How to date buildings
Medieval buildings
To the right is a cruck built building at
Swanbourne. A cruck is a pair of inclined
timbers, usually curved, which support the
roof. They can usually be seen at the end of
a building, like here, so remember to look at
the sides of a building as well as the front.
They can go partway up the building like this
one, or all the way to the apex (point) of the
roof. The timbers are infilled with wattle and
daub panels.
The Court House at Long Crendon is a late
medieval building. Like the house at
Swanbourne above, it is timber-framed. You
can see the wooden beams that are infilled
with later brick. It is the wood that is the
main structure. Can you also see that the
first floor sticks out a bit? This is called a
jetty. Houses like this were also built in the
Tudor period, so you might have to do some
research to work out which it is. The timber
frame has been filled in with brick later on in
the building's history.
The facade of the Great Hall at the King’s
Head, Aylesbury shows that the building is
timber-framed and the panes of glass are
quite small. This building is late medieval as
well. At this period, very large sheets of
glass for windows couldn’t be made, so
windows were made up of lots of smaller
sheets, often coloured. It wasn’t just in
churches that stained glass was used.
Tudor buildings
This manor at Stewkley is timber framed
with brick infill but small windows. The
two bays on either side of a central
house, making a H shape, suggests that
is mid Tudor and is taking some
inspiration from Renaissance ideas of
symmetry.
Although this has some similarities with
both the King’s Head and Long Crendon
Court House and was established in the
fifteenth century, this manor at Dorney
Hall has much bigger windows probably
from later alterations. Large windows
were fashionable in the late Tudor
period. It is still timber-framed but these
are infilled with brick, which is a very
Tudor material.
This house, called The Kya, at
Ludgershall, was photographed before it
was demolished. It was a simple cottage
with a thatched roof. Without the records
from the demolition this house could
have been thought to be of any date from
the medieval period to the eighteenth
century. Poor people’s houses change
very little between these dates. This
house had a timber frame, which was
infilled with witchert, a local material that
is a mixture of clay and chalk.
Stuart buildings
At the start of the seventeenth century
houses are very much like their
Elizabethan predecessors. Great houses
used as much glass as possible and had
bay windows. They were still made of brick
to start with but later were made of stone.
Lower ranking houses were still timberframed and looked very similar to earlier
buildings. This house on the right is on
West Street, Buckingham, and is an
example of a seventeenth century house
made of stone. In many ways it is not too
different from sixteenth century houses.
Through the course of the seventeenth
century houses become more classical.
They start using features that have been
seen on ancient Roman and Greek
buildings, like columns, capitals and
pediments. They become very regular and
symmetrical and are also built in one
square or rectangular block.
The rise of the middle classes in the
seventeenth century sees a middle
style of house built of brick and very
simple. The sash window was
invented in the late seventeenth
century and can sometimes be
seen surviving in houses today.
Georgian buildings
Many middle class Georgian houses survive today. They are usually built of
brick, are symmetrical and have sash windows. They often have a particular type
of lintel made up of rubbed bricks places so they splay out into a fan shape.
Some people who couldn’t afford to completely rebuild their houses just put a
new front on, so look around the side or back for more clues.
Langley House, pictured on the right, is an
early Georgian building that was influenced a
great deal by Classical architecture. The main
front here is approached by shallow steps and
has a portico under the first floor and there
are two curving walls enclosing the area
immediately in front of the building.
This house on the right in Burnham has a new
Georgian front, which makes it very regular
and symmetrical. It also has a parapet in front
of the roof, which is a Georgian trait, so it
looks more like a Mediterranean villa.
This house in Westlington is made of
whitewashed brick or stone and is thatched. In
essence it looks very much like The Kya in
Ludgershall (see above), which dated to the
sixteenth century, but here there is the clue of
a panel with the date 1762 to suggest it is
eighteenth century. You can’t always trust
these panels, as sometimes they were put in if
the building was altered at a later date.
However, there is nothing to suggest that this
building is any older than the eighteenth
century.
Georgian houses often have a feature called a
fanlight over the windows. These are created
from rubbed bricks that are arranged like a fan
splaying out at the top of the window, such as
this example in Aylesbury.
Victorian buildings
This fire station in Burnham looks like a
purpose built nineteenth century building
though it has modern fire station doors. It has
the grand public building look to it.
Some Victorian houses, like these
almshouses at Waddesdon, followed a new
fashion called neo-Gothic. Instead of copying
classical styles the Victorians started to copy
medieval styles. You can usually tell they’re
Victorian if they are a little too regular and
well-preserved to be true medieval buildings.
Other Victorian houses can be very over the
top, such as this house on Church Street,
Aylesbury, which has intricate woodwork
coving and busy tracery in the windows.
Early twentieth century buildings
Semi-detached houses became common in the
early twentieth century. The 1920s and 1930s
saw the Art Deco style that was popular in
jewellery transfer to furniture and house design.
Buildings often have rounded edges and fluted
decoration on the front. The Round House in
Aylesbury, on the right, is one example of a
rounded building, and the facade above Bon
Marché in Aylesbury, on the right, has fluted
decoration.
Late twentieth century buildings
The late twentieth century saw a rise in the influence of professional design in
buildings. The 1960s saw affordable housing being built, which included high-rise
flats as well as housing estates.