Ruin & Undercroft, Blackfriars Barn, Wickham Manor, Winchelsea

Summary

This is a ruined structure, representing the remains of a medieval building. The undercroft comprises three chambers, with significant incised medieval ship graffiti on the wall of the rear chamber.

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Description

History of the Site: It is clear from the surviving architectural remains that this was a tenement of some importance. The size of the hall would be more consistent with a non-domestic building such as a guild hall, but no documentary evidence has yet been found to support this hypothesis. Although several medieval rentals survive for the town, the order of the entries within these has not as yet been ascertained with any certainty. As a result the first firm reference to the site is found in a conveyance of 1525, by which date the building was already in ruins. The three undercrofts beneath the building were utilized by the adjacent house (140325). Nothing is shown standing upon the site in the 1763 town map, but the ruins had been converted into a barn by 1842. It was still in use as such when listed as a Grade II building in 1961: all except the medieval walls has since been destroyed.

Description: The ruins represent the remains of a major early 14th century building incorporating parts of a slightly earlier house within its northern wall. The original plan, as recovered from excavations carried out for the National Trust by the Field Archaeology Unit in 1976, comprised a large three bay hall fronting onto the street, to which it is set at right angles. The internal dimensions of the hall were 11.10 metres x average 8.90 metres (365" x av. 297"). To the rear of this was a single room with two doorways interconnecting to the rear of the plot. The southern of these doorways apparently allowed access via a pentice to a detached building. To the north, located upon the adjacent tenement but serving this house, can be seen the remains of a projecting garderobe turret with an extant cesspit beneath. Except where destroyed by the full height barn doors, much of the north wall survives to nearly its full height, but along the southern side only the lower part of the wall remains, the barn apparently having been single aisled. Within this wall can be seen the base of an early 14th century fireplace serving the hall. This is flanked by two recesses. Beneath the building is a three roomed undercroft accessible from the street by a wide flight of steps descending from the south eastern corner. The front and rear rooms of the undercroft have quadripartite vaulting and were each lit by a pair of windows in the front and rear walls. The front room incorporates a contemporary fireplace within its northern wall. Between the two rooms is an un-lit five-bay barrel-vaulted compartment. A second staircase was later intruded to give access to this compartment from the house (140325) to the north.

During remedial work during the 2000s in preparation for the opening of the site to the public a number of graffiti were observed on the northern wall of the western chamber. In May 2012 a photographic and drawn survey was undertaken, and the other walls were also examined to see if there were any more graffiti. The survey recorded the extensive remains of at least thirteen examples of ship graffiti—twelve on the northern wall and one on the east wall of Bay 3. The ship graffiti at Blackfriars Barn are unusual: they have been inscribed into freshly applied wet plaster and they are comparatively large. The most likely date for the Blackfriars graffiti would be between 1350 and 1450.

Between the middle of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th century, the cellar was used as the town dump. When opened up in the 1970s, it was full of domestic detritus including broken glass and ceramics (potentially the largest assemblage of such material in the South East). The ceramic collection was assessed and analysed by the Winchelsea Archaeological Society during 2018-2023.

In 2022, a photographic survey to create an online 3D model of the undercroft and ruined remains was undertaken.

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