|
|
|
|
The earliest build of Balneath Manor lies roughly north-south, with a group of outbuildings to the west. This early building consists of two distinct parts, with different ridge heights, which flank a large multi-flue stack with oversailing courses. These two parts contain five bays aligned north-south, with the stack occupying the central bay and serving back-to-back inglenook hearths. There are first floor hearths to each side, as well as a large bread oven built within a later outshot on the east side of the southern bays. The southern bays have diagnostic elements (bracing, jowl profiles and rafter scantling) that suggest a date before 1500, possibly c1450, but it is not a complete building. Interpretation of the development of the site presents some difficulties. It could be nearly three bays of a three bay house that had a single bay central hall or of a four bay house with a two bay central hall. However the ground floor window to the central bay is sited awkwardly for either of these proposals, as it is too close to the bay post to be the bottom of a double storey window. A third possibility is that this is nearly three bays of a five bay hall house, that had a two bay floored end in the south with a single bay hall northwards and a further floored bay, whose ground plan corresponded closely to the present plan of the house. This provides the best basis for a sequence of development: 1. Towards 1600 a stack was built into the hall bay abutting the southern floored end and part was re-floored to the stack. In the second half of the 1600s the old house north of the stack was rebuilt, incorporating an attic storey and making use of the chimney stack that already existed. This also provided an impressive ground floor 'hall' with its close-studding.2. In the 18th century an out-shot was built on the east side of the early range enlarging the 'service' end of the house and big enough for a bread oven. This is quite an unusual form of rebuild and development and there may have been constraining factors which produced this rather curious hybrid. These notes have been compiled from survey reports prepared by Dr Annabelle Hughes. The full reports have been deposited in the Sussex Archaeological Society Library, Barbican House, Lewes, where they can be consulted by researchers. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Balneath Manor, Grantham estate sale catalogue, 1943. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
