Village Houses

Clues to the Past

Over 40 local people came to Dr. David Clark’s talk at the Village Hall on 30 April 2006. Dr. Clark, an architectural historian, spoke about how villages and vernacular buildings have developed over time. Examples from Steeple Aston, amongst other villages, illustrated his points. The talk was structured around eight words that can be used to analyse old buildings: Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Spaces, Stuff, Souls, and Symbolism.

When Dr. Clark first visited Steeple Aston he noticed a number of dwellings constructed of stone arranged in banded courses of two colours- the lighter limestone alternating with the orange ironstone. This is fairly unusual for Oxfordshire, said Dr. Clark, and is more commonly found in Northamptonshire- for example at Blisworth. It suggests that both kinds of stone were, at least for a period, readily available very locally.

Whilst there are many stone-built dwellings, and a number of brick ones, there are very few timber-framed houses in Steeple Aston. However, the timber roof structure of all types often reveals a great deal about the period of original construction, and more besides. Houses that now appear to be conventional two-storey buildings may once have been single-storey, with clear space up to the roof within which a central hearth fire would have produced much smoke, blackening the roof timbers over time with soot. Now hidden away in loft spaces of much-altered houses, the discovery of such smoke-blackening can reveal a previously unrecorded history.

Windows and doors, kitchens and fireplaces come under his definition of “services”. Dr. Clark referred to a number of agricultural buildings that have changed use, where windows and other openings have been introduced or blocked up as part of these changes. Previously they were small barns , many of which played a central part in Steeple Aston’s apple industry. Quantities of apples were laid out on upper floors in these buildings, and dried before being bagged up for transport to London and elsewhere, probably ending-up as apple puree or sauce. The “stuff” of agricultural buildings – implements, machinery, hooks and fixings – these disappear all too often when they are converted to dwellings, and yet they are the clues to what went on there and how it was done. Sadly, there a very few people now who have first-hand knowledge of historic agricultural practice in the village, and it is important to record this for future generations.

The “souls” are of course the inhabitants, and we find much detail in the Census and other records from earlier centuries, which tells us something of the families that lived there, often in surprisingly large numbers. Village houses that may well now be one home for two people were once three small dwellings housing twelve.

SAVA hopes that those who expressed interest after the talk in working further on village buildings’ history will keep in touch with us, as further related events are planned.