British houses of olden times?

[Hammers]

Referrig to a previous post (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=16998.msg204041#msg204041) I have a few questions regarding British building techniques and which I hope some of you can answer or perhaps point me to an enlightening webpage.

In which areas of Britain wold you find houses roofed with slate, wood shingles or tile respectively.

The Forgre World houses I am working on are what I supposed is called field stone houses. The building blocks seem rather splintered. What would this be representative of? I have seen something called flint houses in the south. Would it be something like that? Or is it more likely that iit represents roughy cut sandstone, limestone or granite?

[gamer Mac]

I have seen a lot of houses still standing which have been built like this in a load of different places around Britain. I am not sure if they are specific to a certain areas. In particular I have seen dry stone buildings around the Highlands and islands of Scotland, around the border areas between Scotland and England and in Wales. The thing all these places have in common are hills and mountains which I presume is significant. All the fields in these areas are surrounded by dry stone wall as well.
Not sure if this is much help.
Most seem to be some sort of grey colour as well.

[Hammers]

I have seen a lot of houses still standing which have been built like this in a load of different places around Britain. I am not sure if they are specific to a certain areas. In particular I have seen dry stone buildings around the Highlands and islands of Scotland, around the border areas between Scotland and England and in Wales. The thing all these places have in common are hills and mountains which I presume is significant. All the fields in these areas are surrounded by dry stone wall as well.
Not sure if this is much help.
Most seem to be some sort of grey colour as well.

The model houses look good but  since I know a bit about dry stone the stone pattern look a little to random to be believable as that.

[Dewbakuk]

As Mac says, there are plenty of variation about. They were made from sandstone as well as granite etc but the sandstone ones don't last through the centuries quite so well, making modern survivors rather rare.

As for roofing, that mostly comes down to money. If you can afford it then slate can be used anywhere. Wales would have slate on pretty much everything as it can be just picked off the hillside but areas away from hills are less likely to have it unless they were wealthy. Wood tiles would be more common in such places and clay tiles if they were lucky. Thatch would be used primarily in areas around farmland.

The pictured house would most probably be a tenant farmers house. Ireland or France would probably have the best inspiration source for that.

[Captain Blood]

I think those are fantasy architecture 
As you say, actual stone walling is not really like that. I'd guess it's supposed to represent granite.

As Colin says, rough stone walled buildings are pretty common in all the upland areas of the British Isles, especially in the more mountainous or moorland areas of Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the West Country, and parts of the North of England.
Slate roofs are pretty common in the same areas.
I don't recall ever seeing wood shingles anywhere in Britain, although I'm sure they must have been used at some point. But maybe the climate is just too damp.
Tile (baked clay) is almost ubiquitous in the south and east of England, and much of the Midlands. But other roofing materials, notably thatch in places like East Anglia, Sussex and Wessex, and stone tiles in places like the Cotswolds, are also prominent.

[Plynkes]

Looking from my window here in the Welsh Marches, every single building I can see that isn't modern has a roof of Welsh grey slate.


I can also see an old rusty nissan hut with a corrugated iron roof. Does that still count as modern?



Edit:    That should be Nissen hut! It wasn't built by 日産自動車株式会社!

[OSHIROmodels]

Wooden shingles are normally used on water/sea front buildings, cheap fishermans housing and the like. And there is an example of pantiles being used for most of the roofs in a north eastern village/town (but this is certainly an exception)

British vernacular architecture is quite an interesting subject. It certainly opened my eyes to the amount of variation in our small country.

The previous chaps have pretty much covered the basics and I would agree with the Capt' that the FW house is fantasy although you might find something similar looking in the highlands and islands of Scotland and Ireland.

Weather and geological location are the key factors when determining what materials to build out of. Back in my home town, there are an awful lot of buildings built out of sandstone (and very nice they look aswell) but a few miles up the coast it changes to granite and a few miles inland, it's limestone.

I'll have a dig around at home for a little book that I have on the subject and post the name to give you a hand.

cheers

James

[Hammers]

Tile (baked clay) is almost ubiquitous in the south and east of England, and much of the Midlands.

Would that be the flat or curved profile kind?

[OSHIROmodels]

Flat and rectangular (just off square) for the most part.

cheers

James

[Red Orc]

Wow, loads of replies since I started writing you a PM...

some agreeing with my brief outline, some not.

I think it's 'fantasy' too, though the closest parallels would probably be in Northern Scotland, the Borders, Cumbria and Wales. But as already said, many of these (In Wales and Cumbria at least) would have slate roofs.

Slate only became very common with the coming of the railways though. Only Leicestershire that I know of in lowland Britain had slate roofs before mid-1800s.

Tile only came into vogue after the 1400s (obviously, the Romans used tile but for a thousand years there was almost no tile use in Britain except for floors in churches and other high-status buildings, and brick was also increadinbly rare). I don't think tile has ever been all that popular for poor houses, and that house at the very least is a poor house.

Oh, another recommendation I have is googling RW Brunskill, almost anything he wrote is going to be useful; and if you feel you really need some fairly cheap and accessable guides, I can recommend the Shire Books - you can have a browse of the 59 architecure books they do at http://www.shirebooks.co.uk/store/section.aspx

[Hammers]

I think it's 'fantasy' too,

Yes, well, I suspected that to. I think I was looking for what may have inspired the sculptor/constructor. Even fantasy people tend to, as we say, dig where they stand.

[Hammers]

Wow, loads of replies since I started writing you a PM...

some agreeing with my brief outline, some not.

I think it's 'fantasy' too, though the closest parallels would probably be in Northern Scotland, the Borders, Cumbria and Wales. But as already said, many of these (In Wales and Cumbria at least) would have slate roofs.

Slate only became very common with the coming of the railways though. Only Leicestershire that I know of in lowland Britain had slate roofs before mid-1800s.

Tile only came into vogue after the 1400s (obviously, the Romans used tile but for a thousand years there was almost no tile use in Britain except for floors in churches and other high-status buildings, and brick was also increadinbly rare). I don't think tile has ever been all that popular for poor houses, and that house at the very least is a poor house.

Oh, another recommendation I have is googling RW Brunskill, almost anything he wrote is going to be useful; and if you feel you really need some fairly cheap and accessable guides, I can recommend the Shire Books - you can have a browse of the 59 architecure books they do at http://www.shirebooks.co.uk/store/section.aspx

Looking around a bit I think I will plaster the building and leave part of the stone work showing through in places. White/dirty white is the most common form of plaster, right? Here we get various shades from red ochre, sienna to white depending on the region.

[Red Orc]

White or 'dirty white' I'd say. There are other colours sometimes but I'm not sure how traditional they are.

When is your house supposed to be from? And where is it supposed to be? This might help us with info - Cornwall in 1400 looks very different to Yorkshire in 1600, the highlands (I mean, highland Britain not 'The Highlands' of Scotland) looks very different from the lowlands where wood is almost universal, Suffolk looks different to Shropshire, Devon very different to Durham...

[Hammers]

White or 'dirty white' I'd say. There are other colours sometimes but I'm not sure how traditional they are.

When is your house supposed to be from? And where is it supposed to be? This might help us with info - Cornwall in 1400 looks very different to Yorkshire in 1600, the highlands (I mean, highland Britain not 'The Highlands' of Scotland) looks very different from the lowlands where wood is almost universal, Suffolk looks different to Shropshire, Devon very different to Durham...

It is more a question of what I can do with what I have to make it look fairly authentic loooking. The Warhammer world is , as I understand it, set in late medieval to early renaissance times. I figure I can make it look like something from any time between Tudor to early 19th centrury.

[Dewbakuk]

That particular piece was done to primarily be a peasants cottage from the edges of Brettonia if it in any way matters.