Wooden chimneys?

[Nemesis]

Interesting the snippets you find on the interwebbyweavythingy:

an oak and wattle chimney!

See page nine:

http://www.tonygraham.co.uk/house_repair/PorchHouse.pdf


And here it is now:

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?pid=1&id=445975

 

[geoff]

In small cottages in Wales, basic chimneys were sometimes built of woven hazel or willow covered in clay daub. There was a tradition of Ty Unnos - literally 'one night house' - where if you could erect a cottage overnight between sunset and sunrise and have a fire burning in the grate by morning, I believe you could claim the rights to the plot and the house. The chimneys in those cases were constructed in that very way. There was a television program on BBC the other day where they tried (successfully) to do just that - including the hazel and daub chimney. They were ususally put up using a timber frame with sod walls and a bracken/heather/thatch roof with a woven daub chimney. They were usually replaced within a year by a proper stone cottage once the occupiers had established themselves.

The ownership probably wouldn't stand up these days, but given the idiotic increase in house prices it could be interesting for first time buyers to try....

 

[Nemesis]

In fact I think this was a common method of introducing a chimney into houses in early days - as a smoke hood really - I suppose it was a long way from the flames and wood fires didn't produce the sort of heat which would cause damage in the short term. I still bet chimney fires and thus thatch fires were common though.

Houses used to be thrown up on roadside 'waste' of the manor too. I came across an example listed on Images of England recently which said that's why it was listed, as an example.

There's small odd shaped garden enclosure in our hamlet belonging to a neighbour which research lead me to discover was also 'enclosed' from the manorial waste.

Interesting snippet in that pamphlet about whitewashing thatched roofs.

 

[Gervase]

Wicker and daub hoods were fairly common in West Wales and were the precursors of the simne fawr. A place I was working on recently had the putlog holes in the gable end for the wicker hood, together with the shape marked out on the stonework with soot staining. From what I can gather, they were fairly temporry affairs that were replaced every few years.

 

[Nemesis]

In fact I think plaster hoods were a feature of bastle houses too - although not sure if that extended upwards, I think the chimneys may have been stone.

Will check!

 

[middi]

The 17th c. half timber cottage in which I lived previousely had a wattle and daub timber framed chimney, an inglenook(?) in the centre of the cottage.

This was a later addition to the small cottage.

Any surviving examples should be grade one listed, as they are quite rare.

 

[Penners]

Weren't wicker & daub chimneys the very first to be introduced? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they were first used in longhouses, so possibly came from Scandinavia?

 

[Nemesis]

http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/ppom042005.htm

 

[BMcD]

Geoff Wrote:

There was a tradition of Ty Unnos - literally 'one night house' - where if you could erect a cottage overnight between sunset and sunrise and have a fire burning in the grate by morning, I believe you could claim the rights to the plot and the house.

And here one is

http://www.snowdonia-society.org.uk/The Ugly House.htm

http://www.betws-y-coed.co.uk/attra/ugly/ugly.htm

 

[Penners]

if you could erect a cottage overnight between sunset and sunrise and have a fire burning in the grate by morning, I believe you could claim the rights to the plot and the house.

That principle wasn't limited to Wales. It existed here in East Anglia, too. That's why carpenters became so adept at constructing the timber frame of a house in their yard in such a way that it could be slotted together in a day.

 

[Nemesis]

There's a little more about it here:

http://www.underthethatch.co.uk/essay-traditional-cottages.htm

Anyone staying in one of those cottages gets a PPUK discount btw... see

http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/renovationdiary08.shtml

 

[Stephen]

Last year I surveyed a property near Hatfield Heath in Essex that was once thatched but a fire had destroyed this some years ago and it is now tiled. However, in the centre of the building was a timber framed 'chimney'. At ground floor level there was a brick base (rear wall and two sides), but everything above this was of timber frame finished with lime plaster. I do not know if it was wattle and daub, but W&D would be most likely. Amazingly the chimney survived the fire and in fact was not the cause of the fire that destroyed the thatch in the past. I may have some photos somewhere and if I can dig them out I will try to post them here.

 

[middi]

Where these " simple" chimneys is concerned we may be right to assume that the availability and/or expense of bricks, or dressed stone, would have prohibited their use, therefore compromises were made especially in low status buildings.

 

[joatex]

Would those chimneys have been lined with cow dung ?

 

[Gervase]

Would those chimneys have been lined with cow dung ?

Almost certainly - cow crap seems to have been pretty universal for flue parging in Europe, India, the Middle East and possibly further afield for the past millennium.

 

[NT]

Would those chimneys have been lined with cow dung ?

Almost certainly - cow crap seems to have been pretty universal for flue parging in Europe, India, the Middle East and possibly further afield for the past millennium.

Thank god for progress!

NT

 

[Penners]

Would those chimneys have been lined with cow dung ?

It all depends on how easy it is to get the cow on to the roof. And whether it will then oblige by crapping down the chimney.