A
Study of the Chequers Public House
in the village of
Goldhanger
I
have chosen The Chequers as it stands in the centre of Goldhanger, the parish
which I studied for the first term of the local history course. Signed
Janet White
________________________________________________
This machine readable version of
Janet’s 1980-90s hand-written manuscript was created in 2024 using a new
web-based convertor.
The architectural terms used have been
set in italics and a glossary of the terms has been added at
the end of the study - DWN
________________________________________________
A Study of Local History
- Vernacular Architecture
An Introduction to
Goldhanger - map ref. TL 905098
Goldhanger
Is a small village situated about five miles North East of Maldon and set one
field's length from the North Shore of the tidal estuary of the River
Blackwater.
The lay-out of the
centre of the village has changed little over the past 250 years. Three old
roads known as "Streets" radiate from a wide space still called
"The Square", on the south side of which stands the village pump
which still works, the water from it been greatly prized by the village
home-made wine makers.
The eastern side of
The Square is taken up with the chequers Public House listed in 1769 as the
only alehouse in Goldhanger. It is
clearly very much older than that, and for that reason I have chosen it for the
study.
Goldhanger Hall,
listed in the 18th and 19th century, is said to have stood behind the Chequers.
Nothing remains of this building and one wonders if in fact it ever existed in
that position. Would a house, grand enough to be called “Goldhanger Hall” be
built behind a small and definitely not grand Yeoman’s house occupying prime position on The Square? An uninterrupted view of the chickens, pigs
and associated midden which were an obligatory feature of 18th century rural
life, cannot have been a desirable feature of the Hall!
An introduction to the
building now called “The Cheques”
The sign of the
chequers is an ancient one and has been found on houses exhumed in
Pompeii. Originally it is said to have
indicated that draughts and backgammon were played within, much like today's
pool and darts. The first recorded
licensee of the Goldhanger Chequers was one Edward Smith who held the license
in 1969 with Janet Jackson and Steven Rice standing surety.
Although the chequers
has been an Ale House and latterly a Public House for at least 226 years the
house would have been built as a lesser yeoman's
house and it is on this mediaeval building that the study is based.
Exterior of the house
The entire exterior
of the house has been rendered and a number of extensions have been built over
the years. At one stage, probably the 1800 century, almost the entire back of
the hall of the mediaeval house was
removed and an extension built to double it's size. This extended part has a
peg tiled “cat-slide” roof. The remaining outbuildings attached to the
rear of the building were built as stables with cobbled floors and hay-loft
above. The cobbled floors have now been removed and the building converted to a
kitchen with freezer room above.
All roofs are peg
tiled with the exception of one small outbuilding which is state. The roof of
the cross-wing is pitched at an angle of 53o and, since the roof was not
constructed to take thatch this suggests it was an early tiled roof. The roof of the hall has a less steep pitch but examination of the roof timbers
suggests that it has been jacked up; probably to allow an upper floor to be
inserted.
The cross-wing, at the southern end of the
house, has the appearance that it should be jettied
and examination of the internal timbers produced two large empty mortices to
take a bracket, so the cross-wing was
an under-built jetty.
An unremarkable
chimney stack is set forward of the ridge in the hall. Examination of the stack in the roof showed that the top part
had been rebuilt in more recent times, whilst the lower part is original late
16th century to mid 17th century with hand-made bricks.
There is no signs
of a Well at the rear of the house but the customary 10ft from the back door
would see it beneath the floor of the gent's loo, so who knows? However, there is a spring, now capped with a
pump only the road's width from the front door so this may well have been used
by the house.
Interior of the house
The original house
had a two bay jettied cross-wing of
the lower end, cross-passages and hall, so many alterations and additions
have been made to the original house. It
is now extremely difficult to say with any certainly, what form the hall took. In spite of many visits and much "poking
around" in bedrooms and bars, I still have no idea whether there was a
second cross wing to accommodate the parlour or if it was an in line hall and parlour. No doubt someone with more experience would
be able to tell but for the time being I have to admit defeat.
Cross-wing and
cross-passage
The house is
entered by the front door into the cross-passage
which gives access to the one-time buttery and pantry at the low end. The doorways to these rooms are in the
correct position, side-by-side with the doors opening against the dividing
wall, but the doorways have rather crudely applied modern architraves.
The first service
room, fronting the road, has timber of poor quality, now much damaged by the
attention of the death watch beetle. The
carpentry is very simple with few pegs and no chamfering on the exterior of the
house has the appearance that it was once jettied
and, on examining the first stud in
from the present front, two large empty mortices were found which would have
taken a bracket for the jetty.
The second service
room, to the rear of the house showed nothing of interest, all the walls and
the ceiling having been plastered in modern times. One would have expected the stairs to have
led up from this room but nothing remains of then and the stairs are want on
the opposite side of the cross-passage.
The first floor has
two rooms, the front one having nothing of interest, again being
plastered. The second room has two jowls and pegged wall plates. The wall plate is chamfered and has step-stops which pre-date lambs-tongue-stops. Again, the timber is of poor quality, the
un-chamfered timbers being extremely wavy edged.
The Hall
The ground floor of
the original hall section of the
house can be clearly seen and separated from the much later partitions and extensions. The back door is still in it's original
position at the end of the cross-passage. Being parallel to the door, at right-angles
to the cross-passage there is part of
the brick ground sill of the hall.
The sill has been
cut into lo give access to the later extensions but continues again, clearly
showing the back of the mediaeval hall.
At one point, about 6 ft above the ground sill, there is a very small
exposed section of side girt, about 9 inches long, but the rest
is covered by the modern bar.
There is a brick
five-place backing onto the cross-passage
and, although there is much modern brick infill, the original size and shape of
the fire-place can be clearly seen. The
timber mantle beam is in place but there is evidence that there was spit-jack, as would be expected in such
a modest house. The main bean is
chamfered and finished with slightly crudely executed lambs-tonque-stops.
The first floor of
the hall has timbers of the same
inferior quality, the wall plate has
very wavy edges and no chamfers. On the
end wall there is a filled-in window with hollow chamfered mullions; there are marks in the timber at the top of the window
which could be shutter grooves, but a combination of black paint and cracks in
the timber made this uncertain. The presence
of this window shows that this wall was at the end of the original house, but I am unsure as to whether it was a
continuous hall or if there was a cross-wing at this end of the house, which fell into disrepair and was rebuilt in-line
The roof of the hall has, I'm sure, been "jacked
up" at some time, possibly to allow the sub-section of a floor. Evidence to support this can be seen on the
wall fronting the road where the studs
are straighter and of better quality timber, and also in the roof where the
pitch of the rafters has been altered.
The angle of the pitch of the roof of the cross- wing is 53o,
but that of the hall is less steep,
suggesting that the walls have been raised.
The roof space
The roof timbers
are in reasonable condition, very clean and with no sign of sooting. The main timbers are of oak but everything else appears to be
elm, and this too is perfectly preserved and very clean.
There are two wattle and daub partitions, one
separating the hall from the cross-wing (photos-1&2) and the other part way down the present hall[way] above a tie beam (photo-3)
suggesting that there was a matching cross wing at that end of the house. The joists at that end of the house show saw marks so it certainly has been rebuilt or
extensively repaired, probably in the 18th or 19th century.
The daub on the cross-wing partition has a strange, almost damp feel about it and
when a broken edge is rubbed with the fingers, it has a "silky” feel,
almost like rubbing talc between the fingers.
My explanation is that, as a cost-cutting exercise, the builders used
mud from Goldbanger creek at the end of Fish Street, which at the time was only
300 or so yards away. The hygroscopic
effect of the salt in the mud would explain the damp feeling and the grey takc-like
powder has exactly the appearance of dried river mud. The straw used with the mud had a fair
sprinkling of weeds amongst it but in those pre-herbicide days, I suppose that
is to be expected.
The daub used on the other partition (photo-3) is of better quality, harder,
more brown in colour and without the river mud qualities, which suggests a
later date. The wattle is still as it was when installed with its bindings intact (photo-3).
The cross-wing has a simple Crown Post roof but the post is now
obscured by a late partition. The timber
used is elm and is clean and in good condition.
The hall has a Side Pulin roof which is a mixture of oak and elm, some of which is
in. poor condition. The Side Pulins are badly "bowed” and I
think the rafters show signs of the roof having been raised, explaining the
shallow pitch of the roof compared to the cross-wing.
Conclusions
The Chequers is a mediaeval house built in two phases and
may be in three. The cross-wing is
the oldest part of the building. The Crown
Post construction of the roof suggests a date of before 1550, as do the step stops of of the chamfers. A date abound 1500 is offered
The hall is of slightly later
construction. The brick chimney appears
to be original to roof height, suggesting the latter half of the 16th century,
as does the use of lambs-tongue-stops.
The cross-passage has been retained
in its original position, also suggesting a date of before 1600. But the Hollow
Chamfer Mullions on the filled-in
window would be around 1600. A date of
1550-1600 is offered.
The house appears
to have been built "On a shoestring”.
Elm has been used instead of oak for many of the roof timbers; in an
area in which elm was plentiful, it would have been the cheaper option. The timber is generally of inferior quality
with knotted wavy edged examples on the studs
and wall plates. This is particularly noticeable when compared
to the high quality and finish of the timber used in Falcons Hall, a larger
house of similar date, about half a mile from the Cheques.
The standard of
carpentry was basic with only the bare necessities of pegs being used and
little attempt at decorative finishing of the lambs tonque stops and the mullions
being crudely executed. The use of river
mud and for the daub also also
suggests cost-cutting as it was readily available, easy to collect and
free! All this being said, the house is
still warm and dry and functioning for the purpose for which it was built
almost five centuries ago. A comfortable
home.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Trevor, Joan, Paul and Zoie
Jones for allowing me to wonder freely around their house with camera and tape
measure, generally making a nuisance of myself.
My thanks to Anne Padfield for joining me on a visit to point me in the
right direction and to my husband Paul for producing the diagrams.
possible original arrangement of
the Chequers
possible original floor plan
___________________________________
A Glossary of the
architectural terms included in this Study
Architrave |
decorative moulding or frame around a door
or window. |
|
cat-slide |
a roof that
continues down below the main eaves to cover a larger area without increasing
the ridge. The
pitch of the roof can be changed to stretch the roof over an extension. |
|
Cross-passage |
the passage that separates the service area
from the hall. |
|
Cross-wing |
section of a house roofed at right angles
to the adjacent main range. |
|
Crown post |
upright timber standing on tie beam
supporting a collar purlin. |
|
Daub |
A sticky mix of wet soil, clay, sand,
animal dung, straw, etc. see: Wattle &
daub below. |
|
Hall |
1. large room and main space used in
mediaeval times for public gatherings, etc. 2. the space just
inside the front entrance of a building. In Janet’s study the
2nd meaning is used only once and hall[way] has been added. |
|
Jettied |
& Jetty Cantilevered overhang of one storey over
the storey below it. |
|
Jowl |
expansion of the inner face of the top of a
bay post to accommodate housings for wall plate and
tie beam. |
|
Purlin |
longitudinal timber set in the plane of a
roof slope and supporting common rafters. |
|
Low end |
part of the house used for service rooms or
of the hall towards that end. |
|
mediaeval |
connected with the Middle Ages from about
AD 1000 to AD 1450. |
|
Mullion |
window with vertical posts or timbers in
the opening without glass. “Hollow Shallow
Mullions” have concave chamfered window posts. |
|
Side Girt |
a horizontal structural member in a framed
wall to provide lateral support. |
|
Spit-jack |
a device for rotating meat for roasting. |
|
Stops |
decorative endings of a chamfer on a beam to return the
timber to a square section. |
|
Stud |
subsidiary vertical
timber, in a framed wall or partition. |
|
Tie beam |
main transverse timber connecting the tops
of walls. |
|
Vernacular architecture |
local or regional
construction using traditional materials and resources in the area. |
|
Wattle & daub |
a woven lattice of wooden strips stuck
together with wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung, straw,
etc. used for thousands of years. |
|
Wall plate |
horizontal timber at top of wall on which
roof timbers, rafters or joists rest. |
|
Yeoman |
officer of the parish, freeholder, servant
of a noble household, etc. |
___________________________________
top Janet’s
hand-written version The Chequers Inn
home