The History of a Kingsclere House
Wareham House, Swan Street

THE PROPERTIES that comprise 21 & 23 Swan street were originally one. Many of the documents pertaining to this property have survived and so give us some idea of the age and history of the building. Although the house appears Georgian on the outside, closer inspection of the roof and beams that have subsequently been revealed by restoration work, show the building to be much older. The purpose of this article is to try and reconstruct the original building and attempt to see how an originally medieval building might have changed over the centuries. Some documents have unfortunately been lost or not passed down so some details are only known by information given to local historians in the recent past. However, a considerable portion of the deeds remain in the New College archives in Oxford.

NEW COLLEGE, Oxford acquired the house as a gift from a distinguished former student and fellow of their College, William Warham in 1495 with a final quitclaim in 1510. They continued holding the property until 1869. Warham was the son of Robert Warham of Church Oakley and was sent as a scholar to Winchester College and from there to New College. Though he may only have been a son of a property owning yeoman, he rose through the ranks of the Clergy to become Bishop of London and eventually to reach the dizzy heights of Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England.

Probable west elevation in 15th Century
The gable end is a typical king post truss

The family had close connections with Kingsclere and the local area. His parents are buried in the church at Malshanger and William had (possibly inherited) a house there. Various relations owned property in and around Kingsclere, Hannington and Ibworth.

The deeds for 21 & 23 Swan street in fact date back even earlier than the ownership of the Warhams. The first recorded building on the site is for 1325. Is the building now standing as old as that?

AT THIS POINT we have to start to consider the structural aspect of the building. It is just possible that part of the building could date from that time. Unfortunately much of the original timber framing is missing and we must interpolate from what we have left. The pre 19 century building comprises seven bays varying in style so that it is apparent that the building has evolved over the centuries.

The two bays at the North end of the site are quite distinctive in style and are a fine example of medieval architecture. Very few buildings survive in the area from the 14th century and it is unlikely that this building dates from then but not impossible. It has been recorded that the house was originally built in 1425 and there is a date on one of its walls to record this.

I wish I knew where that was as it would obviously be a considerable help in dating the structure! Likewise it has been suggested that it was a College at this point. Again it would be interesting to know the source of this information, as there is no other source for thinking such an institution existed in Kingsclere at that time. It may result from confusion with the fact that it belonged to an Oxford College for so long. However this end of the building is very similar to other early/mid fourteenth century buildings such as the Swan Hotel next door, so there might be some truth in the 1425 date.

We have here two bays at right angles to the road each originally measuring 4.3 metres long. There are 8 rafters per bay each pegged through the purlins. There is an open truss mid-bay with a chamfered, curved, collar. The purlins are butt jointed (clasp-sided) to the principal rafters of the trusses. The trusses are of King post construction. Curved wind braces help support the purlins. The end walls still have the original wattle and daub.

The front bay has been truncated, presumably when the Georgian front was added to take back a jettied front to the ground floor line. The front bay has been cut off at approximately three quarters length in Edwardian times, presumably to remove a jettied end and align the first floor level with the ground floor level. The quality of this timber work is exceptional although not unusual for the period. The rafters are laid "flat" unlike technical and modern practise would dictate. Not that it would have had much practical effect as the individual timbers of the structure are so over sized for the building loads involved. This end portion is very typical of buildings of this period and would normally have been expected to consist of a buttery and pantry in the two ground floor rooms with a "solar" or living space above.

A house such as this would also have contained a hall. More rooms with living space above might also have been found at the far end of the hall. It would normally be expected for a Hall of this period to have no first floor, with an open fire burning within the hall space. A cross passage would run between the two.

  Plan of Warham House
The western elevation is to the top of the diagram

Here we have a problem because the roof space above this central section (Bay C) is not at all like the timbering of the northernmost bays (A and B). Neither is it particularly like the timbering in the bays to the south. The wind braces are missing, and there are no mid-bay trusses. Not only are there signs that there has been reconstruction when the front of the house was lifted to accommodate higher ceilings and larger Georgian windows, but that major work went on before that.

Was there ever a hall there at all? Well, on the first floor timbering, if one examines the joints that are exposed we can see where the doors would have existed from the cross-passage into the buttery/pantry. One upright for a door frame is still standing. In the roof space we also have a large number of smoke stained timbers though not all the rafters are so stained. This suggests that the original roof has been altered with the original rafters reused.

The hall may have been removed when further bays were added on the southern end and a new hall constructed. A smoke chamber might have been added in the cross passage which could have been moved to its present position. Further building obviously took place when brick fireplaces and chimneys were added. Such speculations may be resolved by further exploration!

The two end bays appear to have been added at the same time, as they are very similar. To have added two bays to what is already a fair sized building suggests that a large household was to be encompassed. Most domestic buildings of this date would normally only contain one extra bay.

These two bays are similar but different from the bays described so far. The trusses are Queen-posted unlike the northern bays, which have a single post between the tie beam and the collar beam (King post). The original span of the bays is greater than that found at the north end of the house. They have purlins butted to the principal rafters as in the first two bays. However, there are no mid-bay trusses. Again there are curved wind braces but the rafters are not pegged to the purlins.

All ceiling joists between floors are numbered. The ceiling beams central in the rooms are carved slightly differently.

Bay D's is carved more elaborately than the plain chamfer found in Bay E. There is evidence that the ground floor room of the end bay (Bay E) was divided into two at some point with a wattle and daub wall. The ground floor room (D) still retains some of the wall painting and murals.

That would be consistent with a Tudor dating. The style of this end of the building suggests a late 15th century or early 16th century construction. It is tempting to speculate that this work might well have been done during the ownership of William Wareham in around 1500.

WE KNOW THAT he paid for paneling to the house at about this time. It would therefore be consistent with an assumption that some building could have taken place prior to this. How much prior to this we do not know. Certainly inclusion of murals and painting suggests an occupier or owner of some note and affluence.

There is a possibility that a relation of William Wareham may have lived here in the 16th century, as there is mention of a Robert Wareham, apparently a nephew, holding land in Kingsclere in the Royal Purveyance of 1565. The westerly ends of the trusses are missing which again suggests that jettying has been removed in the construction of a Georgian front. On the east aspect of Bay (E) there is evidence of two unglazed windows with holes in the timbers beneath the windows suggesting that the weather was kept at bay by animal skins held in place by a horn peg. The fact that these windows on the eastern aspect of the building (Bay E), now no longer present, overlook another part of the building shows that these bays (F and G) are of later construction.

These two bays appear to have been constructed at the same time, as the purlins, unlike the purlins elsewhere, are lapped over the top of the principal rafters at the trusses and pegged together. This would have had to be a continuous piece of construction. The wind braces, which were curved in the older parts of the building, are straight and would therefore suggest a late 16th century date. Bay F is spanned by smoke stained rafters but rather than being another hall it is more likely it would have been used as a kitchen block, later superseded when the kitchen hearth was built in Bay G. This means that there would have been no upper floor in this bay and the fact that the first floor joists in the second bay are typical of 17th century floor joist also suggests this part of the building may well have been floored when the fireplaces and chimneys were added.

There is a suggestion that the staircase was added in 1620, which would be consistent with its Jacobean style. At the same time they would have added the floor above Bay G. In order to incorporate headroom in this bedroom they have rotated the mid-bay through 90 degrees and raised it higher. An excellent way of increasing the headroom but structurally bad, especially as a window has been inserted immediately below the beam.

Studying the brickwork along this wing shows that the ground floor timbering has been replaced before the Georgian period, probably at same time as the chimneys were constructed. We can see that 2 inch bricks have been used which was the common size for bricks until the time brick taxes were brought in during the 18th century.

JOHN JACKSON OF OVERTON apparently divided the house into two in 1735 and it is obviously at this time that the timbering was removed and the jettied front reduced to bring it back in line with the ground floor frontage. Some fireplaces have been added later and further building has taken place in the 19th century and in more recent times. However, the building that we see today is not much altered from the building of 1735 although the windows nearest to the camera in the elevation below are modern.

There are many other buildings in Kingsclere that bear the signs of similar development over the centuries. We should be grateful that our careful ancestors would rather alter an existing building than tear it down and start again. There are other houses that might reveal interesting architectural features. This house still has information to reveal about its original features.

Note The spelling of the name Warham varies in this article reflecting changed usage over the centuries. The house is currently called WarEham House

Full extent of the present structure including a 16th Century addition