Graunt Courts (EHER 37086)

16th and 17th century timber-framed house. It is described in building surveys from 2020 and 2009.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import: Graunt Courts (NR). <1> Late 16th century with 17th century additions. <2> Graunt Courts. House of the late 16th century with early 17th century additions. RCHM 10. Grade II. <3> April 1975. Field visit. Graunt Courts (name confirmed) is basically 16th century, irregular in plan and of timber framed construction. It has recently been restored, and is now an outstanding example of 16th century building. See photograph. <4> 2020. Building survey. The barn is a typical building of the late 18th century created from reused timbers and the frames of at least three earlier buildings. It was designed as a thrashing barn with a midstrey with an integrated porch on the eastern side. The design of the stables, in particular the clasped side purlin roof is very similar to the barn. It is made from a variety of reused timbers with primary bracing and interrupted studs all nailed in with wrought iron nails. It is likely the stables was built within a few years of the Barn and both could be shown on the 1796 estate map but the buildings are not correctly aligned. Certainly by the time of the 1840 Tithe Map the stables is shown as a separate building of the correct plan, size and disposition to the other buildings. Map evidence shows that the frame for the studio was erected between 1889 and 1894 as part of a comprehensive expansion of the site. The construction details indicate the principal timbers were reused and a new machined softwood roof was built to complete the building of which much remains over the bedroom of the studio. The building was converted in 2008 and little original fabric remains. Planning permission was given in 1974 for a pool house and a helicopter hangar with landing pad. Most of the farm buildings were then removed and it can only be assumed the farm had failed and was then sold on. The only buildings left were those on site today. The house resembles a seriphed letter F in plan. It appears somewhat organic and this is because it has grown incrementally. The house is made up of eight distinct timber frames with small annexes to join the sections together. The roofs are all of the same basic construction known as the clasped purlin roof. This means that the rafters are supported by two side purlins that are clasped in position by collars on the principal rafters. The principal rafters are those which spring off the tie-beams over the storey posts. The space between them defines the bays. Clasped purlin roofs appear early in the 16th century and carry on through to the 19th century. '.... it was almost unrivalled as a roof type in the smoke bay period of construction, about 1550-1590, and continued in use to the end of the timber-frame tradition and beyond. In mediaeval examples wind braces were used and the principal rafters were wider below the purlins to house the bottom end of the braces. After 1550 the number of windbraces in a house was slowly reduced, so that by the chimney period some houses had none at all (although they remained in use in barns). The positions of the windbraces is important to understanding the ground plan. In mediaeval hall houses the braces are generally symmetrically arranged in the hall where they served in part for decoration. Conversely, windbraces are seldom found within a smoke bay, presumably for fear that they should catch alight (or perhaps because all houses which did have them in the smoke bay did burn down!).' All the roofs visible in Graunt Courts have windbraces. These are the curving timbers that connect the purlins to the principal rafters, passing over the others and often nailed in place. It is also important to note that there is no sign of soot blackening on any of the timbers in the house and this indicates that it always had chimneys or smoke hoods from the beginning. Although many of the timbers are brown this is from the application of a modern stain most likely in the 1970's when it was fashionable to do this. Also many of the timbers have been subsequently stripped and abraded with a disc grinder and the original patina is lost. In phasing the house, that is working out the sequence of its development, a large number of contributing factors have to be taken into account. The style of the carpentry, the type of timber, the layout of the building and its intended function are all important. Other smaller clues such as the type and style of carpenter’s marks, the taper burn marks and any original forms of decoration may help date the construction. <5> See also: <6> <7>