In article <[log in to unmask]>, Jeff Morris
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>As part of my current research into the history and development of Wortley
>Top forge in England, I am looking at the construction and development of
>associated house.  The surviving house clearly shows two distinct
>construction phases.  (The main evidence for this being the quoins in the
>middle of the building onto which a further part of the house was added).
>
>The house is believed to be contemporary (or possibly earlier), than the
>forge, recent documentary research suggests the forge was originally built
>in the late 1630's.
>
>I am currently examining the possibility that part of the house may have
>been originally timber framed and subsequently encased in stonework.  If
>this is the case I am trying to find out if there are any phyisical clues
>that might survive, that would help to prove or disprove this hypothesis.
>
Jeff, are you saying that there was a timber-framed building, a stone
building was put up around it, and then the timber-framed building taken
down?  Or that the timber building remains inside the stone one?
 
Something similar happened at the building which is now Buckinghamshire
County Museum.  Here, we had a late medieval building (after 1473),
perhaps a religious guild-house.  It was re-fronted in brick in 1755/6.
The brick wall was built up to the outside of the front wall to jetty
height, and the jetty cut off, and the brick wall continued up.  Of
course the roof then settled down on top of the brick, forcing the new
frontage out at the top.  John Chernovix Trench's article in _Records of
Buckinghamshire_ Vol 33, has all the gorey details.  It shows up best in
a cross-section.
--
Pat Reynolds
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Keeper of Social History, Buckinghamshire County Museum
   "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Prattchet)