Tudor construction

This sixteenth century building was built in the middle of the Tudor period, as a substantial farmhouse, by a wealthy local landowner with some surprising connections.

Built in 1530, as Henry VIII courted Ann Boleyn

The main oak trusses which support the roof were felled in the winter of 1529/30 and there is every reason to believe that building of the timber frame started the following spring, while the oak was still ‘green’ and easier to work. These oak trusses are still in place, supporting the main roof, nearly 500 years later, with all their original carpenters’ marks – and even a few mistakes – on show.

A professional report into the owners of the house, by Dr. Nathaniel Alcock, identified an Edward Bushell as the earliest recorded owner who ‘for £310 sells messuage, close and three yardlands in Barton’ in 1589 (Warwickshire County Records Office CR2028/22/3/1). This Edward Bushell was born in 1544, in Cleeve Prior (an hour’s walk from the farmhouse in Barton) and inherited – at the age of 14 – the property, along with a vast local estate of farms, mills and pastures, from his grandfather, as his father died when he was a baby. Grandfather Thomas Bushell’s 1558 will is astonishingly detailed, including bequests to his grandsons:

‘To the said Thomas Bushell [aged 16] one stoned ambling horse called Old Button with my saddle and bridle that I used to ride with, and to the said Edward Bushell [aged 14] one stoned ambling horse called Young Button’.

[A ‘stoned ambling’ horse doesn’t sound great, but it is in fact a stallion (uncastrated male horse) with a smooth, four-beat movement, prized for long-distance travel. So they are actually horses that would have been valuable and critical for a large Tudor landowner and gentleman: think Range Rover for landed gentry.]

The Bushells were landowners, not farmers, so it seems reasonable that when the sale of 1589 is ‘to William Payton, yeoman and Thomas Payton, his son, of Barton… formerly occupied by John Payton, father of William’, the Payton family had lived in the house for several generations, possibly since 1530, as tenant farmers.

Site of a medieval chapel?

One tantalising entry in Thomas Bushell’s will is a mention ‘of all my lands in Long Marston and Broad Marston in the county of Gloucester which sometime did belong unto the late monastery of Evesham’. Whilst not referring to Barton property, this suggests that Thomas Bushell may have acquired land through the dissolution of monasteries in Henry VIII’s reign. Could we then stretch to the possibility that Thomas Bushell also came to own monastic land in Barton? Victoria County History says that there was a chapel of St Leonard at Barton in the thirteenth century: ‘By 1547 it was in ruins and in 1549 it was granted…to Thomas Dabridgecourt and Thomas Fisher. The exact location of the chapel is unknown but it is likely to have been within the main core of the settlement.’

Various features of Wisson Hill’s gable wing suggest no more than the possibility that the 1530 house was built next to and incorporating a pre-existing structure, potentially the missing chapel:

• Some of the exposed study stone walls – internal and external – have different stonework to the rest of the house (thinner stones, less regularly coursed).
• The two large fireplaces in the gable wing have original ‘ovolo’ mouldings, which were popular in the late sixteenth century, but not in 1530, so the gable wing was altered at an early date.
• The four-flue chimney stack (with the late Tudor ovolo mouldings) is built around a pre-existing truss.
• There seem to be the remnants of a lower layer of flagstones in the study fireplace.
• The main two-bay timber frame house and the gable wing are joined strangely, with signs of alterations.

None of these points are conclusive. Archaeological advice is that the gable wing could be be a rebuilding of the lost Barton chapel, but invasive (and expensive) investigations would be needed to find more evidence, and could still be inconclusive.

So we may never know, but guests can look at the exposed features for themselves and speculate…

Connections to the Gunpowder plot

Thomas Bushell, the elder of the two grandsons who inherited in 1558, married Elizabeth Winter, of Winter/Throckmorton parentage (two well-known local Catholic families). The connection continues with the 1,000-year lease of Barton tithes in 1600, five years before the Gunpowder plot, to Thomas Winter, one of the chief conspirators.

Thomas and Elizabeth’s son, Sir Edward Bushell, was involved in the 1601 rebellion by the Earl of Essex, escaping with a short prison term and a fine. He also risked involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, which touched so many families in the English Midlands. Interestingly it seems that grandson Thomas Bushell stuck to the Catholic faith and was listed as a recusant in 1577, potentially one of the most prominent and richest recusants in England. On the other hand, his brother Edward, who sold the house that is now known as Wisson Hill to the Paytons in 1589, took to the new protestant faith.

Links to William Shakespeare

Thomas Bushell (grandson) has also been identified as the Mr. Bushell providing security in a 1598 letter from Richard Quiney to William Shakespeare, requesting help in arranging a loan of £30. Sir Edward Bushell may also have been connected by marriage to William Shakespeare’s family.

Bidford-on-Avon has a legendary connection to William Shakespeare, due to Bidford’s reputation for enthusiastic drinking, noted in a few lines which cannot be attributed to Shakespeare himself but highlight the reputations of this cluster of villages near Stratford-upon-Avon: Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hillboro, Hungry Grafton, Dodging Exhall, Papist Wixford, Beggarly Broom and Drunken Bidford.

Farm owners and tenants

Researching the owners of Wisson Hill, across the five centuries since it was built, raises familiar names and glamorous lifestyles. But despite having originally invested in the construction of a a high quality farmhouse, the owners’ interest will have mainly been the income, or rental, yielded by their farms, mills and other property. To imagine life at Wisson Hill we need to consider occupants rather than owners.

Turning back to the Payton family, they seem to have been tenants who were in a position to purchase land and a farmhouse from their landlord in 1589:

Feoffment. Edward Busshell of Severn Stoke, Worcs to William Payton, yeoman & Thomas Payton his son, of Barton. For £310, sells messuage, close & 3 yardlands, formerly occupied by John Payton, father of William. (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust ref. CR2028)

Features in the house suggest that the Paytons may have made changes to the farmhouse when they took ownership:

• The ovolo moulding detail in the two bressumers in the gable wing would be consistent with late Tudor design.
• The lintel of an uncovered doorway between the sitting room (in the main building) and the study (in the gable wing) has the same ovolo moulding, also suggesting a late sixteenth or early seventeenth century date.
• The timber framed south wall of the main building was largely replaced with local blue lias stone, in courses of mostly large blocks. It is hard to put a date on when this happened, but the stonework looks similar to the two-storey stone wall on the east side of the gable wing, so they may have been part of the same modernisation project.
• The carpenters marks on the original timber frame joints use an early tally style, but later roman numeral markings indicate several phases of building, such as on the internal partition wall on the first floor, and some rafters visible in the attic.
• Witness marks on the timber frame show that window positions changed during the first centuries after construction.

The Paytons may have joined the respectable yeomanry by purchasing their farm, but tenant farmer generally enjoyed a good status, below the landowning gentry and above the peasant classes. Farmers employed many local people and required a range of local services to support their farming and more comfortable lifestyles. The Payton family must have prospered, as the larger, grander stone house to the west of Wisson Hill proudly displays ‘John Payton 1663’ above the door: the Paytons built a new farmhouse and our building went back to providing a home for tenants.

What would it have been like in the Tudor house?

Dark. Let’s start with what we know from the building:

• There was a cross-passage at the west end of the existing building. You can see the carved doorway on the right of the frontage, above a wide, plastered panel filling what would have been the entrance. In the kitchen, the position of the ceiling beam front to back, with stave holes, confirms the position of the passage and the doorway into the main building.
• Experts believe that the main ceiling beams visible in the sitting room, and wooden floor, date from original construction. So Wisson Hill was never an open hall house, with a central fire.
• Smoke-blackening on timbers suggest that there was a smoke bay in the north-east quarter of what is now the kitchen. A smoke bay was an intermediate stage between a central hearth and a fireplace as we would recognise it. It was probably made of timber and plaster, with smoke escaping through the (most likely thatched) roof where it could, rather than by a chimney. Smoke blackening on the braces in the rooms above the kitchen support this idea, as does the blackened floor joist visible inside the cupboard under the stairs. This article about smoke bays shows what the smoke bay might have looked like. It seems that Wisson Hill may have been unusual if it was built originally with a second floor and a smoke bay, as a smoke bay was usually created when a second floor was inserted into an open hall house. In any case, the smoke bay may have been replaced by the inglenook fireplace in the sitting room before the end of the Tudor period.
• Whilst windows may have moved around since Tudor times, there is no doubt they would have been small, unglazed and shielded by shutters at times. The mullioned window above the stairs may be an original window.

What else do we know?

• An inventory from 1796 (ref. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust ER5/1377/c) shows how much grain, bacon and other produce was stored in the house – a practice which was probably even stronger in the sixteenth century.
• The existing farmhouse would have been surrounded by a working farmyard and it is likely that the current wash house was built in the sixteenth or seventeenth century as a brewhouse. The smaller washing copper is still in place but there is evidence of a larger structure, probably used for brewing.

Read Dr. Nathaniel Alcock’s full report of the house history

Read the full dendrochronology report

See the list of Wisson Hill’s owners and occupiers since the 16th Century

This authentic Tudor farmhouse is now available for weekly holiday rental.