17 South Street (EHER 26444)

Timber framed hall house with right and left crosswings, built in around 1300. One of the crosswings is 15th/16th century. Excavations undertaken during the restoration of a hall house, dated to around 1280, showed that the survival of medieval floor levels was limited.

July 1959. Grade II* listed. A hall house with right and left crosswings, which was built in around 1300. It has a 15th or 16th century replacement right (south) crosswing and other alterations and additions. The hall house is timber framed and plastered and has red plain tiled roofs. The crosswings are two storey and the hall is single storey, now with a gabled dormer window. The gabled crosswings are jettied with end brackets. There is a 19th century shop bay window on the ground floor. Radiocarbon dating from the hall and north crosswing gave results 610+70 and 670+70, the resulting calibrated age AD calculated on the mean was 1350±85 (HAR 5717; HAR 5718; 1984) indicating a date of around 1300 as not unlikely. Nothing survives of the original service end of the hall. The present four-bay replacement is difficult to date but appears 15th or 16th century. The three-bay north crosswing is of similar date to the hall, but may be slightly later. An extremely fine and imposing red brick chimney stack was inserted into the hall probably between 1480 and 1530. A floor was inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century and is now removed. There were indications of wall paintings in the north crosswing, too fragmentary to retain, but said to be a floral motif. A staircase was inserted at a later date. <1> <2> See photos <3>. 1983. Archaeological excavation. Excavations undertaken during the restoration of a hall house, dated to around 1280, showed that the survival of medieval floor levels was limited. In the hall a clay floor with tile-lined open hearth was found. Just to the north of the inserted stack some features, probably representing fixtures and fittings were found. A silver half-penny of Henry III (1216-74) was found in the hearth area. 13th century pottery was found in a boundary ditch, predating the building, running parallel and at right-angles to the street frontage. <4> Excavation at No. 17, during the restoration of the hall house, showed that the house was built over a boundary ditch, which ran parallel to the street frontage. This ditch was dated to the thirteenth century, and had been filled in and the hall-house built over it. The excavation suggested that the house was built in around 1280 (on the basis of a coin found in the central hearth), however the building evidence, particularly the herring-bone bracing, suggests a date of around 1350. Of course it is possible that the coin had been in circulation for some time before its loss. <5> Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import.