Very few people lived in castles a long time ago, most
people would have lived in houses that were much smaller.
These houses were usually made from wood and other
materials that have rotted away, so that today there are few of these homes
left for us to see.
Here are some pictures of some of those houses from a long
time ago, some of them have had a lot of work done on them to make them safe
for people to look at today.
A
Peasant's Cottage
The walls of this one are
made from stone, the roof is covered with straw, this is called a Thatched
Roof.
Notice the "wattle" fencing.
A
Peasant's Cottage
This cottage was made using a strong wooden frame, the
gaps between the frame were filled with wattle like the fence in the picture
above, this was then covered with a special mud mixture called "daub".
The walls are painted with lime-wash.
A
Village House
This house was made in the same way as the cottage above,
but has an upstairs room, look at the windows on the left side of the house.
The roof of this house is covered with tiles.
A
Small Manor House
A manor house is where the person in charge of a village
would have lived, it is a little bigger than the village house and has at
least two upstairs rooms.
A
Cruck Framed House
This house is slightly different to the ones above, the
large black shapes at the front of this hose are made from specially
selected tree trunks that have been split along their length. This made the
house very sturdy and strong.
Town
House
Houses in towns were often very small to look at from the
street, but they could extend back quite far.
Building space in towns was limited and houses were often
built in between other buildings.
A
Large Town House
This house is much bigger than any of the other houses we
have looked at, we can only see part of it but we can see that it has 3
floors and lots of windows.
If you look closely you can see that the wooden frame has
carved decoration on it, this house belonged to someone who was very wealthy
probably a rich merchant.
Two
Medieval Shops
This building is from a town or city where trade was
important. On the ground floor are two shops, the shop keepers and their
families would have lived in the rooms above the shop.
For more information about some
of the buildings shown here please click:
http://www.wealddown.co.uk/weald.htm
