A floor plan produced by Robert Waterhouse during his week-long study of the Hall at Le Boquet.

Phasing

1. A TIMBER FRAMED PREDECESSOR?
   
   It's very likely that a timber-framed building once stood here, typical of buildings in north-west Europe in C14th to C15th. It may be that it was house whose hearth we see today, misaligned with today's gable wall but perfectly aligned and square with a surviving line of deep-set wall footings that might well be associated with a timber structure. Almost no examples of such buildings survive in Manche or Calvados, having been replaced and built over by stone-built structures in the C15th and C16th – a period sometimes known as the 'great reconstruction'. But it may be that the earliest stonework related to an agricultural building and that the hearth and line of stone footings came later when it became a house.
   
   When removing a 20cm-40cm depth of clay from the floor in 2018 (in the northern half of the building only), there was no evidence of previous occupation layers, nor of any floor paving.
   
   The hearth itself was flush with the floor and paved with stones, perhaps basalt, and no doubt reused from La Pavée, a nearby Gallo-Roman road. They had the well-rounded edges of stones that had seen centuries of wear. A couple of flag stones like those in the hearth had been used as chocks for one of four 1,400 litre cider barrels, still in situ in 2010. But there were also about 10-15 schist slabs (quite unlike the Roman rounded slabs) which at first glance looked as if they might have been the remains of flooring but which in fact corresponded to the positions of the barrels we found there. These barrels weighed almost two tonnes when full and needed sturdy supports to keep the oak staves off damp ground. In any case, there was plenty of patchy evidence of the lime-rich crust to the surface of what had clearly been a beaten earth floor. There was no evidence of a central hearth and no sherds or finds below the superficial first 5cm, but a number of pottery sherds were found embedded in the crust of the beaten earth floor (see finds conserved).
   
   When Robert Waterhouse conducted his week-long analysis of Le Boquet, he was strongly of the opinion that there had been a timber frame facade along the eastern side of the house. He was able to pass his hand through a clear gap between the lateral wall and the re-built chimney gable wall and found a large space that he concluded was once occupied by a timber post. Subsequent masony had been placed around a post that had susequently rotted away, leaving what he described as a sort of photographic 'negative'. Since there is every likelihood that there was a timber-framed building here in the mediaeval or even late-mediaeval periods, it is not impossible that the eastern facade, with windows and a door, may have survived into the C16th-C18th (see conclusions below).
   
   There was clear evidence of a rudimentary underfloor drainage system running in two roughly diagonal spurs from east to west across the northern half of the Hall, converging near the doorway and exiting beneath the northern end of today’s threshold on the western side of the building. There is surviving evidence of three similar drains from the southern half of the Hall as they run through the bottom of the low stone wall that now divides the Hall in two.
   
   Surviving evidence: The Hearth, perhaps. A length of Stone Footings beneath the inner skin of Northern Gable Wall forming perfect right-angle with hearth. Otherwise none.

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2. A THATCHED STONE-BUILT DOMESTIC HOUSE
   
   By local standards of the C16th-19th, this is fairly large, well-proportioned building. Its walls cover a footprint of about 81 sq. metres but the whole layout differs from any typical local vernacular schemes and styles. It is a bit of a mystery.
   
   The hearth was exactly centred in the chimney gable wall (5.78 metres internal width). It lay flush with the original floor as we found it in 2010 and well below the outside ground level on the eastern side. It was closer to ground level on the western side. Nevertheless the existence of drains (see below) is some indication of levels.The building was probably three bays long if the two surviving truss frames are from this period. Its length therefore was probably as today. There was no evidence of a living space other than the ground floor and no evidence of the positioning of doors or windows other than those we see today. Significantly, perhaps, there was no sign of soot on the fire-back wall or in the hood above.
   
   
   The hearth implies a chimney and the external face of that original chimney gable wall survives. But we know nothing about its flue which may have been replaced by the next phase (see below).
   
   However, it's possible that the corbels and mantle we see today belong to this early phase since we know that the hood was designed to precisely cover the surface of the hearth but was subsequently reduced in depth by about 30cm, as can be seen from the misaligned chamfer stops.
   
   It is also significant that this gable wall lacks the 'obligatory' cupboard. A large recess in the masonry for food storage, with wooden shelves and a cupboard door, is an almost universal feature of vernacular architecture in this region from at least the C16th onwards. It was something that a mason would have integrated during construction work and not something that could easily be retro-fitted. The lack of such a cupboard suggests that the original wall was not built deep enough to accommodate a cupboard or that it was not originally destined for domestic use – supporting the theory that an agricultural building was later transformed into a habitation with a hearth and chimney.
   
   There is no evidence for state of the eastern lateral wall or the southern gable wall in this phase because we know they were both entirely rebuilt. But since the room must have had a window and there is no evidence of one on the western side, presumably light arrived from the east where windows and doors were protected from the prevailing wind and rain. And since it seems likely that today's doorway in the western lateral wall was introduced at a later date, the principal doorway was probably on the eastern side (as it is today), along with any windows, even though ground level on that side would imply two or three steps down into the room...
   
   It's possible that the northern end of the western lateral wall dates from this period or perhaps even earlier since it has a somewhat agricultural-looking ventilation hole just below the roof-plate.
   
   Surviving evidence: The Hearth. The outer skin of the Northern Gable Wall. Probably the majority of the Western Lateral Wall.

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3. INCREASED WIDTH OF A THATCHED STONE-BUILT DOMESTIC HOUSE TO ACCOMODATE STAIRS TO A GALLERY (Solar)
   
   This involved the demolition and rebuilding of the entire inner skin of the northern gable wall to increase its length eastwards by about 50cm (to 6.28 metres internal width). However, would this have been a sufficient reason for such major work? Perhaps there was also a major improvement to the fireplace: e.g. the introduction of niches and, most importantly, the remarkable hidden cache built arm-deep into the depth of the wall for hiding money or other valuables.
   
   The internal side of the northern gable wall, consisting of high quality masonry, now contained the original hearth and today's chimney breast including its stone niches, timber corbels, timber mantle, clay-rendered stone hood (probably whitewashed), stone chimney flue and two timber ceiling corbels, along with two ventilation lights of differing conformation at the apex of the gable, presumably to light an attic space. The whole fireplace and chimney structure was now inevitably off-set to the left of the wall's centre line.

   There is plenty of local evidence to show that attic spaces such as this were used to accommodate maids' quarters and/or dovecotes.)

   The chimney breast with its hood sits on a large oak mantle, supported by a pair of oak corbels on each side, set over what appears to be the 'original' hearth. In 2010 the hearth was flush with a beaten earth floor. Almost certainly it was now that the corbels and mantle were set back into the wall (see the 30 centimetre chamfer misalignment under the hood) so that they protrude less into the room. It's true that they might> have been imported from elsewhere but if they were set as originally intended they would be a precise fit for this particular hearth. They also perfectly match the surrounding masonry and the hood but the full depth of the hearth is notably not now entirely covered by the reduced mantle.
   
   The rebuilding of the inner skin of the northern gable wall also explains why no attempt was made to link the internal stonework into the lateral walls although interlinking quoins are visible outside, some of which have fractured.
   
   The increased width of the room was almost certainly related to the need for a fixed stairway to access a gallery whose supporting corbels can still be seen in the southern end of the western lateral wall. The creation of an upper private room and bedroom (solar) for the owners of the hall would have been a significant development.
   
   We know therefore that the southern end of the western lateral wall existed at this stage and the exterior of this wall can be distinguished from the northern end by the presence of a regular pattern of surviving putt-holes for scaffolding. It is disturbance of this pattern which suggests the present western doorway was a later creation. Significantly too, the inside of this wall contains two lantern recesses which may indicate that this was once a service area receiving little natural light although there is no evidence of a waste water spout from a sink through this wall. Altogether there may be three distinct phases of masonry in the full length of this wall.
   
   Chamfers on the southern truss beam clearly show that the entrance into the new enclosed gallery was from a staircase or fixed ladder along the eastern lateral wall while a line of holes along the top of the beam shows it once supported the vertical stud-work of a wattle-and-daub partition that reached the ceiling at the level indicated by two decorated corbels on either side of the chimney flue (set at slightly different heights).
   
   
   
   In addition, large mortice holes in the underside of the southern truss beam mark where the door-post tenons would have slotted in.
   
   The southern truss frame may at this stage have been moved northwards to increase the bedroom space to almost half the length of the Hall. If so, this may explain why the northern truss frame was also moved – so far northwards in fact that it now serves little purpose at all. The purlins do not really need it since they can be seated directly into the adjacent chimney gable wall.
   The northern truss seems to be of a similar age and style to the southern one, though with fewer chamfers and less refinement, probably because it was not part of the galleried bedroom structure. They both use the 'key-lock' system for holding the king-post into the truss. But strangely the truss beam of the northern frame is a little longer that the southern beam and so spans the additional width more comfortably. The southern truss frame is supported on the eastern end by a vertical block seated on a ledge.
   
   Thus, the likely solution to the 'truss enigma' is that the Hall originally had three conventional bays of equal size but that the were moved moved northwards when the gallery was built and perhaps again by a small margin when granary was built (see later).
   
   But the enduring puzzle with this Hall is that a substantial fireplace implies a room while a room implies at least one window. The only windows that survive today are rather primitive things set into an undistinguished area of schist masonry that has none of the distinction of the fireplace and its new gable wall. It may be that the taller of the two windows we see today is contemporary with this widening phase (the smaller window being perhaps a later addition) but if so there seems to be a misfit in the craftsmanship. Why is the wall around this window built in fragile schist when all the rest of the building is in durable sandstone? It remains to be established whether this area of wall with its window relate in any way to the 'widening' phase when a stairway was need to access the gallery, especially since the stairway would almost certainly have blocked the window to some extent.
   
   Widening the building meant that both truss frames were now too short for the increased span. Since the state of the eastern lateral wall in this phase is still uncertain, we can only speculate as to how the problem was addressed. Inevitably, widening the hall by 50cm involved the demolition and realignment of whatever eastern wall there had been. And if the high quality of workmanship involved in the chimney gable wall was matched by similar quality in the replacement eastern lateral wall, there is little sign of it today.
   
   Did the masons build a wall that has now disappeared and was replaced again? Would they not have placed the window where it would not be blocked by a stairway? And wouldn't they have found a means of solidly supporting truss beams that were too short for the job? We are left wondering what the original eastern wall looked like, as well as its replacement and where any windows and doorways were positioned. And there is always the possibility that the wall they built in this phase collapsed and was hastily replaced by what we see today.
   
   Unfortunately, with still no evidence for the state of the southern end of the eastern lateral wall and the southern gable wall, we do not know how the southern end of the thatched roof would have been supported. Did it have a pointed gable to match the northern end or perhaps a hip roof of some sort designed to deal with prevailing south-westerly winds?
   
   Surviving evidence: Entire Northern Gable Wall – inner + outer skins. The Hearth. Entire Fireplace + Chimney arrangement. Ceiling Corbels in Northern Gable Wall at roof-plate height. Chamfer detailing of Gallery Doorway on South Truss Beam + holes for Gallery Partition stud-work. Gallery Corbels in southern end of the Western Lateral Wall + Lantern Recesses in the wall beneath them. Northern part of the Western Lateral Wall + Ventilation Hole.

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4. A THATCHED STONE-BUILT AGRICULTURAL BUILDING
   
   The Hall now appears to have been abandoned for domestic purposes. It could be that plague, war or economic decline played a role – or even seigneurial diktat. The building appears to have become agricultural again.

   The 17th century in Normandy saw severe economic depression driven by famine, inflation, and heavy taxation during Louis XIV's wars, with the catastrophic famine of 1693–1694 killing an estimated 1.3 to 2 million people nationwide and causing widespread social unrest.

   
   
   Something resembling a hayloft, covering the entire surface of the building, was created by the introduction of two massive, un-chamfered oak transverse beams, just above head height at ground floor level, creating three unequal bays, fitted with oak floor joists.
   
   We believe the whole surface was involved because the ends of three pegged joists from the array or joists in the southern bay have survived. Inevitably the stairway and gallery would have disappeared at this stage. There no surviving evidence of any stairway access to the first floor in the northern and central bays though there may have been steps or a fixed ladder in the southern bay. The most likely access points would have been newly created hayloft doorways via ladders from the outside.
   
   Two transverse beams look far more agricultural than domestic and the manner in which they were introduced into the pre-existing western lateral wall is clear from the 'broken' masonry. It seems clear that one of these beams was seated into the pre-existing 'bodged' length of wall with its window (see) above). They may also be associated with the creation of the western doorway which is also agricultural rather than domestic in both form and height. The first evidence we have for the existence of this western doorway is that one of the beams sits uncomfortably on top of the end of its crude and deformed lintel.
   
   The ceiling created by these two beams survives largely intact. it's composed of sticks of split chestnut, about 30 centimetres long, which were tightly rolled in straw and then dipped into clay mud (taken from sub-soil outside). These were then laid side by side across the joists, providing a solid base on which to apply about 20 centimetres of damps clay soil which then dried to form a very durable and resistant floor above the joists. This was the standard method of making an upper floor in this region but the overwhelming majority of them had been lost by the late C20th and early C21st.
   
   Clearly this doorway was once considerably wider than it is today – large enough for farm carts, cows or cider production, perhaps. There is still no evidence for the southern part of the eastern lateral wall or for the southern gable wall. But it seems most unlikely that anyone was expected to live in the Hall at this stage. We should remember that in 2010 the chimney flue was entirely free of soot or any evidence of a fire other than some circumstantial evidence that someone had been distilling cider to produce 'calva' and condensation had affected the eastern side of the chimney hood. We also know that much of Le Boquet was likely to have been planted with apple trees. Lightly alcoholic cider was the only 'safe' and everyday drinking alternative to well water. It may be that the former occupants moved into one of the two other houses at Le Boquet: (the C16th/C17th Boquet 'House', 75 metres to the south, or the C18th/C19th Boquet 'Cottage', 50 metres to the west) and that the Hall was now turned over to farming practises including the production of cider and calva.
   
   It’s unclear what the Eastern and Southern walls consisted of at this stage. Had there ever been a main door other than the one we see today in the western wall? Significantly this doorway is wide enough for large ‘700 pots’ (1,400 litre) cider barrels and its width has been altered at least once. Indeed the masonry around this doorway and its awkward lintel shows radical alterations have occurred. And it’s uncomfortably wide for domestic purposes.
   
   Surviving evidence: Two Transverse Beams. Floor Joists in the northern and central bays and Peg-end Joists protruding into the central bay from the southern bay. The wide Doorway in the Western Lateral Wall.

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5. SUBSTANTIAL DEVELOPMENT OF A THATCHED STONE AGRICULTURAL BUILDING AS A GRANARY AND CIDER PRESS
   At this stage almost the all the southern half of the Hall was transformed into a granary involving a considerable investment in masonry and carpentry. The project involved entirely rebuilding the southern gable wall (topped with a small timber frame to create a hipped roof) and the southern half of the eastern lateral wall (good masonry done in sandstone). Within these walls a raised threshing floor was built under a high ceiling in the southern half of the building, with a hay or straw loft above it.
   
   The ceiling survives, well constructed in good quality timber, seated on a new beam that was introduced between the southern truss beam in the roof space and the southern transverse beam below it at ground floor level. The granary was also equipped with the tall eastern door we see today which allowed sheaves of wheat or barley to be pitch-forked onto to threshing floor where men, wielding flails high above their heads, separated the grain from the straw and chaff at harvest time. Of course this door may be an adaption of a pre-existing doorway, evidence for which might one day be found beneath the threshing floor...

   Raised granaries granges with tall doorways adjacent to the farm's living-room la maison (often with an internal communicating door) was a standard feature of almost all farms in the region from the C16th through to the C19th. While threshing occurred at harvest time in July/August, the granary served as the business centre of the farm throughout the year, acting as an office, a storeroom for valuable tools and a dry space for stocking grain, seed etc.

   The threshing floor was set 60 centimetres above the ground on a bed of large, loosely packed stones to prevent the rise of humidity. Onto this was laid a layer of beaten earth (terre-battuerestored by us in 2019). The raised floor was retained by low stone wall across the full width of the building, edged with a chamfered timber sole plate. Three drainage holes pass under the retaining wall and they once joined the east-west drain that crossed the northern half of the hall and which were evacuated beneath the threshold of the western lateral door.
   Most significantly the granary development also seems to have involved the construction another building that had almost entirely disappeared by 2010. An extension beyond the southern gable wall was built to contain a cider press. This small addition can be seen in the Napoleonic map of the commune of Pont-Farcy, dated 1824. Intriguingly, when the southern gable wall was built, it was equipped with a lantern recess on its exterior wall which would, of course, have been the inside of the cider press building. The large stone that forms the back of the recess is clearly visible in the granary. So, if apples were being crushed and pressed to produce cider, that cider would have had to be stored nearby in a number of barrels in a dark, humid atmosphere. Almost certainly the northern half of the Hall, with its fireplace, was where the barrels were kept. Indeed, in 2010 there were four of them, set up on chocks, were still in situ (totalling 5,600 litres). There is no doubt that by now the Hall was entirely devoted to the processing and storing of cereals and apples, both of which would have been produced on the surrounding five hectares. The Hall was never inhabited again until 2021.
   
   Indeed, Le Boquet's Brabant plough survives here to this day, along with the market cart (made by Eugène Briard of Beuvrigny, Manche) that would have taken the grain for milling at the nearby Moulin Hy. Even the wrought-iron scales that hung in the granary for weighing sacks of grain and flour has survived too.

   That lantern recess has been retained (hidden by kitchen cabinets today) but In 2010 we were told that the last remains of the cider press had been destroyed in the great gale of 1999. Its stone foundations remained but from 1999 to 2018 the site was used as a covered hay manger for beef cattle. In the years 2018-2021 the author built himself a timber-framed hall of about 80 sq.metres which partially sits on the site of the ruined cider press building. To this day there is a slightly raised area due south and very close to the end of the New Hall where a granite apple crusher une tour à pommes had once stood – a circular trough with a heavy granite wheel that was pulled around by a horse or donkey to crush the apples before the resulting pulp was passed to the press.

   [In 2010, by which time the entire roof was of corrugated iron sheeting, the lateral walls supported not only the two roof truss frames we've already studied but an improvised third frame, at the southern end. This had been set at an angle so that a curved hip roof was shaped to resist westerly winds. This arrangment would originally have been intended for a thatched roof. However, at some stage later, the beam of this third frame was cut out, presumably to create more space in the hay-loft, and inevitably the tops of the lateral wall were forced outwards, the western side in particular. The walls were then reinforced with a transverse steel bracing rod with large X ends on each side. In 2020 the author removed the offending frame, replaced the rotten frame on the southern gable with a new one (at full height) and replaced the bracing rod with an angled steel elbow attached to the southern wall, allowing the rod and its eastern X to be removed.]

   
   Today the wall plate beside the threshing floor supports a partition of light-weight planks (nothing like the quality of the wall plate itself) along with a poorly made communicating door, which is amateurishly fixed to the southern beam above it with flimsy laths.
   
   The partition, with its communicating doorway, divides the building in two and was probably installed later (see below). The investment in the granary would surely have foreseen use of the whole building for agriculture, so that, for example, small carts of the period might have been driven into the former living space to be loaded and unloaded from the raised threshing floor. This in turn suggests a reason for the widening of the western door. In any event, the building was now almost certainly no longer inhabited and was being used for purely agricultural purposes.
   
   Almost certainly the partition is related to the next phase in the evolution of the Old Hall. (See later).
   
   This C18th or C19th development was ambitious: it was planned to occupy almost half the floorspace of the Hall and involved rebuilding the western and southern walls, removing the Gallery building the raised Threshing Floor and creating a tall Granary Doorway in the eastern wall. Almost certainly unencumbered space was needed above the Granary for storing sacks of grain or perhaps straw and hay and this in turn meant creating the access door into the Grain Loft we see today above the new Granary Doorway. The Southern Truss Beam would have been sitting exactly above the Granary Doorway and where the Grain Loft entrance needed to be. It seems clear that the Truss Beam was moved about 60-80cm northwards, conveniently located immediately above the timber plate at the edge of the new Threshing Floor below. This meant that the Northern Truss Frame was pushed northwards too and that a half-hip roof was built over the southern gable wall, the frame of which survived (very rotten) until 2020. Unfortunately, in their desire for unencumbered space for grain storage the development required a bodged third truss frame to support the roof and this sat on the walls but with its truss cut out. Over time this had the effect of pushing the western wall outwards and has ever since required an X--X bracing system to stabilise it.
   
   

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6. THE COMING OF THE COW & A CEREAL DECLINE. THE HALL TURNED OVER TO CIDER PRODUCTION?
   
   The granary probably remained active well into the C20th but it cereal production had long before been eclipsed by the arrival of Normandy dairy industry which was itself a consequence of the development of canals and railways. until the arrival of dairy farming when the majority of the space would have been given over to the storage of hay and straw for cows during the winter. Grain however would have continued to be grown in smaller quantities for bread-making, feeding chickens, as an additional cash crop in hard times and as a food supplement for cattle.

NOTES

On 29-06-2010 The historian and archaeologist Julien Deshayes (Pays d'art et d'histoire du Clos du Cotentin) commented that, in his own Cotentin region, granary barns occupy the ground-floor, needing no stairway access. On the other hand, he says, cider presses (pressoirs) in north Manche have external stairways to an apple store on the first floor. Until more studies can be made and any remaining traces of a pressoir can be found within the principal Le Boquet building, this study holds to the theory of a grain barn as the most likely purpose of the building at Le Boquet, at least until it became a habitation. Julien supplied a fascinating C17th drawing of the manor and farm courtyard layout at Réville (Manche) which supports his point.

External staircases can also be found in houses. In the Bocage Virois, as in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, the house of a feudal lord (a manor house or seigneurie) was characterised by the presence of an upper private chamber (a chambre haute or solar) accessible by a stairway. In larger manors this staircase is internal and in some cases leads up to a first-floor gallery along the lateral wall of the hall, thus providing access to the lord's private chamber(s) beyond the end wall(s) of the hall. There are numerous examples of this form in Manche (notably at the Manoir de l'Erre).

In the author's view, the famous 'arras' referred to by Shakespeare was not a tapestry hanging against a vertical side wall but rather a tapestry or woven 'partition' which would have hung from a first floor gallery down to the floor of the hall below, thus separating the 'lord's' private space in his hall from a communicating service corridor under the gallery and 'behind the arras'. From behind this 'tapestry or 'arras' the servants might indeed have overheard their lord or king discussing private business and people might indeed have been stabbed from behind the 'arras' by anonymous assassins! The English called these tapestries an arras because they associated them with the great weaving city of Arras in northern France, to which they exported wool and which was once their colonial possession. In this respect, Court Lodge (Westerham, Kent, England) provides a perfect example of a C15th or C16th 'seigneurial' layout with a galleried hall that has its exact parallel in Normandy at the same period.

External staircases, at least in the Bocage Virois, appear in small manor houses (sometimes very small), presumably because there would not have been sufficient space within, given the small volume of the 'hall'. The lord's chamber usually sat over a secure storage room containing the family's most valuable assets, stores and possessions. This ensemble is sometimes known as the principle of the 'hall and chamber block'.

The historian and archaeologist David Nicolas-Méry (Ville d'Avranches) has demonstrated a third application for an external staircase in southern and central Manche (Normandy): a staircase leading to a comfortable chamber above a bake house (four à pain or boulangerie). It is believed that this provided an independent and permanently warm room for an ambulant feudal lord while visiting his estates. It must be stressed, however, that there is no remaining evidence at Le Boquet of any building of manorial status. Hence the external stairway in its principal building must be regarded as having met an agricultural need.