I suppose that, if you know no different, you would accept that level of discomfort as simply normal, and be grateful that at least you had a place of your own in which to eat and sleep and spend time with your family.

Next time, I will discuss homes of a somewhat higher standing: one belonging to a wealthy farmer and another built by a Souhampton wine merchant.