man 



A HISTORY OF SURREY 



On the borders of Sussex there were to be found, in the memory of 

 specimens of the wattle and clay chimneys that appear to have 

 preceded those of brick ; these were so dangerous, especially where 

 thatch was used, that ordinances were made at Clare in Suffolk in 162 1,' 

 to take them down and rebuild them in brick, and doubtless similar 

 measures were taken elsewhere. 



The large ingle openings in the farmhouses are commonly spanned 

 by great oak beams. In good houses the fireplaces have arches of chalk, 

 of which there are good examples at Loseley, Smallfield Place, Leigh 

 Place, the house at the Castle Arch, Guildford, and elsewhere. In other 

 houses and cottages the fireplaces are in brick with Tudor arches ; the 

 sides of these were plastered and painted with arabesques in distemper. 

 In the southern parts of the county the better class of house was 

 originally covered with the large thin stone slabs called Horsham slates. 

 These give a very noble appearance to a roof, although they are very 

 heavy and can not be made to fit very close. Most buildings in the 

 Weald were roofed with them, and they were used as far as the middle 

 of the county. Thatch was the principal alternative, although there is 

 record that tiles were used to roof the buildings on Edward the Second's 

 manor of Woking. In surveys of his manors generally tiles are ordered 

 to be used instead of shingles. 



An architectural feature for which Surrey and Sussex are famous is 



the use of weather tiles, which are tiles, generally with fancy ends, 



fastened to the upright timber walls. There does not seem any evidence 



for early use of these, and it is probable that it began 



at the time when the timber on the weather sides 



began to decay. That this had been found to be a 



U p J difficulty we may conclude from the fact that the 



_y L ^"^^J timbers at Nonsuch were from the first covered with 



c (^ \^/ gilded lead in patterns and with slates cut with fancy 



I ^1 L^"'^J ends like weather tiles ; of such slates there are speci- 



\^^ v!/ "^^"S to be found in Devon and France. On present 



Fic. 5. Patterns of information it will be safe to date the introduction of 



Weather Tiles. Weather tiles from the Commencement of the eighteenth 



century. The most usual pattern is that marked b, 



but others are found as shown (Fig. 5). 



In towns it was desired to give to the timber fronts the more 

 fashionable appearance of brickwork, and a form of brick was devised 

 that could be nailed on like a tile (Fig. 6). Many of the fronts in 

 Guildford and other towns that are apparently of brick are made of these 

 and their presence can be detected by the absence of any possible bond. 

 Although there is some weather tiling in Kent, the more usual plan 

 there is to cover the timbers with weather boards, and in the eastern 

 counties ornamental pargetting is used for the same purpose. Of this 



' Proc Sttff. -Inst. 0/ Arch. n. 108. Such chimneys are probably meant in a reference to 

 chimne,^ of plaster in Parker's Handbook, which that author failed to understand, and took to mean 

 mantelpieces. 



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