BAYTHORNE HALL, A RAISED-AISLED HALL IN BIRDBROOK, ESSEX, AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER RAISED-AISLED HALLS

摘要

Baythorne Hall is an isolated raised-aisled hall in north-west Essex, tree-ring dated to 1341, making it the earliest of the three raised-aisled halls that have been dated so far. Raised-aisled halls are buildings where the arcade posts are raised up on to a dropped tiebeam on the centre truss of the open hall, thus clearing the open hall of arcade posts. They are not the same as roof types that look like aisled structures raised up on to normal assembly tiebeams, a number of which were constructed considerably earlier than Baythorne Hall. Baythorne was originally published as a conventional aisled hall, long before it was realised that it was a raised-aisled hall. Although this fact is well known in East Anglia, the purpose of this article is to provide a printed correction of its status, to compare it with the other two dated raised-aisled halls, and to consider the purpose of the raised-aisle truss in the centre of the open hall.