| Description | Lower Popplewells, Warley. Rural house dated 1666.
Lower Popplewells was the subject of an archaeological assessment by Colum Giles in 1980 as part of the WYAS/RCHME Rural Houses Survey. The photographic images and sketch plan produced by the assessment are held by WYAAS (Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1980). The fieldwork report is transcribed below:
'This is a stone house, dated 1666. The house survives as a shell only, all the interior features been removed when the structure was converted for use as a cowshed. The essential details of plan are, however, still recoverable from external evidence.
The house is of two storeys, faces south and is built of coursed rubble gritstone masonry. It has a linear plan of three cells with an outshut behind the two eastern cells. On the south front the windows have recessed splayed mullions on the ground floor and flush splayed mullions on the first floor. The main door has a chamfered surround and an ogee lintel. The lintel is inscribed 'N M I M 1666'. A hood mould runs east from the door over the eastern to cell, returning around the gable wall to stop against the external stack. At the sides and rear the masonry is of inferior quality and the windows have flush splayed mullions.
The surviving features show that the house had a hearth passage plan, for the south door is matched by an opposing door in the north wall. The two light window indicate that a firehood backed onto the passage. A slender post rises to support the arcade plate in the area of the firehood; this post probably supported a bressumer for the firehood. To the east of the housebody lay the parlour; this was heated by the external stack, which is probably an original feature. The dividing wall between the two rooms was of timber, for a further post is sited on the line of the wall and would have supported a cross beam under which a screen would have been hung. The outshut provided a number of service rooms. To the west of the passage was a single room, possibly a shop or service area.
On the first floor the arcade structure is visible in the area of the outshut. The two posts noted earlier support and arcade plate, with braces up to the plate. The roof trusses have king posts, braces to the ridge and single 'V' struts'.
(Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1980. 'Lower Popplewells, Warley'). |