Building materials
Batheaston is a stone village. There are only occasional glimpses of early
timber construction; some surviving moulded oak door cases, the remnants
of roof crucks, the remains of a timber framed wattle and daub internal
wall and a much mutilated moulded wood fire surround is about the sum
total.
Batheaston had a readily accessible supply of oolitic limestone on Bannerdown, an area which, even today, is common land managed by the Freeholders. Bannerdown stone was still being exploited for buildings as late as the 1920s. Traditionally the stone was used as rubble or as small dressed blocks and then, from about the mid 18th Century, as ashlar or fine jointed dressed large blocks of stone, which, ideally, should have bed heights of 10 to 16 inches (Hill & Birch, 1994, p. 47). Bricks make a rare appearance; most frequently as the top courses on ashlar stacks and sometimes for internal partition walls. Only one example of an external brick wall on a pre 19th Century house has been recorded – in a prominent position in the High Street, probably erected as a fashion statement.
As a general principle, the thicker the wall the older is the building. Linda Hall, in her survey of the rural houses of north Avon and south Gloucester (1983) found that the pre-17th Century houses have walls 2’6”(76cms) thick or more, in 17th Century houses wall thickness is up to 2’3”(68cms). Pamela Slocombe (1988 p.8) found that in the limestone area around Corsham, Box and Bradford-on-Avon, 16th Century houses of rubble construction have walls about 26” thick (66cms), in 17th Century houses the wall thickness is about 24”(61cms), which by the 18th Century was down to about 22”(56cms). The Batheaston survey is showing rubble wall thicknesses of about 70-80cms for the late 16th Century to early 17th Century (pre Civil War) and about 60-63cms for the mid to late 17th Century. Frequently gable end walls are thicker than the side walls and are sometimes battered, that is, the wall thickness diminishing as one travels up the building. With the use of ashlar in the 18th Century walls thickness is down to 30cms or less.
