A postcard of Newton Hall.
Newton Hall is thought to
originally have been a medieval manor house, a grade 11 listed building
circa 1380. It was privately owned and restored by W. Kenyon & Sons. It is one
of the few surviving cruck buildings in the region.
Carbon dating
placed the construction of this hall to c.1370 and it survived because
much later it was encased in a brick building having a blue slate roof.
A
cruck frame is one where the structure of the building depends on two
or more ‘A-frames’ which go from the top of the building down to the
ground. These frames are usually constructed of curved timbers (the cruck blades) using the natural shape of a tree and
in many cases the tree is sliced long-ways down the middle so that
whatever the shape of the curve the two sides are symmetrical. The two beams are joined together at the top by a ‘collar’ or tie-beam.
Cruck
barns probably evolved in Anglo Saxon times and the earliest
archaeological evidence comes from 4th century excavations in
Buckinghamshire.
The term
crook or
cruck comes from
Middle English crok(e), from Old Norse
krāka, meaning "hook". This is also the origin of the word "crooked", meaning bent, twisted or deformed, and also the crook used by shepherds and symbolically by bishops.
Thanks to Wikipedia
