2H7 



#11 tlje ®lb |)ovcjj:=Pott0e at *f ottenie. 



By the Rev. A. C. Smith, M.A. 



[Read before the Society at the Annual Meeting, at Devizes, September, 1874.] • 



l^i^EFORE I enter upon a short account of the old Porch- 

 House at Potterne, it may perhaps serve to open up the 

 subject and faciUtate my description and prepare in some degree 

 for a better examination of this most interesting specimen of domestic 

 architecture of a bygone age^ if I make a few preliminary observations 

 on timber buildings in England generally^ and touch upon the more 

 common an-angement and detail of an English house from three to 

 four hundred years ago. 



I do not think it is suflBciently considered that up to a comparatively 

 late period (say within the last two hundred years) most of our 

 houses were built of timber. But I will go farther than that, and 

 say that up to the period of the Norman Conquest, the great 

 majority even of our Churches were built of timber. Why is it that 

 instances of Saxon Churches are so extremely rare with us, while 

 specimens of Norman work are so abundant ? This is not, I will 

 venture to say, solely due to the inferior, and therefore less durable, 

 character, of Saxon work and Saxon materials ; for the thickness of 

 Saxon walls (where a specimen exists,) is remarkable. But it is 

 because, when the country was in great measure covered with forests 

 and marshes, and roads of communication were few and often im- 

 passable, the carriage of stone was too formidable and too costly a 

 business, while the supply o£ timber was so ample and so ready at 

 hand, that Churches, as well as less important buildings, were gene- 

 rally made of wood : as for the same causes they are to this day in 

 Norway, where I have seen specimens of wooden Churches bearing a 



•The writer of the following paper desires to express his personal obligations to the spirited owner 

 of the Old Porch House, at Potteme, (George Richmond, Esq., K.A.,) not only for his courtesy in 

 pointing out all the principal points of interest in the building, but also for supplying the details, to 

 which this imperfect sketch owee any interest it may possess. 



