C O N T E X T 8 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 3 35 Book reviews The timber record Hampshire Houses 1250–1700: their dating and development Edward Roberts with contributions by John Crook, Linda Hall and Daniel Miles, Hampshire County Council,Winchester, 2003, paperback, 275pp, numerous b&w illus, 18 colour plates, ISBN 1 85975 633 6. £19.95 plus p&p. In the 50 years sinceWG Hoskins complained of the total lack of fieldwork in vernacular buildings in southern and south-eastern England in his pioneering essay on The Rebuilding of Rural England, 1570–1640, the situation has been radically transformed. There is now a for those buildings which were not subjected to dendrochronology or which failed to date. Complemented by documentary research, the result is a corpus of information for the timber-framed buildings of Hampshire that is unrivalled by any other county and which provides a basis for a full discussion of their complex evolution through the medieval into the early modern period. A wealth of clear survey drawings, photographs – some of them in colour – and a series of illuminating graphs showing the recorded time-span of particular forms and features adds greatly to the narrative. The book is divided into four parts. The first section is concerned with structure and materials, with chapters on aisles, crucks and box-framing, and a very full discussion of fixtures and fittings by Linda Hall which enables her to make comparisons with her earlier study of Gloucestershire. This is followed by a section on form and function which moves from the open hall house to the fully floored house, and concludes with a chapter on the difficult subject of urban plan forms. Town houses are also featured in the third section, which considers place and status. The dominance of the Bishop of Winchester and the monastic institutions on the land holdings in the county in the medieval period is clearly demonstrated in an illuminating chapter on higher-status rural houses, but the overall focus remains on the less privileged sections of society. The book concludes with a clear account by Dan Miles of the scope of the dendrochronology project and a gazetteer of all the houses in the county that have been dated by this process, and a selection of others dated by documentary evidence or inscription. Edward Roberts, who wrote most of the text, is to be congratulated for seeing such an ambitious project through to its interim conclusion. This is a book which should be on the bookshelves of anyone interested in the understanding of timber-framed buildings. If at times it reads more like an exercise in data collection than a coherent narrative, that is a fault which it shares with other vernacular studies, where the determination to catalogue every minute piece of evidence tends to obscure the broader picture. The book is not afraid to pose the bigger questions but their impact is often lost among the detail. It would have benefited from a more wideranging general introduction, setting out the issues rather than plunging straight into an account of aisled construction. Structure, after all, is only a means to an end. Form, function and status are at the heart of the discipline and these elements of the study are presented with admirable clarity. So where does it leave Hoskins’ great rebuilding in Hampshire? It can be demonstrated that the process of flooring over the hall began as early as the 1470s but smaller rural houses were still being built with open halls ‘until well into the second half of the 16th century and even later’. The problem is that dated timberframed houses in the crucial period at the end of the century are very poorly represented in the survey. The jury is still out but at least the fieldwork has begun. There is still much more to be done but this publication is warmly welcomed. Malcolm Airs, Oxford University Afternoons with Burton Decimus Burton Esquire, Architect and Gentleman (1800–1881) PhilipWhitbourn, Royal TunbridgeWells Civic Society, 2003, paperback, 68pp, 30 illus B&W plus sketches and plans, ISBN 0 9545343 0 1. £4.95 This book may be modest in scope and size but it contains a wealth of information, which the author has collected and published to complement Philip Miller’s catalogue, produced in 1981 for the exhibition to mark the centenary of the architect’s death. While Burton is probably best known for his work in Regent’s Park, the Wellington Arch and the Athenaeum Club, all of which are referred to, it is fitting that the majority of this book concentrates on his work in and around TunbridgeWells. He grew up there from an early age at Quarry Hill on the rural outskirts of Southborough, now a suburb of the town. It was surely his special relationship with the area that led him to accept the commission from JohnWard to lay out the Calverley Park Estate for the substantial body of published literature on the smaller buildings of Kent, Surrey and Sussex and in this volume we have the fruits of the most comprehensive dendrochronological survey ever carried out in an English county. Over a period of ten years nearly 100 buildings have been successfully dated by the Hampshire Buildings Survey Group, complementing its earlier study of the Medieval Hall Houses of theWinchester Area (1988). Financial support was provided by Hampshire County Council and its enlightened attitude towards the scholarship which underpins informed conservation deserves high praise. Building on that base of securely dated buildings, it has been possible to propose a sequence of typological development with greater confidence
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