296 On the Old Porch-House at Fotterne. 



The porch dooi% remembered by many old inhabitants, with its 

 wicket, is described as covered with iron, Hke a prison door ; and it 

 is not a little remarkable that the present owner, with a firm pre- 

 sentiment that it must be in existence somewhere, and with a no 

 less confident persuasion that it would be found (if at all) in a pig-sty, 

 offered a reward for its recovery ; and sure enough, before long, half 

 of the identical wicket, with some of the iron fittings upon it, was 

 discovered doing duty as a part of the floor of a pig-sty, at a mile^s 

 distance. It will, I am sure, rejoice the heart of every true archaeo- 

 logist to learn that the wood of the wicket having proved to be still 

 sound, only somewhat richly pickled, it is to be worked up again 

 into the door, and restored to its former position. Besides this, no 

 other original door remains : the only one of any antiquity, which 

 may be a sixteenth century door, is now placed in the end building 

 at the north-east. 



It has been suggested that perhaps the hall itself is of elder date 

 than the other buildings on either side of it, and that it was re- 

 moved from its original site and rebuilt here, when possibly the 

 porch may have been added.^ Certain it is that nothing would have 

 been easier than to do this, for the whole framework of the building 

 is mortised together, and fixed by oak pegs through the tenons, and 

 all the uprights are numbered for their respective places, i., ii., iii., 

 iv., v., vi., and so on, as any one may still see for himself. It should 

 however be remembered that this argument for its easy removal is 

 by no means conclusive; for the practice of putting together timber 

 framework by means of pegs, prior to its permanent erection, was 

 not only a general custom of builders then, but is still the time- 

 honoured practice of carpenters : indeed roofs of barns and farm 

 buildings are generally so constructed on the ground previous to 

 erection. Between the oak uprights, short thick horizontal oak 

 laths fit into grooves, and these formed the foundation for the plaster, 

 but in the larger spaces wattle was used instead of laths. 



Of the two quaint windows on the east wall of the hall, the 



' If however the porch was an addition, Mr. Purday gives it as his decided 

 opinion, based on structural details, that it was an addition made immediately 

 after the hall had been placed here. 



