The Priest House is a Grade II* listed [1] fifteenth century timber framed hall house in the centre of West Hoathly, in West Sussex, England. It is close to The Cat Inn and St Margaret's Church. It is now a museum, open to the public six days a week from March to October.
The Priest House was built for the Priory of St Pancras in Lewes as an estate office to manage the land they owned around West Hoathly but was seized by Henry VIII following the dissolution of the monasteries. Subsequently, it belonged to Anne of Cleves, Thomas Cromwell, Mary I and Elizabeth I although there is no evidence that any of them visited the property. [2] It passed into private ownership in 1560 and was owned by the Browne family (who were yeoman farmers) until 1695. For the following two hundred years it was owned by absentee landlords who allowed it to fall into disrepair. It was bought by John Godwin King and restored for him by Maurice Pocock in 1908. [3] John Godwin King presented it to the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1935. The house and garden have been open to the public since 1908. It is now a museum of local life with country furniture, ironwork and local history with temporary exhibitions. The cottage garden features large herbaceous borders containing over 170 herbs and perennials and is open to the public from March to October. The garden has been opened twice per annum for the National Gardens Scheme for the past twenty-two years.
The Priest House was originally built as a hall house with a central hearth and was probably thatched. The frame is made of oak, held together with oak pegs, then filled with panels of wattle and daub (there are exposed panels visible in the south bedroom). It had five bays, the solar wing being in the northern two bays, the middle two bays were the hall and the southernmost the service end with buttery and pantry. At this time the house was lit by a large unglazed window. The floor was earthen, covered with rushes and sweet smelling herbs. About 1580 a central chimney was inserted, an upper floor put in the central two bays where the hall was and the house was reroofed with a Horsham Slab stone roof. The roof weighs approximately 16 tons [4] The inglenook fireplaces are made of local stone and have curves on the side where knives have been sharpened. The original pointed doorway was blocked and a new doorway inserted in the wall beside it. The roof is an unbroken ridge line with three of the original trusses remaining: The middle truss of the hall had arched braces below the tie beam of which one brace still remains. The roof construction is a crown post and collar purlin. The rafters are in pairs, halved at the top & held together by a horizontal collar. Supporting the collars is the “collar purlin”; supported by the crown posts, which take the weight of the roof down to the tie beams. This is all held in place by curved braces next truss to the north was the closed frame of the end of the hall bays and it has a visible king post strutted from the tie beam. [5] The south end of the house has a sloping catslide roof, also of Horsham slab.
On the first floor The Suffragette Handkerchief is on display. There are sixty-six embroidered signatures and two sets of initials, mostly of women imprisoned in HMP Holloway for their part in the Women's Social and Political Union Suffragette window smashing demonstrations of March 1912. The handkerchief was found at a local jumble sale by Dora Arnold, custodian in the 1960s. [6] Its link to the village of West Hoathly is not clear (although John Godwin King's daughter Ursula was a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies [7] ) and research is ongoing. [8] The list of the signatories and some notes on their activism is available. [9]
There are witch marks scratched into wood in several places in the house including the front door and on the beam above the main fireplace. These are more properly known as apotropaic marks and were believed to prevent witches from entering the house. They are believed to date from the seventeenth century. Set into the ground outside the front door is a rough slab of iron which is waste from a local furnace. This was believed to prevent witches entering the house (witches were commonly believed to be scared of iron). [10]
A hammerbeam roof is a decorative, open timber roof truss typical of English Gothic architecture and has been called "the most spectacular endeavour of the English Medieval carpenter". They are traditionally timber framed, using short beams projecting from the wall on which the rafters land, essentially a tie beam which has the middle cut out. These short beams are called hammer-beams and give this truss its name. A hammerbeam roof can have a single, double or false hammerbeam truss.
A rafter is one of a series of sloped structural members such as steel beams that extend from the ridge or hip to the wall plate, downslope perimeter or eave, and that are designed to support the roof shingles, roof deck, roof covering and its associated loads. A pair of rafters is called a couple. In home construction, rafters are normally made of wood. Exposed rafters are a feature of some traditional roof styles.
West Hoathly is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England, located 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south west of East Grinstead. In the 2001 census 2,121 people, of whom 1,150 were economically active, lived in 813 households. At the 2011 Census the population increased to 2,181. The parish, which has a land area of 2,139 hectares, includes the hamlets of Highbrook, Selsfield Common and Sharpthorne. The mostly rural parish is centred on West Hoathly village, an ancient hilltop settlement in the High Weald between the North and South Downs.
A purlin is a longitudinal, horizontal, structural member in a roof. In traditional timber framing there are three basic types of purlin: purlin plate, principal purlin, and common purlin.
A king post is a central vertical post used in architectural or bridge designs, working in tension to support a beam below from a truss apex above.
Frances Mary "Fanny" Parker was a New Zealand-born suffragette who became prominent in the militant wing of the Scottish women's suffrage movement and was repeatedly imprisoned for her actions.
Tree House, also known as The Tree, is a medieval timber-framed house on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is the original manor house of Crawley, and was built in the early 15th century and rebuilt in the mid-16th century. It now has a modern exterior, but the old structure is still in place inside. Situated in a prominent position facing both the High Street and The Boulevard, two of Crawley town centre's main roads, its name commemorates an ancient elm tree which stood outside for hundreds of years and was one of Crawley's landmarks.
Bratton Court in the hamlet of Bratton within the parish of Minehead Without, Somerset, England was built as a manor house, with a 14th-century open hall and 15th-century solar hall. It is within the Exmoor National Park and has been designated as a Grade I listed building. It was enlarged in the 17th century and extensively altered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is now a farmhouse divided into 2 dwellings. The gatehouse and the barn at the west end of the courtyard date from the fifteenth century and are also listed as Grade I buildings.
A timber roof truss is a structural framework of timbers designed to bridge the space above a room and to provide support for a roof. Trusses usually occur at regular intervals, linked by longitudinal timbers such as purlins. The space between each truss is known as a bay.
The Ancient Priors is a medieval timber-framed hall house on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. It was built in approximately 1450, partly replacing an older structure—although part of this survives behind the present street frontage. It has been expanded, altered and renovated many times since, and fell into such disrepair by the 1930s that demolition was considered. It has since been refurbished and is now a restaurant, although it has been put to various uses during its existence. Secret rooms, whose purpose has never been confirmed for certain, were discovered in the 19th century. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance, and it has been described as Crawley's "most prestigious medieval building" and "the finest timber-framed house between London and Brighton".
All Saints Church is the Anglican parish church of Roffey, in the Horsham district of the English county of West Sussex. The present church, built to serve the Victorian suburb of Roffey—part of the ancient market town of Horsham—replaced a schoolroom in which religious services had been held since 1856. Arthur Blomfield's Early English-style church, built of locally quarried sandstone and funded by a widow as a memorial to her late husband, was completed in 1878 and was allocated a parish immediately. Roman Catholic services were also held in the building to serve Roffey's Catholic population, but these ceased in the early 21st century. English Heritage has listed the church at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
A post is a main vertical or leaning support in a structure similar to a column or pillar, the term post generally refers to a timber but may be metal or stone. A stud in wooden or metal building construction is similar but lighter duty than a post and a strut may be similar to a stud or act as a brace. In the U.K. a strut may be very similar to a post but not carry a beam. In wood construction posts normally land on a sill, but in rare types of buildings the post may continue through to the foundation called an interrupted sill or into the ground called earthfast, post in ground, or posthole construction. A post is also a fundamental element in a fence. The terms "jack" and "cripple" are used with shortened studs and rafters but not posts, except in the specialized vocabulary of shoring.
Mansion House is a prominent and historically significant Grade II* listed Georgian village property in Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex, England. The substantial family home is situated in the heart of Hurstpierpoint with the High Street at the front and South Downs to the rear. The brick-faced, timber-framed building has surviving medieval sections dating back to the mid- to late 16th century.
The Royal Hop Pole is a listed pub in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. Located on Church Street, it is an English Heritage hotel. It has recently been converted into a part of the Wetherspoons pub chain. It is famous for being mentioned in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers.
Margaret Macfarlane was a Scottish suffragette and honorary secretary of the Women's Social and Political Union in Dundee and East Fife.
Alice Davies was a British suffragette and nurse. She was imprisoned for protesting for women's right to vote by smashing windows, went on hunger strike and was awarded the Women's Social and Political Union Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour'.
Doreen Allen was a militant English suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), who on being imprisoned was force-fed, for which she received the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal 'For Valour'.
Genie Sheppard was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and militant suffragette who in prison went on hunger strike where she was force-fed for which action she received the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal.
The Suffragette Handkerchief is a handkerchief displayed at The Priest House, West Hoathly in West Sussex, England. It has sixty-six embroidered signatures and two sets of initials, mostly of women imprisoned in HMP Holloway for their part in the Women's Social and Political Union Suffragette window smashing demonstrations of March 1912. This was an act of defiance in a prison where the women were closely watched at all times.
Penarth Fawr is a hall house in the community of Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd, Wales. The oldest part of the house dates from the mid-fifteenth century and consists of four bays of the original house, with the service rooms in the southern bay and the hall occupying the other three; a parlour wing to the north of the hall has been demolished. There is a seventeenth-century wing attached to the rear of the building. The original house has been altered several times, but was restored to approximately its medieval appearance in 1937 and is notable for its intact medieval roof and screen.