Summary
C18 house, formerly part of the English Linen Manufactory founded by Arnold Nesbitt MP.
Description
A detached house, formerly a double unit in part of an 'L'-shaped terrace of dwellings built between 1763 and about 1767 for the manufacturing of linen, for Arnold Nesbitt MP. The building was isolated and probably subdivided in the C19 and converted into flats in the C20.
MATERIALS: clay tile covering to the roof. Red-brown, red and blue brick elevations and hung tiles of C18 and C20 date. The cellar retains lower stone courses.
PLAN: the earliest plan-form is broadly legible. Two full-height cellars running north-south, lit by semi-circular openings and light wells (blocked) partly above ground level were used as loom shops for manufacturing the linen. The slightly elevated ground floor has a central main entrance leading to a stair, which was probably shared, accessing the symmetrical arrangement of four rooms to both floors of each unit. The front and rear rooms had back-to-back diagonal fireplaces served by the end stacks. The internal arrangement was remodelled in the C20 when the building was converted into flats; this is particularly evident at the rear where additional stairs and rooms have been inserted.
EXTERIOR: pitched roof with large gable to the front and two end stacks. The façade has C18 tiles, re-hung (probably in the C20) up to the attic level then C20 tiles above. The C20 entrance door to the centre is approached by a flight of three brick steps; the moulded door surround and flat hood supported on brackets are C18. Either side of the entrance at the ground floor are small, C20 casement windows, probably in original openings. At the first floor, a small casement window lights the staircase within and is flanked by C20 oriel windows with tile-hung aprons. At the gable apex is another oriel window on a curved bracket.
The rear elevation comprises late-C18 or C19 red bricks with blue brick headers laid in Flemish bond at the ground floor, hung with C20 tiles at the first. There are two small, single-storey C20 extensions at the ground floor in brick laid in Stretcher bond with some tile hanging; these were probably rear facilities for the flats. The ground floor casements are C20 beneath elliptical heads. At the first floor is a small central casement which lights the rear stairs; to the right is an angled oriel. There are two ‘Velux’-type windows in the rear pitch of the roof.
The east elevation comprises C18 bricks laid in both English and Sussex bonds. It has a lop-sided appearance due to the elevation being cut back at an angle at the south-east corner, to the rear of the integrated stack. The angled elevation has a red and blue brick flat-roofed, single storey extension at the ground floor and is hung with C20 tiles at the first floor where there are C20 casements. To the front of the stack is a two-storey brick extension beneath a hipped roof with a front catslide. The east and the rear elevation of this extension are generally of red brick laid in Sussex bond; the front elevation is in brown-red brick laid in English bond. To the rear of the extension is a single-storey, flat-roofed addition, above which are C20 casements at each floor level. The entrance to the cellars is in a single-storey addition to the east. All of the extensions at the east elevation are C20 and of lesser interest.
The west elevation is partly obscured by the cottage attached to the west. It has a concrete render to the first floor, some C18 brick laid in English bond at attic level but renewed brickwork above. There is a C20 window inserted to the front of the truncated end stack.
INTERIOR: the two C18, vaulted cellars used as loom shops are full-height and well-constructed in overpainted brick laid in English bond on courses of stonework. They run from north to south and were lit by large semi-circular openings to the north and south, now blocked. The vaulting is splayed at the openings to allow maximum light to penetrate the cellar. The partition wall between the vaults has a central splayed opening; the contemporary brick stairs from the ground floor above are apparent in this location. It is presumed that the flight (or flights) of stairs from the bottom brick step down to the ground floor of the cellar was in timber but is not in situ. The cellars were probably always interconnected to maximise the light to both and accommodate looms. The west entrance is blocked and at the east is an opening into the C20 reinforced concrete extension with brick piers and steel RSJs. This extension is likely to have been on the location of the cellar to the adjacent demolished property.
The ground floor room partitions are largely C18. Later chimneypieces have been inserted into the C18 fireplace openings. The stairs are in the earliest position but the structure appears to be C20. There is a brick paver floor covering. At the rear there are some blocked earlier door openings, probably of the C18, but this part of the building has seen much reordering to accommodate flats, including the insertion of rear stairs, and the earliest plan-form is not clear.
On the first floor, the dogleg staircase retains some C18 timbers, with carpenters’ marks, and the partition between the front and rear rooms is largely C18. The position of the fireplaces is preserved, but the chimneypieces are C20; there is one C18 plank and ledger door.
The flight of stairs to the attic (second floor) is C20 as are the room partitions. The ‘A’ frame roof structure is generally C18 to the west side, but with a renewed ridge plank and additional plank supports to the rafters. The roof structure is renewed at the east side. The front pitch retains the C18 rafters and wall plate on either side of the C20 gable.
History
In 1191, the ancient towns of Rye and Winchelsea were declared limbs to the Cinque Port of Hastings. The old town of Winchelsea had been steadily eroded by storm and sea floods in the earlier part of the C13 so, in 1283, Edward I acquired the manor of Iham to build a new town as a replacement, set within a roughly triangular promontory and surrounded by defences. The town was planned in the manor of the French bastides by the Warden of the Cinque Ports in consultation with Henry de Waleys, Mayor of London, and Itier Bochard of Angouleme. The plan of the town is an irregular grid laid out in 39 blocks called ‘quarters’. Within the new town, two of the churches of the old town were re-founded, in addition to monasteries of the Grey and Black Friars, a market square, three hospitals and the port on the river Brede to the north. The town flourished in the C14, noted mostly for importing wine from France, stored in the numerous medieval cellars of the town’s buildings, many of which remain.
Armoury Plat is located on the former ‘Second Street’ on the northern side of ‘quarter seven’ which accommodated 22 holdings according to the rent rolls of 1292. In the late C14, Winchelsea suffered raids by the French and by the rent rolls of 1363, a number of properties in the quarter were noted as ‘waste, burnt and uninhabited’. The silting of the harbour in the C15 and C16 further exacerbated the town’s decline. The site of Armoury Plat was probably reoccupied by the mid C16; the stonework in the cellar may be reused stone from an earlier structure. The name suggests some historic association with The Armoury, a building of about 1300 located 300m to the south-west, or at least that Armoury Plat was sited in the same plot of land as its namesake.
The town benefited from a brief, modest revival in the later C18 when Arnold Nesbitt MP established a linen manufactory for cambric by 1761, becoming the English Linen Company in 1764. French Huguenots were the skilled workers in the manufactory, along with English child-apprentices, utilising the medieval cellars in the town for weaving the fabric and living in the accommodation above. The dampness of the cellars prevented breakage of the delicate flax, grown successfully locally, factors that created a thriving business until its relocation from the town in the early C19.
Edwin Wardroper’s map of 1763 indicates that quarter seven was known as Bear Square (later Factory Square and then Barrack Square), and generally was open land apart from The Armoury, formerly known as The Bear Inn (there is a suggestion that a bear baiting pit may have been located here). Nesbitt appears to have focussed his linen business in this part of Winchelsea and by 1767 there were 22 manufactory houses, including a new block of five in North Street (Grade II*, National Heritage List for England 1234560) and an L-shaped block of 15 occupying the north-eastern corner of the quarter in Barrack Square and Mill Road. The Ordnance Survey (OS) Field Surveyors map of 1799 shows this block. The buildings were probably used as barracks from about 1800 following the declaration of war with France in 1793, hence the most recent street name. The eastern arm survives to this day, known as 1-10 Barrack Square and is Grade II*- listed (NHLE 1234386). The form and appearance of Armoury Plat, in particular the surviving full-height cellars, suggests that the building was part of that ‘L’ shaped block. The building was probably a double unit with a shared front entrance and main stair from which two families would have accessed their living quarters on the ground and upper floors, and the cellars below. However, it has also been suggested that the building may have had a back-to-back plan with each unit having separate entrances and stairs. It seems probable that three adjoining dwellings that linked the Armoury Plat to 1-10 Barrack Square were demolished or fell down between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the publication of the Tithe Map in the 1840s, which shows Armoury Plat as a separate, detached dwelling.
During the mid to late C19, the buildings in Barrack Square were subdivided into smaller units lived in by working people, and it seems likely that this would have been the case for Armoury Plat. Later C19 modifications are suggested by the rear and east elevations, the somewhat awkward angular character of the latter hinting at the building’s truncation earlier in that century. The exposed red-brick stretcher and blue-brick header rear wall suggests a degree of late-C18 or - C19 rebuilding. The continuing lower part of that wall eastward to form a flat-roofed, single-storey bay jutting into the yard, with a cambered concrete end-post, indicates further remodelling in the C20.
Additional evidence for C20 interventions is clearer, in part because of the recent removal of internal finishes. A photograph of 1919 and aerial photographs of 1931 (see SOURCES) show the building in its current form. Internal graffiti suggests a major building campaign of about 1910 when it seems likely that the building was converted into flats resulting in the reconfiguration of internal spaces and creation of rooms in the attic space.
Externally, this building campaign is most clearly expressed at the frontage, where the addition of an enlarged gable necessitated the front pitch of the roof to be re-set. The C18 rafters remain indicating that the earliest roof was probably pitched and may have incorporated a smaller dormer (as seen in the listed Five Houses in North Street, NHLE 1234560) or a small, half-hip as seen in Barrack Square. Oriel windows were added to the first floor and attic levels and the tile hanging was replaced at the attic; the tiles below are probably C18 but appear to have been re-set in the C20, covering the blocked openings into the cellar. The apex of the western gable has renewed C20 brickwork and an applied concrete render. The east elevation retains its C18 brick walling, but it appears that part of this elevation has been rebuilt given the straightness of some of the courses and variety of brick bonds used. An early-C20, double-height extension was added to the east elevation at the ground-floor level. Single-storey extensions are attached to the rear of the extension and to the east, the latter housing the stair access to the cellar.
Internally, although some of the C18 brick steps from the ground floor of the house down to the cellar are apparent between the vaults, the flights of stairs from the bottom step down to the cellar floor have been removed. In the cellar space itself, the door on the west side, which may have formed a secondary entrance for non-resident linen workers or access to another building, and the large semi-circular openings which lit the linen manufactory at the north and south elevations, are blocked in addition to the corresponding light wells. A secondary C20 stair leads to the reduced opening at the rear of the west cellar. The easternmost cellar appears to have been extended further eastwards to create an air raid shelter, probably during the Second World War.
Within the house, the exposed cross-walls and room partitions reflect the remodelling to form flats and combine new members with re-used, C18 timbers; the central east-west partition to all floors is probably C18, however. The position of the stairs from the ground floor to the cellar has been covered over.The main stairs (straight run from ground to first and dogleg from first to attic floors) retain their earliest position. The flight from the ground to first floor has C20 risers and treads, suggested by the machine-sawn softwood and sequence of modern (Hindu-Arabic) numerals on the underside which appear to be construction markers. In the first-floor structure, some C18 timbers appear to be in situ suggested by the presence of carpenters’ marks. The flight from the first floor to the attic is early C20, as are the partitions in the attic space. The floor frames are generally C20 with a mixture of wider C18 and C20 floorboards. The roof retains some C18 rafters at the west side, and on either side of the C20 front gable. C20 rear stairs have been inserted from ground to first floor and the rear rooms of these levels have been reconfigured.
Reasons for Listing
Armoury Plat, built 1763-1767, for Arnold Nesbitt MP as a linen manufactory, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it retains a significant proportion of pre-1850 fabric and form, with a distinctive palette of materials and features including C18 and early-C19 brickwork, tile-hung elevations, former cellar openings and the principal entrance;
* the interior has been remodelled, but legible components of the plan form contribute to special interest, particularly the finely constructed, full-height cellars used for the production of linen and their internal access from the ground floor of the house.
Historic interest:
* as an example of pre-industrial revolution housing adapted to regional vernacular traditions.
Group value:
* clear association and demonstrable group value with Grade II*-listed 1-10 Barrack Square, of which it very probably formed a part.
External Links
External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.
Recommended Books
Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)