LITTLE HUCKLOW : ITS CUSTOMS AND OLD HOUSES. 5 1 



Other by the letters A, B, and C on the plan, and by a difference 

 in shading, so that the reader can see the whole arrangement 

 at a glance. The building is niinous, and only the house 

 marked " B " is now occupied. These three dwelling-houses 

 have been formed by alterations and additions out of one 

 house or original nucleus, which consisted of three bays and 

 a half of "housing," marked respectively i, 2, 3, and ^ on 

 the plan. 



The original house or nucleus can be readily distinguished from 

 the alterations and additions, not only by the appearance of 

 the walls themselves and the ashlar comer-stones of the original 

 structure, but by the bays of that structure. It is now well 

 ascertained that houses were usually built in bays, presumably 

 of uniform size, buildings being described by surveyors as 

 consisting of so many bays, including half-bays.* The bays 

 are usually, but not always, separated from each other by pairs 

 of "crucks," crutches (Lat. fitrca) or principal timbers, + which 

 rested on stones placed near the ground, and extended from 

 them to the ridge-piece, the partition walls between them being 

 made of a framework of wooden beams, laths, and plaster. 

 Two pairs of these " crucks " are yet in situ in the building 

 which we are considering, and one of the pairs is represented 

 in fig. I . The stones on which the " crucks " rest are here 

 buried in the ground, and are not shown in the drawing. 



The existence of such " crucks " implies the existence of bays, 

 and if we measure the bay numbered 2 in the house marked 

 " A " we shall find that it is approximately sixteen feet in 

 breadth by fifteen feet in length. In such measurements we 

 must allow for error in the work of the old builders, and for 

 the fact that in such houses the present external walls are rarely 

 the original walls. In most cases wood and plaster walls have 

 been replaced by stonework. 



* See my ''Evolution of the English House, p. 32 seqq., and Notes and 

 Queries, 9th S., vi., 461. 



t The Anglo-Saxon word for such a beam may have been feor-studu 

 (far beam?) which occurs in a vocabulary of the tenth or eleventh century, 

 and renders the Lat. obstupum (for obstipum) an inclined post. — See the 

 Wright-Wulcker Vocab., 281, 10, and 461, 3. 



