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The poorer sort had no such resources, most of them living in huts of wattle and daub that were little different from those of the early Britons. At the level of absolute need, there are no variations. Peasant buildings, in the countryside, had a limited rate of survival; they either crumbled, or were pulled down, within two generations. They rise from the land and return to it. A form of tenure in Hampshire was known as ‘keyhold tenure’; if a person could build a hut or house in one night, and have his fire lit before morning, then his residency was assured.

The style and method of peasant construction survived for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years. At the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, Thomas Hardy recalled the method of building used in his childhood. ‘What was called mudwall’, he wrote, ‘was really a composition of chalk, clay and straw – essentially unbaked brick. This was mixed up into a sort of dough-pudding close to where the cottage was to be built. The mixing was performed by treading and shovelling – women sometimes being called in to tread – and the straw was added to bind the mass together … It was then thrown by pitchforks on to the wall, where … it was left to settle for a day or two.’ When the fabric had dried and hardened in the sun, the roof was built of thatch. This was the method used by the Britons before the coming of Rome. It was used by the English during the reign of Victoria.

The dimensions of a modest thirteenth-century house are given in a Worcestershire court roll of 1281; it was of one storey, 30 feet long (9 metres) and 14 feet broad (4.25 metres), with three doors and two windows. The windows were on each side, to be left open when a cool breeze blew, but stuffed with straw or fern in inclement weather. The family would have eaten and slept together within the same room. This was not a period in which the private self can be said to exist. A thirteenth-century cottage excavated in Berkshire consisted of one room, 10 by 12 feet (3 by 3.6 metres), and another in Yorkshire had dimensions of 10 by 20 feet (3 by 6 metres). The room was generally open to the roof, with a central hearth. In the longhouses of the same period the rooms were used for livestock as well as people, together with a store of grain. The inhabitants were living and sleeping side by side with their animals.

Houses were lengthened, or rebuilt, or extended, as time and occasion demanded. Certain improvements, from human industry and human ingenuity, were possible. The houses of the eleventh century were made of clay without timber frames; by the thirteenth century most houses were constructed with timber frames and, less than a century later, the walls were being erected on stone bases to curb damp and decay. The beaten-earth floors were generally strewn with rushes that became so moist and dirty that they were known as ‘the marsh’. The first evidence of chimney pots comes from Whitefriars, just south of Fleet Street, in London; in 1278 Ralph de Crockerlane was selling clay chimney pots in that quarter.

Yet the essential structure of the dwelling remained identical for many hundreds of years. The furniture was scanty, household items rudimentary; the spoons and dishes were generally made of wood by members of the family. There might have been a few brass pots and cups. A bed acted in the daytime as a seat. These were bare rooms for bare living. It is surprising, perhaps, that richer and poorer agricultural workers of England tended to live in the same kind of dwelling; whatever their economic circumstances, they reverted to the ancient model. It is another indication of the customary traditions of the countryside. In the larger houses the same identity of purpose can be found, with a central hall flanked by smaller rooms. One gradual change did occur: towards the end of the thirteenth century more provision was made, at least in the larger towns, for adequate drainage and cesspit systems.

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