Anglo Saxon Windows

[bunn]

Photo borrowed from this article about Anglo Saxon Churches.

And a quote from lower down *the same page as this photo* - and phrased, I thought, somewhat emphatically given that it is talking about a period over a thousand years ago, where the vast majority of the buildings that were standing then, are standing no longer.

"there are NO pointed arches from the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods: they simply did not exist."

The reason I found this article was that I was trying to work out why all the descriptions of early Anglo Saxon houses are emphatic that they had no windows. I still can't figure this out. OK, no window glass. But lack of glass surely does not mean lack of windows. So far as I can see, all the evidence of Anglo Saxon houses that exists is pretty much holes with post-holes in them, and clearly they did know about windows in churches...

I looked at a bunch of reconstructions. So far, all the ones I've found either have very dodgy-looking walls, so that lots of light comes through the chinks (brrr!) or they have left half a wall off so that people inside can see what they are doing. Neither of these strike me as likely solutions. A 'weaving-shed' where you can't actually see your loom seems impractical.

Comments

[rustica.livejournal.com]

My little cottage was unbelievably draughty, despite having walls over a foot thick! That's probably at least part of why I find it so hard to believe AS houses weren't. Also, I think it would be very hard work to maintain an Anglo Saxon house so it stayed draught-free, even if it started that way, and I don't know that people at the time would have seen that as important. NZ has incredibly cold and often draughty houses, and people here don't seem to see it as a particular problem - they just wear more clothes (and have dogs that sleep on the bed to act as hot water bottles in winter).

A fire will create huge icy draughts at floor level to feed itself and maintain the convection, in my experience.

Thatch is (said to be) less combustable than people realise; apparently it's possible to roll burning coals down the outside slope and for it not to catch fire. The inside thatch would be drier, of course, but there's not much energy in a spark. Otoh, if/when you get larger bits of burning material rising and getting lodged.... I would think that's a huge fire risk.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, I was misled by your mention of walls. A lot of the reconstructions have wooden walls that are practically like lacework, with all sorts of holes where a knot has fallen out or the planks have not been properly butted up together - and I just can't see people actually living with that, even in a shed it would be impractical, walls with that many holes in would surely just rot away.

In my experience, the draughts in old cottages creep under doors or round windows and down chimneys or take advantage of temperature differentials, but they don't come *through* the walls.

(My Gran had a very old timber-framed cottage. There were draughts, as you'd expect in a single-glazed building, but it was a lot warmer than our Victorian house next door, which was phenomenally draughty and chilly as it had bigger windows, more doors, and stone walls that were nothing like thick enough.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... I think you are right about draughts though. I find I am much less sensitive to them than Pp, who grew up in a properly insulated house with double glazing!