Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

BRIDGE HOUSE, CHURCH STREET: A SHORT HISTORY 130 ` CHAPTER 6/ BRIDGE HOUSE, CHURCH STREET: A SHORT HISTORY Christopher Bates Bridge House is believed to be the oldest surviving property in Buckden. The house was built in 1458 and when first completed was an open medieval hall and a building of high status. Over subsequent centuries the house has seen many changes to its structure and also to the village in which it stands. Its survival is testimony to the strength and quality of the construction. In this chapter its owner, Christopher Bates, tells the continuing story of its restoration—and in a postscript explains why in a house with a very long history you may not always be as alone as you think… have owned Bridge House since 2004 and have endeavoured to restore the house to its former glory, utilising wherever possible traditional materials in keeping with the original construction. These materials are able to move and breathe with the existing structure, thus ensuring its continued survival for many years to come. During the course of this ongoing work I have made many exciting discoveries and also made many new friends in the village. I feel very fortunate to have the privilege of living in such a beautiful home in a wonderful village. Medieval open halls Until the middle of the sixteenth century most people of status lived in a space which was open to the roof, heated by a fire burning in a hearth built on the floor. The hall was always the largest room in the house, open from the ground to the apex of the roof, which besides being the focus of daily life for a large household was also intended as a place of assembly for the transactions of public business, such as the manorial court. The principal features of medieval halls, despite some regional variations, were basically the same. In or near the centre of the hall was the open hearth, the smoke escaping as best it could through the small gablets at the junction of the hips and ridge of the roof. Beyond the hearth was the upper end, which was occupied by the family and contained the high table and bench. The bench was usually fixed, being no more than a long narrow plank attached to the high end wall of the hall. Most of the light in the hall came from tall unglazed mullioned windows on either side of the high table. Halls were entered directly through a door in the front elevation (the north elevation in the case of Bridge House: the curved head of the original front entrance remains, although this is no longer the entrance to the house). A cross-passage ran between a pair of opposed doorways in the front and back walls. On one side of the passage were two doorways leading to the service accommodation at the lower end of the house, the buttery (for beer), and the pantry (for bread). The two service doorways remain in Bridge House. This is a very rare survival as so often internal alterations led to their removal. The doorways are now blocked by the insertion of a later brick chimney into the cross-passage. On the other side of the passage there was a screen dividing it from the main hall. A visitor entering the hall through the single door from the cross-passage would first see the open fire and then, beyond, the high table. The whole house was a hierarchical space mirroring the hierarchies of society: the servants at the lower service end, the cross-passage entrance, the screen, the lower bay of the hall with the high table beyond, and the private apartments entered from the upper end. Bridge House, in addition to the open hall, has a cross-wing at the upper (west) end, accommodating the family on the upper floor and most probably a shop front, with workshop behind, on the ground floor. In keeping with the high-class workmanship at the upper end of the house, the front elevation of this cross- I