Don't Judge a Book by its Cover - Part 1
You will be able to spot many examples in Worcester where a property begins life in one guise and then morphs into something quite different. In a number of cases, these will be Tudor and Elizabethan properties, which, when built, were your traditional timber-framed dwellings that are most commonly/known as black and white buildings. These structures would have started off life with the natural colour of oak beams as the frame, and then the wattle and daub technique for the infill. Wattle and daub technique (used since Neolithic time) involved vertical wooden stakes (wattle), which were woven with horizontal twigs and branches and then covered with clay or mud and sand with straw to bind(daub), which was then mixed with lime and ox blood.
Whilst the earliest known brick manufactured in the UK (after the Romans left our shores) is around 1190, the reality is that from 1485 to 1714, only the wealthy constructed with bricks. As time moved on and parts of the wattle and daub began to deteriorate and fall out, they were replaced by brick, often using cement mortar. To uniform the infill, the original wattle and daub parts that remained were, in some cases, plastered over, as were the bricks. In effect, the original interior was then, in many cases, hidden away and forgotten. I’ve always wondered why, after being around for so long, some of Worcester’s historic ‘black and white’ properties began to lean, and made the assumption that this would have been due to the foundations being disturbed – for example, 19th-century mining. Apparently, though, the process of replacing some of the wattle and daub with bricks could end in disaster, with the increased weight on the frame causing distortion and potentially collapse.
Here are 2 examples in Worcester of a leaning timber-framed property – I wonder if, in fact, trying to make it stable with bricks had the opposite effect!
So those properties where the brick infill was successful or the wattle and daub was more sympathetically restored have survived, but they are now under attack – this time from progression and population growth. Working from home is not a new concept, and many properties were multi-functional and would be the family home and business. Cities, towns and villages grew with the population and the growth of new Industries and as they did, there was a need for more suitable housing/property. With each period, be it Georgian or Victorian, these historic properties were swept, or if we were very lucky, they were hidden behind a façade. It is easy to be fooled when the façade forms part of a row, of say, a 3-storey Georgian terrace. In some cases, the interior would also have been disguised, and many a beam would have been plastered over and just become a plastered wall/ceiling and part of the fabric of the property.
Walking the streets of Worcester today, there are many of these timber-framed properties where their origins are not immediately obvious, as they wear a mask and are still hidden from view, but some have been revealed. The unveiling has not always been intentional, though and in some cases the property would have been purchased for development or sadly to be demolished. No doubt we have lost some Tudor property that was sound and where quite possibly a blind eye may have been turned.
Alfred Taylor House – 43-49 St Johns
One property that was saved was 43-49 St John’s, Worcester, but it so nearly wasn’t. If you were to take this image of the property(ties), which was taken in the 1960s at face value, you would have been forgiven for thinking that this dilapidated building was far from anything special that warranted rescuing.
In 1974, when the Worcester City Council decided that the building just wasn’t worth saving, it was widely thought that the origins of the property were C1700. Worcester City Council refused to budge, but the fate of 43-49 was sealed in 1975 when Environment Secretary Anthony Crossland made his decision – They Must Stay! The battle was won, well, part of it, the property was to be saved from the bulldozer, but there was a long way to go before we would see the property in all its glory as we do today.
Alfred Taylor stepped in and purchased the historic Worcester property in 1976, and armed with keys from the agents, he unlocked the door and got his first proper look inside. And what a daunting scene was presented to Alfred – debris, broken glass, rubbish littering the floor and thick layers of grime and dust covered everything, but this did not put him off. Alfred commented at the time:-
‘I am a bit of a sentimentalist and I don’t want to leave just money when I die – I want to have achieved something positive, and that’s why I aim to preserve 43-49 St John’s
Alfred fell ill in 1979, and sadly, he died without completing the renovations. Alfred’s sons stepped in, keen to fulfil their Father’s wishes and set about the task of completing what their Father had started. The complete renovation of the property was intensive and challenging, but the job was seen through, and some years later, I believe the mid-1980s, the work was completed.
Once restored, the historic Worcestershire property was very fittingly named Alfred Taylor House and occupied as a furniture shop and then as Age UK, but today the current use seems more fitting – Bull Baiters.
When this property was built, St John’s was an independent township which was flourishing due to its key location near a major crossing over the Severn and the roads leading to mid Wales. We now know that the property is significant and almost one of a kind for Worcester, a medieval building.
St John’s Medieval building had already stood for many years when its residents were sure to have hidden behind their locked doors when the Parliamentary troops used the church tower as an observation post and casually used the walls of the church to sharpen their swords.
There is a description of the property on the listed buildings site, but I love the description within an open letter from F.W.B Charles, dated December 1974, which I hope will help you to visualise how it looked:-
“These three little properties were originally one building of c1500. It consisted of a 2-bay hall, open from ground-floor to roof, and a solar cross-wing of 2 storeys, jettied and gabled over the pavement. The cross-wing, at the right-hand end, as one faces the building, is now more complete at the back than it is at the front. The original roof of its front bay has been replaced by one lying in the same line as the hall roof, and the jetty has gone. The hall is much more complete. Its original entrance is still marked by a door at the extreme left-hand end. This was originally the entrance to the so-called screens passage. At about 1600, a floor and enclosed fireplace were inserted, making the hall into a two-storey structure with rather low headroom. This typical alteration of the seventeenth century…gives…the impression of a cottage built for small people?…… Possibly, there was also a service cross-wing on the other side of the passage corresponding to the solar. However, this and many other features of the original building remain largely unexplored. The building must obviously be preserved since, excluding the Commandery which is of altogether different social and architectural standing, there is probably no other surviving medieval hall in Worcester.”.
