Aids to Dating Houses in Upper Swaledale

(Richard Hunt)

20.11.17 update

    This page is an attempt to provide a guide to dating ordinary houses in the Upper Swaledale area, (Grinton to Keld). It is based on a survey of about 90 houses in the area with date stones and relies on comparing the various styles of door jambs, lintels, windows and other features, (typically fire windows and through-stones), which seem to be associated with particular date ranges.

    As anyone with any knowledge of house developement will know this comes with a warning - houses get altered. This does not happen so often with doors although Greenleigh has a dated lintel on obviously later jambs, Travellers Rest has a dated doorway that is probably a later (second) doorway to an earlier house and the date on Gill Head refers to the porch and not the much earlier house.

    With windows it is another matter. Apart from the horizontal stone mullioned windows usually dating from the 17th century, which are almost always original, almost any other type can be a later replacement of an earlier style. Sometimes there are clues to this but often not. Going back to Greenleigh again, a close inspection reveals traces of the original 17th century stone mullioned windows, but there is no visible trace of the later sash windows or of the 1970s picture windows which preceeded the present ones, and without a couple of surviving photographs all traces of the two intermediate types would have been lost. There is also the fact that many houses have had their height increased, (often when thatched roofs were replacesd with stone slates), and thus the upper windows can be later than the lower ones.

    Fire windows are not usually problematic - they are almost certainly part of the original house and you either have one or you don't.

    Through-stones need to be considered with care as they appear to have continued to be used in farm buildings or in the parts of houses that had an agricultural use long after they stopped being used in the house proper. Another problem is that where they do appear, through-stones are usually found on the rear wall of a house, which is often masked by a later lean-to extension (usually origionaly with a dairy function), and the gables of the original living part of the house are often masked either by a barn or by another house.

(A SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS IS TO BE FOUND AT THE END OF THE REPORT)

There are at least 86 buildings with date-stones in the area covered, 69 of which (plus one in Redmire), have been looked at so far, (as listed below). Also included are a small number whose dates are known from written records, (usually deeds).

The other houses said to have date-stones but as yet to be assessed with regard to this aide are as follows:

Distribution of Dated Houses by Decade (Those included in survey highlighted) 

DOORS

Note:- I have split the door surrounds into 11 different "styles" (as shown by the photographs following), which cover almost all of the houses surveyed, but as might have been expected there were a few doors that failed to fit any of the 11 groups and which have therefore had to be omitted.

( Lintels )

It is also worth noting the "overhang", (or otherwise), of the lintel with respect to the stones forming the jambs.

Except for the "dubious" 1754 door mentioned earlier, in every one of the doors dated 1695 or earlier the lintel is a "short" one (ie: does not extend as far as the ends of the top stones in the lintel) - see the three photograps above.

Except for one house dated 1734, every house dated after 1695 has a lintel the ends of which match the overall width of the jambs.

LATER DOORS

After about 1720 the style of door jamb changes dramatically, usually consisting of one main stone with a base stone and one or two top stones, but with many apparent "variations on a theme" which I have split into 9 "types" as noted below.

Type 3 - both top and bottom stones extend a significant distance to the side.

Type 4 - one, (sometimes two), square top stones, only base stone extends to the side.     

Type 4a - top stone extends to the side, bottom stone doesn't.

Type 5 - no top stone, bottom stone extends to one side.

Type 6 - top and bottom stones same width as rest of door jamb.

Type 7 chunky - no top stone, noticable bottom stone which protrudes about 1" over main part of jamb

Type 7 thin - generally as above but thinner sections and bottom stone rather insignificant.

Type 8 - no top or bottom stones, .

Type 9 - Semi-circular Lintel

Putting date ranges on the above is more problematic than with the Type 1 and 2 doors, and is not helped by the small numbers of examples of each type, but some useful indications can still be drawn.

                                                              Distribution of Door Types by Decade.

THROUGH-STONES

These are often not given much attention when considering the date when a house may have been built but it appears that they can actually help in this.

However, there are problems:

1.  Their location. They most often appear on the rear wall, but this wall is frequently concealed by a later lean-to extension, (sometimes known as an "outshot"). The next most likely place for them to be found are the gable walls - but these are often obscured by another house being built on to the end of the first house. They may also appear (infrequently), in a front wall.

2.  When they are found to be present, thought must be given as to whether or not the part of the building they appear in was the "house proper" when built, or was originally a part of the building that was used for storage, agricultural or farming purposes.

This is important, as through-stones were still used in the "agricultural" part of a house and in farm and agricultural buildings long after they had ceased to be used in the house itself.

3.  They sometimes appear in later houses in "special" places - eg: to reinforce a chimney.

4.  They are often erratically positioned and few in number.

Having said all this, through-stones have been noted in 6 houses dated between 1662 and 1695, and in 4 further houses dated 1721, 1734 and 1757, 1781?(kneeler - could refer to reroofing?).

On very limited evidence one might suggest the possibility that a house whith front or gable wall through-stones is more likely to belong to the earlier group than the later group.

WINDOWS

Special Window Types

1.    Very Small Squarish first floor windows, (at front of house).

       i.  not above door

       ii. above door (and their may be two types of these - very small and small)

2.    Fire Windows

Main Window Types:

1.    Horizontal with "Pointed" Mullions

1a   Peculiar vertical invariably blocked type

2.    Vertical with "Flat" Mullions                             

3.    Square (small)

4.    Square (large)

5.    Squarish (large)

6.    Vertical (usually sash)

One will deal with the "Special" types first as they appear to be the easiest to say something reliable about relating to dates.

VERY SMALL SQUARISH 1st FLOOR (FRONT) WINDOWS (not above door)

VERY SMALL and SMALL WINDOWS ABOVE DOOR

What these windows were for is open to debate, English Heritage have suggested that they were the access to pigeon cotes, a local farmer thought that they used to be used to "hang" phesants and other game from, and it is also possible that they might just have been to provide light to a stair, (although stairs were more commonally found at the rear of the house).

Or did the doors open onto a type of "through passage" open from the floor to the ceiling and the window gave light into this?

FIRE WINDOWS

MAIN WINDOW TYPES

REGENCY CIRCLES

This small circle is found as a decorative feature in architectural settings during the 1820s and 1830s.

Seen on a window in a house dated 1836 (and noted on an undated door and two gate piers).

BREAD OVENS

Only two of the dated houses, (1750, 1757), contain a bread oven.

However, it is perhaps worth noting that the other thirteen houses where bread ovens are known to exist, would, (on the basis of the ideas suggested in this article), all be dated to the period before 1750, (mostly pre 1723).

   SUMMARY