The new lime render on the gable has been protected from frost over the winter with hessian sheeting.  This is the first time I have been able to see it without the scaffolding.

The build phases of the house are clear from the gable.   The timber framed part was built first, then the chimney was added*, then the house was extended backwards in brick by Georgians and upwards by Edwardians, the lower part of the timber frame was replaced by brick in modern times, then finally I replaced the rest of the timber frame.

It is quite bright and will take a little getting used to but I think it is an improvement on how it looked before.   It was a very ugly gable.

It matches the front reasonably well but it seems a little out of place to have part of a very old building set in to a much more modern building.

*Positioning of unused mortices in the original gable timber frame indicate the chimney was added after the gable was built.  The chimney is constructed in English bond with a brick size of 225mm * 60mm and about 73mm course height indicating a late 17th century build date, but the building was operating as a pub in the early 17th century..  There is some evidence in floor joists of a wooden chimney (smoke hood) which would not have been common after the 16th century.

I have saved some wood for tree ring dating to hopefully establish a build date, though it is somewhat academic as the brick plinth under the gable is the only original material visible on the exterior of the house.

The Salutation has the impression of a smaller building in the north gable.   There are probably parts of the original timber framed building probably dating from around 1650, though it turns out very little of the current frame is in the same place as it was first assembled.

It has been hidden by render since before cameras were invented so we don’t have any photos to show what it was like.

I had been tidying up the edges but tidied a bit too much and knocked some of the render off.   Underneath a lot of brown dust came out revealing wood in very poor condition.   A little more knocking and some of the original frame was exposed complete with wattle and daub infill panels on the first floor. (The frame has brick infill above and has been completely replaced with bricks on the ground floor).

Thee timber frame passes right through the chimney.  I think the frame was modified to accept a chimney which was added later.  Structurally it seems a poor idea to hold the chimney up with beetle infested wood.

In for a penny, in for a pound.   It isn’t the neatest frame in the world and would probably never have been exposed.   The wattle and daub infill is flush with the frame and there is no sign of whitewash so it was probably rendered from new.

The earliest layer of render we found was lime on lath, but the Edwardians appear to have added a layer of cement render which prevented the wood from drying, then more recent muppets added waterproof paint.

I haven’t uncovered the whole of the top of the frame yet as the render appears to be performing a structural role.  The other side of the frame can be seen in the attic photos.

The whole frame is completely rotten (apart from a single post and the beam above the first floor which are merely half rotten).   The frame has been soaking wet for a very long time and a screwdriver can easily be poked all the way through any of the timbers.  The wattle has rotten away completely and the infill panels are loose.  There is very little that can be saved.

The frame has little structural importance as the rest of the house seems to have already learned not to rely upon it.   This is going to be one of those tricky decisions, and possibly an opportunity to tidy up the north wall which has long been very ugly.

Further examination of the frame reveals there is nothing left.  Even the solid looking timbers bend remarkably easily and can be poked away with a screwdriver.  Concrete block and render would be the quickest way to sort it, but I’m toying with the idea of dramatic reconstruction with the timber exposed.

The roofers have stripped the front of the roof so there is plenty of light in the roof space for photos.   I’ve being trying to date different parts of the building.

You can see the evolution of the building from inside the attic.  To the left on both sides of the chimney is the top of the gable end timber frame of what we assume is the original building first noted in 1646.  I think 1640s would be the Jacobean period, the one just before Cromwell.  The wood is tree shape rather than cut like modern wood and has since been in filled with brick.

To the right of the timber frame the lower, darker bricks are from the original low roof extension, and the upper bricks and purlin support were built in 1910 when the roof was raised to it’s current height.

Here is a blurry photo from the 1950s.  You can see the form of the original building to the right of the gable, and the change in brick shade between the two extensions.   You can also see a chimney to the rear of the house which isn’t there any more.  There is still evidence of the chimney removal in the roof timbers.

The chimney closest to the photo looks slightly ghosted above the roof line.  That’s not a photographic effect – the top of the chimney had been rebuilt with slightly lighter bricks.

The ceiling joists are interesting.   With their ends sitting on the spine wall, the joists to the bottom of the photo are nice Edwardian ones that you can stand on.  The ones to the top of the photo are made from bits of tree again and are part of the early low roof extension.

I had assumed the extension was built somewhere between 1800 and 1850.  The timbers suggest the cost saving was not only in the lack of foundations, but combined with the thin glazing bars on the last original sash window I’m now guessing the extension is closer to 1800 which makes it Georgian!  Makes sense as the later Victorians were better at building.

The front of the house (Edwardian) has a structural timber frame with brick infill.  The bricks are hand made and what I had assumed was grey cement mortar turns out to be lime covered in loft dust. I think the render outside might be lime, but it is coated in waterproof paint which can’t be removed without damaging the render.

I’m learning that I’m not very good at dating buildings, but it is fun to see the different phases.  Dating is made easier by the almost complete rebuild in 1910.  Anything done to a decent standard is Edwardian.  The shonky stuff in lime is earlier, and the shonky stuff in cement is later.

Colin from blunham.com sent photos of the Salutation taken from the church tower.   This time I’ve overlayed the photos and cropped them to the same size.   They show how the house was extended sideways and upwards in around 1910 and a previous pitched roof extension in the foreground removed.  Also they show a flat roof toilet block assumed to date from the 1960s.

The first is a coloured postcard dated circa 1900.

The second photo was taken by Colin in 1987.

The gable was painted (in magnolia!) after 1987.   I had assumed the wall on the flat roof area looked ugly because they used inappropriate materials.  A closer look suggests they made a lot of effort to use hand made bricks and to match the gable.  The wall only looks ugly now because the gable was painted later emphasising the flat roof extension.

The wall in front of the flat roof extension has a bend in it directly below the window.  The bricks to the left are a different colour.   I’ve not figured out yet whether the bricks are part of the extension visible in the first photo, or if they are part of the garden wall that may have replaced it.

Colin from blunham.com hosted a photo evening at the village hall a few weeks ago.   He has collected a huge number of old photos of Blunham, some of which you can see on his past and present page.   There were many photos of the Salutation that I hadn’t seen before and Colin has sent them to me.  Many many thanks!

The Salutation is (or mostly was) a very old building.   The first landlord occupied the place in 1646 according to Bill Exley’s research and the local council records. It appears to have started off as a timber framed building with 2 rooms upstairs and 2 rooms downstairs. It was extensively rebuilt, mostly by Victorians and Edwardians between 1850 and 1910, and now the only structure that might be original is in the left side of the house furthest from the church.  Another original beam might have migrated to the later barn – there is a weird 17th or 18th century beam failing to support the 19th century barn roof.

By “circa 1906” the building had already been much modified.  It had been extended backwards and a single story pitched roof extension added to the end closest to the church. The windows are lower closest to the church because the Victorians (presumably) added an attic room in on that side.

Here is a new (to me) photo that was probably taken shortly after 1910.   The building has been extended upwards and towards the church, the previous extension removed, and the “tudor revival” front added outside the original structure.  The Horseshoes pub has the same curtains in both photos, and other buildings haven’t changed much.

By the ‘1950s’ the shop had been rebuilt and all the houses on the other side of the road demolished.  A flat roof toilet block had been added on the church side of the Salutation.  Here is a similar view in 2014 when a house is being built next door.   I’ve added a date to help future historians.

I had assumed the current façade was built in around 1925 as the council note that “In 1927 the place was valued under the 1925 Rating Valuation Act – the valuer noted that it had a low rent because house was rebuilt when Tenant was in”.  Cross referencing with Colin’s page the tenant was “Wm. Thom. Davey” who was there between 1910 and 1933.

My current guess was the previous tenant moved out prior to the rebuilding work, and the new tenant was invited when the work was close to completion.  That would date the current facade to 1909 or 1910.

But what did the new front like when it was build?  Another photo from 1951 shows the concrete roughcast render that is in place today, but still unpainted in the photo.  Also there is the cricket club in drag and looking brilliant!

It seems the Edwardians invented the concrete render that has caused damage to so many timber framed buildings.  They had a few problems with damp and cracking, but by the time they splattered the Salutation they seem to have figured it out.

Apart from all the paint the Salutation has a remarkably original Edwardian facade that is well worth preserving.   I quite like it so future generations ought still to benefit from a slightly ugly but almost completely original Edwardian frontage.

Edit from later – the facade was added and a major rebuild happened 1920 to 1921.   They used gypsum plaster on lime which was a post WW1 thing, and the electricity meter had meter reading cards behind it starting in 1921.

The water damage in the upstairs front room had caused some plaster to fall off the wall. Behind the plaster there was a suspiciously old piece of wood. That part of the house dates from approximately 1650 and would have been built originally with a wood frame and mud. The mud was replaced with brick but there is evidence in the roof space that some of the wood frame survives. This bit appears to be in good condition but some other bits are a bit suspect. I’ll expose what I can to check on condition.

5 years later I exposed the beams