86 High Street

The three High Street properties that are currently 84, 84A and 86 started life as a single property, most likely as a mediaeval hall house. Exactly when the building was split into different units is not known but it appears to have remained as one property up until the 1939 register, when it was still occupied by the Dunn family.

A mediaeval Hall House

From its current outward appearance, you would be forgiven for not realising that this building is in fact a lot older than it looks. There is, however, one clue that can be seen at the rear of the property – a single timber that has been, presumably intentionally, left exposed and hints at its mediaeval heritage. Inside all 3 units that now occupy the original building’s footprint, there are numerous beams that hint at the overall framework, including the original structural crown post which is now in the roof space. The use of crown posts was phased out during the latter part of the 15 century, so it is reasonable to assume that the original building was built at the start, or sometime before, the Tudor period.

Without an understanding of the original structure of the property, it seems odd that there is a fireplace situated within a couple of metres of the front door of The Lodge – why would such a large fireplace be situated in a reasonably small room and so close to a doorway, where any generated heat would inevitably have been lost. In order to understand why, and how, this room composition came about, you need to explore the overall building structure and subsequent adaptations of mediaeval hall houses through history. Although there are variants of the design of hall houses, a simple description would be a building that was typically framed and centred around a large open hall. Roughly at the centre of the hall would be a single hearth used for cooking and to provide warmth. In later years, as hall houses were adapted into multiple rooms, this central hearth would often be enclosed by a chimney, so we can assume that the position of the fireplace in the right hand wall of The Lodge and the boxed in area that forms the left hand wall in the Chapter House’s entrance area, was the position of the original hearth. However, this position is not central to the 3 shop units we can see today, so does this position correlate with any other aspects of the building?

Looking at the illustration above, we can see how the timber frame of a hall house was literally crowned by the master timber which sat central to the whole structure and was subsequently aptly named the crown post. If you are not familiar with this building, it is quite difficult to orientate yourself when up in the roof space but after a little checking, it is clear that the crown post for this building sits in the wall dividing The Lodge and Eves and is therefore directly above the fireplace. This confirms the overall structure of the original building and also indicates that part of its left hand side has now disappeared, presumably swallowed up during the construction of the adjoining Arundel House, which is of course much younger than it’s elder neighbour to its right. The diagram below indicates how we believe the original 4 bay hall house would have been situated.

There are many example of hall houses throughout West Malling – a clear indication of the town’s importance in mediaeval England, presumably as a result of the commerce and industry that the Abbey would have attracted and/or controlled. A study of the High Street buildings carried out by Peter Cosier in the 1980’s revealed that there are numerous examples of hall houses that can still be identified today and it may of course be the case, that some have been lost throughout the course of time.