EARLY TIMBERED BUILDINGS
OF THE HUDDERSFIELD DISTRICT
BY JAMES WALTON B.Sc., F.S.A.

CRUCK-TRUSSED BUILDINGS - COTTAGES OF ONE BAY

FAR FIELD HEAD COTTAGE, HEPWORTH
The next stage in the development of the cruck truss is best represented by a tiny cottage, now used as a poultry house, in the yard of Far Field Head Farm, near Hepworth. This too appears to have been a primitive dwelling of one bay, measuring only 20ft. 4ins. By 12ft. 6ins., and with walls of wattle and daub. Later stone walls were added and then, probably in the late eighteenth century, an additional part was built on twice as long as the original cottage. The line of demarcation between the two parts is clearly indicated by the break in walling and roofing and by the sagging of the ridge-tree over the newer portion. The crucks themselves mark an advance over those of the Carr House Farm cottage, for instead of crossing at the ape they are sawn off to form a V-shaped hollow in which the ridge-tree rests. Such a construction allowed the crucks to move apart at the apex and to prevent this a collar-beam was pegged and jointed to the crucks high up near the ridge. The present wall-plates show no indication of stud holes or grooves and are probably a later replacement. Underneath the collar-beam, however, are three holes into which rough vertical timbers were inserted. These formed the central part of a wattle and daub wall, but all other traces of such a wall have disappeared. A similar group of three holes may be seen underneath the upper collar-beam of the mistal at Nether End Farm, Denby Dale. The stone-walled cottage has a narrow doorway and a tiny window-opening which was literally a “wind-eye” to admit air rather than light.

DEAN HEAD FARM, HEPWORTH
The Far Field Head type of cruck truss, consisting of a pair of curved crucks meeting at the apex and joined by a collar-beam and tie-beam which is extended to carry the wall-plates on its free ends, is common throughout our district. Remnants of another similar one-bay cottage are visible at the nearby farm of Dean Head where a cruck truss can be seen in the gable of a store-room attached to the house itself. The other truss was removed when the house was added in stone but the outbuilding undoubtedly represents a one-bay dwelling similar to those at Carr House Farm and the Far Field Head. The collar-beam is, however, more advanced than that at Far Field Head for it is not only halved and pegged to the crucks but it is also notched to give added strength.

BLAKESTONES, SLATHWAITE
At Blakestones a single cruck truss, held up only by its two purlins, is clearly visible as a gaunt skeleton either from the road or railway leading from the Colne Valley. It also is a survival of an early one-bay cottage which was encased in stone about the middle of the seventeenth century, judging by the mouldings of the window mullions. It is of interest in that it marks a further stage in the development of the cruck truss for it had a second, lower collar – beam to give it added stability.

The four cottages so far discussed provide unusually interesting examples of the simple one-bay dwelling of the farm labourers, and even the smaller farmers themselves, prior to the seventeenth century. They also illustrate the three different stages in the development of the cruck truss where the wall-plates are carried on the free ends of the tie-beam, an evolutionary sequence which may be summarized as follows:-

Stage I. Carr House Farm. Crucks crossing at apex. No collar-beam.
Stage IIa Far Field Head. Crucks meeting at apex. One straight collar-beam.
Stage IIb Dean House. Crucks meeting at apex. One notched collar-beam.
Stage III Blakestones. Crucks meeting at apex. Two collar-beams.

In none of these cottages is there any evidence of substantial "post and pan" walling such as may be seen in Linthwaite Hall Barn, or at Thorpe, Almondbury. At Carr House Farm the grooved tie-beam could have accommodated no more than a light-weight wattle-and-daub wall and the only other evidence of walling is provided by the two sets of three holes at Far Field Head which again could only hold thin untrimmed hazel or oak rods such as may still be seen in Greenhill Bank Barn. Fox and Raglan have suggested "that the walls of cruck-trussed houses in our region (Monmouthshire), once their upright position was attained by the extension of the tie-beams, were originally no more than light protective screens of wattle (oak slats) and daub, fixed top and bottom respectively to the wall – plate each screen being perhaps the area of a bay. This 'wall' would be the last work to be done on the house". They further contend that the stout wall-posts between sills resting on ground-walls and wall-plates represent the intrusion of the heavy timber-frame tradition into the earlier cruck framework.

The existing evidence at Carr House Farm suggests that such walls of wattle and daub were probably employed here. No evidence could be obtained regarding the original walling of the other three cottages although the three upright rods at Far Field Head indicate that at least the actual gable between the tie-beams and the collar-beam was filled with wattle-and-daub. The space between the ground and the wall-plates and tie-beams may have been occupied by stone walls from the beginning. On the other hand the existing stone walls were not in general use, even in the larger "halls" before the seventeenth century, it appears that all these one-bay cottages originally had screen walls of wattle-and-daub.

The picture of an early cruck cottage which these four examples afford is that of a single-bay cruck- trussed dwelling illuminated by a tiny window and filled with smoke from a peat or wood fire burning on an open hearth in the center of the floor. During the Middle Ages the simple homes could have afforded a little comfort for it was a "general complaint that villains absconded from their manors would knock down their houses and carry off the materials to be erected elsewhere". Bishop Hall’s lines aptly describe the miserable conditions which prevailed when he wrote:-

Of one bay’s breadth, God Wot! A silly cote.
Whose thatched spares are furr’d with sluttish soote
A whole inch thick, shining like black-moor’s brows,
Through smok that down the head-les barrel blows:
At his bed’s – feete feeden his stalled teme;
His swine beneath, his pullen ore the beame:
A starved tenement, such as I gesse
Stands straggling in the wasts of Holdernesse:
Or such as shiver on a Peake – hill side,
When March’s lungs beate on their turfe – clad hide.

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