18th Century Cowboy Builders

For those unfamiliar with the term "Cowboy Builder"; it refers to a tradesperson or artisan who performs substandard work at an inflated price. It is not such a modern phenomena as I shall explain.

Those surviving to any sort of maturity or senior age in the Georgian Period were still unlikely to exceed, say, five foot four in height.

I have come to this conclusion not through a careful archive study of that era or having been told that fact through Wikipedia or The History Channel but in a practical and quite painful way.

It is my privilege, in the course of my employment to visit and inspect, on a fairly regular basis, the grand and imposing houses from the 18th Century which are in pretty good supply in many of the East Yorkshire towns and villages on my patch.

In all, bar none, my assessment of the average height of its former occupants is based on the frequent clashing of my head as I neglect to stoop my five foot ten form through the low and squat doorways.

There are mitigating circumstances behind what many may regard as inattentiveness, carelessness or just plain stupidity.

I do have my wits about me in a Georgian House mainly because of the requirement of my job to be observant of building defects, problems and shortcomings.

Even if the house was originally built for a historically significant local or national character and at great comparative expense for that period in time with the highest quality of workmanship and materials there is still a possibility of the Master Craftsmen having a bad day on the tools.

I expect that, the same as today ,the approach of a friday afternoon and weekend exerted the same feelings of laziness and complacency on our labouring ancestors, particularly the promise of a Toby Jug quart of strong cider, porter or ale and the luxury of a leisurely clay pipe full of tobacco. The male workforce of time served artisans and their apprentices will also, undoubtedly, have had wife or fiancee troubles, money worries and health problems serving to distract them from applying their skills and diligence to the task in hand.

Take the sheer thickness of a typical 18th Century Manor House. Stone built or in the newly arrived North European building phenomena of clay bricks an external wall could exceed 2 feet from facing to plasterwork finish.

The intention was for such a mass of masonry to resist weathering and inevitable dampness from the British climate and with the added benefit of forming a very sturdy platform on which to build upwards in the absence, otherwise , of a meaningful foundation.

In volume, that is a considerable amount of stone, brick and lime plaster. There will certainly have been a temptation to pack out the supposed solid wall construction with debris, loose stones or even grass and straw and then charge the Client the full amount.

House Builders today heartily discourage prospective buyers from touring their intended acquisition whilst it is being built for the same reason. I have seen a cavity wall full of the wrappers and detritus from packed lunches, bits of wood wedged into shortly to be concealed voids and no amount of brick bits squashed and cajoled into yet more gaps in what appears to be a perfectly finished product upon handover to the buyer.

Armed with historic and contemporary knowledge of builders short cuts and sharp practice you can appreciate that I walk about in a Georgian house in an agitated and probing manner. A good thump on the plasterwork of a thick outer wall, of course out of the earshot of the current owner, can result in an interesting sound of loose and falling materials behind.

Under foot the floors in a Period property also take some careful negotiation. The preference for large dressed Yorkstone slabs is evident in hallways, Garden Passages and the business end of a posh residence, the kitchen, scullery and utility areas. These gravestone dimensioned bits of stone were laid directly onto the soil or with a chalk base and under countless footfalls and fluctuations in ground conditions these can become very uneven and a stumbling hazard.

The best rooms in the house reserved for the 18th Century family had timber floors, warmer being raised off the ground and usually well polished and exposed as a feature. However, if surviving to the present day care must be exercised in a simple walking action due to weakness from rot and decay, wood boring insect and general wear and tear.

The quality of a Georgian House diminishes dramatically on a directly proportional basis both upwards floor by floor and backwards through the accommodation.

Typically orientated to the South are the main habitable rooms. This is logical for natural warmth and light with large multi-paned sash windows. Farther back in the cold damp and dark northerly recesses are the kitchens, pantries and wine cellars. At the top of the house in the draughty and poorly insulated eaves lived any of the domestic staff and servants if not commuting in daily by foot.

The attic accommodation is in contrast most spartan and crude but then again a reminder of your position in the social hierarchy.

I do therefore have to keep my wits about me when inspecting an Old Georgian pile and you may now understand that the matter of a low door casing is very easy, therefore, to miss until too late and that inevitable eye watering clash of head on seasoned timber.