The Tindalls Cottage

Built in the eighteenth century was the Tindalls Cottage. The Tindall family, who resided there from 1748 to 1806, gave the residence its name. It was disassembled in 1974, and its timber structure was stored until it was rebuilt in September 2012. The Tindalls Cottage is currently shown in the architectural display of the Weald & Downland Living Museum. This essay looked at the Tindalls Cottage’s architectural specifics. Included in this are the materials used to build the house’s structure, floor, and roof, as well as the reconstruction of the house’s interior spaces. While information is scarce to pinpoint the exact U-value and connection details of the house, the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum provided enough information and pictures to provide an idea of how the house was reconstructed. The foundation, floor plan and materials used to reconstruct were discussed in detail in the body of this paper.

Tindalls Cottage

The Tindalls Cottage was a house built in Ticehurst (Weald & Downland Living Museum, n.d.) which is a village in the Rother District in East Sussex (Ticehurst, n.d.). It was named after John Tindall I, who resided in the building with his wife Ann and six children from 1748 to 1766. After his death, the house was passed onto his wife, who lived there until 1780, and then to his son John Tindall II, who lived there with his wife Mary and their seven children until 1806 (Weald & Downland Living Museum, n.d.).

The Tindalls Cottage was constructed between 1700 and 1725 but was “dismantled in 1974 by the Robertsbridge and District Archaeological Society in advance of the construction of the Bewl Bridge Reservoir (now called Bewl Water)” (Weald & Downland Living Museum, n.d.).

Most of the timber frame of the Tindalls Cottage, which was constructed with oak, was taken from older buildings. When the house was dismantled, the timber frame was put in storage until its reconstruction in September 2012. It was rebuilt over a weekend and was opened to the public as an exhibit in July 2013 (Weald & Downland Living Museum, n.d.).

The ”three-bay husbandman’s cottage” (Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, 2013) has a ”gable-end chimney and a hipped terminal at the opposite end” as shown in the pictures below (Weald & Downland Living Museum, n.d.):

There are four rooms in the first floor of the house, as well as ”a kitchen with a bread oven by the fireplace, a buttery, a brewhouse containing a furnace/copper and a milkhouse.” Meanwhile, the second floor of the house has ”two rooms, a kitchen chamber and buttery chamber” and ”a small garret attic, probably used as a storeroom.” The flooring of the house was made by mixing ”two parts loam to one part kibbled chalk.” Sharp sand and water were also used to improve binding and add moisture. The roof was completed with red tiles that were donated by friends of the museum (Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, 2013). As shown in the following pictures, the windows of the house feature lattice ironwork and woodwork while the door is made of simple wood.

Meanwhile, the picture below (Weald & Downland Living Museum, n.d.), which was taken before the Tindalls Cottage was fully reconstructed, shows that the house has a pad foundation. A thin layer of concrete was laid under the timber frame ”to transfer load from structure to the ground” (The Constructor, n.d.).

It is difficult to find the exact materials used to rebuild the Tindalls Cottage. Therefore, the exact U-value of the building cannot be computed. Having said this, previous studies show that timber frames usually start at a U-value of 0.27 W/m2∙K (Kingspan Insulation Solutions, 2007). Therefore, it can be assumed that the U-value of the Tindalls Cottage is around this number.

When it comes to CLT or Construction with Cross-Laminated Timber, there are different connection details for panel to panel, wall to concrete foundation, wall to wall intersections, and wall to floor or roof (Moncton, N.B., 2015). Unfortunately, there is not enough information to make a conclusion on what connection details are used in the Tindalls Cottage.

References

Kingspan Insulation Solutions. (2007) Timber Frame Walls – Rethinking Construction: Insulation Best Practice for the 21st Century. United Kingdom, Kingspan Insulation Ltd. Available from: http://www.kingspaninsulation.co.uk/Knowledge-Base/K12-Timber-Frame-Walls.aspx [Accessed 19 May 2017]

Mohammad, M. (2015) CLT Connections Design: Seminar on CLT Design, including Connections and Resistance to Lateral and Gravity Loads. [Presentation] Moncton, New Brunswick, 1st December.

The Constructor. (n.d.) Types of Pad Foundations. Available from: https://theconstructor.org/geotechnical/types-of-pad-foundations/7514/ [Accessed 19 May 2017]

Ticehurst. (n.d.) Ticehurst in East Sussex. Available from: http://ticehurst.east-sussex.co.uk/ [Accessed 19 May 2017]

Weald & Downland Living Museum. (n.d.) Tindalls Cottage from Ticehurst. Available from: http://www.wealddown.co.uk/buildings/tindalls-cottage/ [Accessed 19 May 2017]

Weald & Downland Open Air Museum. (2013) Tindalls Cottage joins museum’s historic building exhibits. West Sussex, Weald & Downland Open Air Museum. Available from: http://www.wealddown.co.uk/buildings/tindalls-cottage/ [Accessed 19 May 2017]