The greater survival of peasant houses from the period after 1350 reflects the rising wealth of the peasant class in the post plague period. Although documentary evidence for medieval peasant housing on the manor of West Boarhunt is relatively sparse such evidence as does exist is consistent with what we know about peasant housing on the better documented manors of Titchfield Abbey, most of which lay within a few miles of Boarhunt. Peasant houses on the Titchfield manors were of two or three bays, divided internally into a hall, a chamber or solar at the upper end and (for three bay houses) a service room at the lower end. Many dwellings had a barn, usually a detached building, and they might also have a detached bake house.

In probate inventories that survive for Boarhunt from the late 16th century the room described as the ‘kitchen’ was clearly the service room at the lower end of the hall, and it was used for storage and possibly for food preparation (including dairying). Cooking and eating took place in the hall. The chamber or solar was where the family slept, and stored their linen, clothing and valuables.

The relative poverty of Boarhunt is reflected in the fact that in the second half of the 16th century tenants were still living in traditional two or three bay houses, like the Boarhunt hall house.

 

Sawing Wood.  Smithfield Decretals.  England early 14th century
Reproduced by permission of The British Library, further reproduction prohibited.