Low-Cost Housing in Cumbria, 1665-1721

Opportunities to examine original evidence for the cost of vernacular houses and for the motivation leading to their erection are scarce. As one probes further down the social scale difficulty increases and the quality of evidence is usually poorer, partly through widespread illiteracy among the lower classes. The houses built by or for such people were moreover of poorer materials and construction, so that few survive above the vernacular threshold to provide physical evidence of housing conditions at the lower end of the range. As estate and manorial records can sometimes help to overcome the problems, this article explores three sources, two of which refer to building houses for herdsmen in contrasting environments in Westmorland in 1665 and 1681-3, and the third to a cottage for a widow in Cumberland in 1721. The results of site visits are outlined and comparisons are made with other priced houses in Cumbria to place the work in a wider context and attempt to demarcate the upper limit of 'low-cost' housing (fig. 1)

Archaeology · Art · Business · Context (archaeology · Documentary evidence · Estate · Functional illiteracy · Geography · Literature · Political science · Vernacular · Work (physics · Engineering · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Scottish History and National Identity · Finance

• The Unfulfilled Potential of the Documentary Sources

  C R J Currie•Vernacular Architecture•2004

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• Construction schedules for some 17th-century farm buildings in Cumbria

  Blake Tyson•Post-Medieval Archaeology•1981

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