| Description | Lower Shaw Booth, Warley. 17th century rural house altered in the 19th century.
'C17 and C18. Substantial traditional stone house with very broad stone roof. 2 storeys. Main (south) front has mullioned windows with drip mouldings (some altered). Lower north wing with various alterations'.
(English Heritage listed building description. Date listed 03/11/1954. Date amended 13/12/1988. http://list.english heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1254034. Web site accessed 16/01/2014).
Lower Shaw Booth 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 of the 17th century, rebuilt and enlarged in the 19th century. The later alterations make it impossible to determine the form of the 17th century build but there are just too many of the surviving features of the original house to allow the present building to be dismissed as essentially the work of the 19th century.
The house faces south and is of two storeys plus extensive attics. It is on the south front that most of the early features appear; here the masonry, at least in the eastern half, is of 17th century date, being in thin coursed rubble stonework, quoined at the south east angle. In this wall are set windows with recessed splayed mullions; the very large ground floor window has a hood mould with a decorative stop, and the first floor window has a plain hood mould. Just to the west of the large window is a 17th century door opening; the surround has a segmental head and moulded jambs. The doorway is set much too close to the window for both features to be in their original positions, and it is likely that the door has been inserted, probably when the projecting part of the south wall was added in the 19th century. The position of the original entry cannot now be recovered. On the west wall the masonry is very confused; there are at least three periods represented here, the central area showing the earliest work, including one 17th century window. On the rear (north) wall are further phases, but again there is some early fenestrations.
The interior of the house is similarly confused. One thick stone wall runs through the house from east to west, and this is certainly original. It lines up with the straight joint on the west wall externally. This wall was an internal division, for it shows two door surrounds surviving 'in situ'; the surrounds have depressed heads and broad chamfers. The doors seem to have led from a principal room to the south to two rooms to the north; running north from the central door jamb is a beam with a groove in its soffit designed to take the top of a timber panelled screen dividing the latter rooms. The main room to the south has two spine beams; both are scarfed in the same place, suggesting that a firehood has been removed from the east wall. There is, however, no sign of there having been a fire window. In the east wall is a blocked two light window of 17th century date.
These remains are all that are visible of the early house. From them it may be suggested that the 17th century house faced south and was, perhaps, of two cells in the main range. The present east room seems to have been main room acting as the distribution point to the other rooms in the house. We may suggest that this was the housebody, possibly heated by a firehood on the east gable. To the west lay a parlour, and to the rear in an outshut originally, lay further rooms, probably with a service function. |