During the last Christmas and New Year holiday, we explored several villages, coastal towns and castles. Among all the interesting site seeings, the most impressive thing to me is actually a smaller and more common feature: the medieval timber houses. What impress me is not only that the 600-700 years old houses are still breathing (people are still living inside them), but also how commonly you can see them!
⬇️Old Timber House
This house is simply called "old house", and it is indeed very old. In spite of its age, this house is still in use as people's home.
⬇️Named "The Old House", since 14thC
For many of these historical civilian houses, there are round plates in front of them stating the history simply. I found more information on the official "historic England organization" website. The "old house" was first built in 14th century, although the exterior timber-frame was formed in 15th century. The front was renovated in 17th century by Sir Edward Filmer.
⬇️A round information plate stating its history
The traditional timber framing is using heavy thick woods to build a structure to support the house, which were carefully fitted and jointed together with wooden pegs. Usually we can see the wooden frames from outside. The older the houses are, the more likely the shape of the wooden frames look irregular. The newer ones might have better regularly shaped frames or they are just half-timbered.
⬇️A much younger Timber House, since 1893
There are some houses with a "timber-frame" paining on the wall, to mimic this old-fashion style. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether the timbers are reall, one has to get very close to figure it out. I think the building in below image is only half-timber-framed, as the timber shape on the first floor looks more like a painting.
⬇️A much newer Timber House, since 1897
I have seen so many this kind of timber houses, basically every village or town has quite a few. Many of them are from medieval time according to the information plates in front of the houses. The high density of them, and the fact that they are still in use as people's home, gave me the most amazing impression of England.
Why my most impressive feeling comes from civilian houses rather than the more grand castles or palaces? Well, I think people feel more easily admired about things they do not have, rather than the opposite. I was also very impressed when I first saw the Parliament in London, but similarly, half of my attention was also attracted by another un-famous feature: the "ordinary" small churches everywhere in the city. Because this is very unusual for China. Indeed there are also lots of grand historical architectures in China. I would say the Forbidden city and summer Palace in Beijing are equivalent with the Parliament and Buckingham Palace in London, but if you walk away from the tourist area to the working and living area in Beijing, you would not see so many transitional old architectures, not like those un-famous churches in London. That was why I was so impressed when I first visited London.
But one thing to consider is that the equivalent religious architectures in China, the Buddhist and Taoist tempers, are usually located in mountains rather than cities. So it is intrinsically different with the Christian churches. And indeed there are many old tempers or even rock caves hiding in the mountains, which are wonderful architectures. Actually thanks for being away from the cities, parts of the tempers survived after suffering from the culture revolution.
Actually before I visited UK, I always thought that most of the historical buildings are either religious buildings or imperial buildings, because only for these two types the best artists and best engineers in their periods were collected. And the more valueable the architectures are, the more likely they will be treated well. I summaried this "rule" from touring around China.
But in this England trip, I found out this "rule" is not universally right. Because the timber houses, which are beautiful historical architectures, but also ordinary people's home. It is even more impressive than churches to me, as this time there is really no equivalent stuff in China.
For my curiosity, I searched "what is the oldest civilian house in China" online, the answer from wikipedia says:"姬氏民居位于中国山西省高平市陈区镇中庄村，是目前已发现的最早的元代民居，1996年被列为第四批全国重点文物保护单位。姬氏民居建于元至元三十一年（1294年），坐北朝南，面阔三间，进深六椽，单檐悬山顶." The Chinese "wikipedia"- BaiduBaike also confirms it, with more details.
It was also a wooden house, built in 1294 (Yuan dynasty), as indicated on a stone near the gate. It was found in 1979, and was personal own by then, but belongs to the government now. I believe there is no one living inside it now, basically it turns to a museum, also one of the most important preserved historical architectures in China. I also found some photos from the Chinese website BaiduBaike, as shown as below:
⬇️Oldest Chinese civilian house(built in 1294), cited from BaiduBaike
So the time periods of the oldest civilian houses in China and England are very similar, about 13-14 century, Yuan Dynasty in China. However there are only two civilian houses kept from that period till now in the huge size China, one is the one we talked about about, another is called "上圪坨院" in "阳城县润城镇上庄村".
How about England? The several timber houses in Charing I shown in this blog, are all belonging to the "Grade II listed buildings", which is only the bottom level of the three different classes of listed buildings. Below is the definition:
Grade I: buildings of exceptional interest.
Grade II*: particularly important buildings of more than special interest.
Grade II: buildings that are of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them".
And how many buildings are there in the Grand II level? According to Wikipedia, in March 2010, there were 374,000 list entires (500,000 actual buildings) in the entire list, 92% of which belonged to Grand II. Only 2.5% belonged to Grade I, 45% of which are places of worship. So similar with what I thought, the worship places usually stand for the highest art and technology level from different periods. Although the article didn't say what are the 460000 buildings listed in Grand II, I guess the timber houses occupied a big portion of them, since they are basically in every villages and towns.
Just count Charing, such a tiny villiage, there are already 12 buildings in the Grade II list. Two of them are religious palace including a Chapel and a Vicarage. Other 10 are all ordinary houses including one barn. Below are 3 other beautiful timber houses in Charing:
⬇️Peirce House, Since C13
⬇️Peirce House, sideview, Since C13
⬇️Sherborne House, Since C16
⬇️Didn't find the age for this pink one, my photo is not clear enough to see words on the plate
So if we use Pyramids to describe the number and quality of the historical architectures: The most wonderful ones on the top, the less valuable ones on the bottom. Then the Pyramid for England is much much fatter than that for China! On the top, the most wonderful ones might not be so much different in values, some in China might even be older. However, if looking into the basement, looking at how well people preseve their living houses, it is no way China can compete with England.
I have wondered why English people prefer to live in the timber houses, since the houses are small, old, short in the layer spacing, do not look good in living conditions. I would think it is easier to just rebuild a new house for living, with modern devices. I discussed with Margaret with it. She pointed out that many of these houses belong to the family, so people would like to keep its original looking. I think it makes a lot of sense. People usually cherish the private owned stuff more than public stuff. The houses will definetely be more cherished by the people if they grew up there.
I also found another reason from Wikipedia. Apparently the owners have the responsibility to maintain the historical buildings in law. So the owners can not do whatever they want, but have to get permission: "Carrying out unauthorised works to a listed building is a criminal offence and owners can be prosecuted."
I respect those people who put effort to preserve these pretty Timber Houses, so that we can see the history though them.
References:
[1] 姬式民居-百度百科 http://baike.baidu.com/subview/2119809/2119809.htm
[2] 姬式民居 wikipedia https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A7%AC%E6%B0%8F%E6%B0%91%E5%B1%85
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_II*_listed_buildings_in_Ashford_(borough)
[4] https://historicengland.org.uk/
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