Summary
A house built around the year 1600.
Reasons for Designation
Oak House, West Bromwich, an exceptionally well-preserved timber-framed house of around 1600, with mid to late-C17 additions, is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest
* as a well-preserved example of a large, early-C17 yeoman farmer’s house built in West Midlands vernacular timber-framing, with later C17 enhancements reflecting the elevation of the owners to the gentry including a distinctive and prominent prospect tower;
* internally, the cross-passage plan is still in use, and the house has specialist rooms such as a dairy and servants’ quarters;
* high-status C17 decoration including carved panelling and wall-paintings survive.
Historic interest
* as an early-C17 timber-framed house showing transition from a wealthy yeomanry to gentry home, illuminating everyday life for those classes at that time;
* the very good state of preservation, good historic documentation and scientific dating of the building means that the building is well understood, but also has strong potential for further research.
Group value:
* Oak House shares some group value with the nearby Grade II listed outbuildings which were built by the owners of Oak House.
History
Oak House is located on the south side of Oak Road, just under half a mile south-west from the centre of West Bromwich High Street. A museum since 1898, the C17 timber-framed house is set in public gardens. The museum has a visitor centre and offices located in two formerly agricultural buildings that were converted in the early 2010s. These buildings are both listed at Grade II, with the earlier one, which dates to the C17 (National Heritage List for England 1077121) being 50 metres west of Oak House, and the other, a late-C19 brick barn closer, at 20 metres west of the house (NHLE: 1228237). The agricultural buildings are the remnants of what grew to become a regular courtyard farm complex south of a house that was built around the year 1800, but demolished in 1977. Usually located immediately south of the house is a set of Grade II listed stocks (NHLE 1342671). These stocks are thought to have been relocated several times previously, and in 2023 were in temporary storage on site during works to Oak House.
From at least 1634 Oak House was owned by the Turton family who were wealthy yeoman farmers with interests in various local industries. The house is of timber-frame construction, with tree-ring dating showing it to have been built very close to the year 1600, though incorporating some earlier C16 timber (mixed throughout the building) suggesting the replacement of an earlier structure. The tree-ring dating has also shown that Oak House’s distinctive prospect-tower and the rear stair block are slightly later additions made around 1650-1675, around the time that a formal garden was laid out south of the house. These enhancements to the house tally with historical records of the Turton family, which show their wealth and status increasing through the first half of the C17.
The house is popularly thought to have been a base for Civil War soldiers, with the tower being a look-out post, and garrets under roof slopes between the prospect tower and main roof claimed as caserns, or temporary lodgings for soldiers. However, the tree-ring dates for the tower suggest that it is more likely to have been constructed slightly later than the civil wars. More certain is that John Wesley preached at Oak House in March 1774, as this event is mentioned in his diaries.
Two inventories of the house are known, one from the end of the C17, the other from the beginning of the C18. These describe the contents of Oak House and its outbuildings room by room, providing a clear picture of the way the property was furnished and used. The inventories have been used to inform the current presentation of the house as a museum. The service wing contained rooms for storing and preparing food and drink, and had its own dairy. Upstairs, in addition to the main bedrooms, were men’s and maid’s chambers, and a cheese loft above the dairy. One bedroom is named the ‘gilt leather chamber’, with the value of its furnishings noted in the inventory as almost double that of the next most expensively furnished upper room, presumably due to the costly gilt leather hangings after which it was named.
Oak House remained in the ownership of the wider Turton family in the C19, though during this time Oak House was let to a succession of tenants and it was around 1800 that the (now demolished) new house was built north of the farm buildings (now visitor centre and offices). In 1894 Oak House was purchased by Reuben Farley (1826-99), first mayor of West Bromwich. Local architects Wood and Kendrick were employed by Farley to restore the house, a project which attracted the attention of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). SPAB’s Secretary, Thackery Turner, visited Oak House several times during the works and SPAB’s committee considered and approved the scheme. In 1910 one of the architects of the restoration, W H Kendrick, published an article on Oak House in which he states that in general the restoration was careful with nothing altered. Kendrick and Wood made plans of the house as existing in 1895 and of their proposed alterations, showing the extent of their scheme. Detailed drawings of Oak House with a brief commentary had been published in Building News and Engineering Journal in 1877, and in 2023 the house still very closely matches these earlier drawings, confirming that the late-C19 works had, in general, been carried out under an ethos of conservation and preservation.
In his article Kendrick mentions that new windows were introduced, modelled on an example that was found bricked up in the house. Other external alterations were made to the openings to the south and east elevation, most notably inserting a new door to the east side of the dairy. Internally the ‘as existing’ plans from 1895 show that the cross-passage between hall and parlour was enclosed by a partition to the hall side, and that this partition was extended at right-angles along the back of the hall to continue the passage to the kitchen. These partitions were removed in order to open up the hall, but it may be that these were relatively recent insertions as they are not shown on the 1877 plans. However, the cross-passage at least was originally partitioned to both sides as mortices to fit studs for a screen are present in the corresponding ceiling beam. The most significant internal change was to remove parts of the ceilings of the hall and rooms above allowing the tower to act as a lightwell. Floors in the garrets beneath the roofs sloping up to the prospect tower were raised, lowering the usable heights of the attic rooms which Kendrick identified as caserns for billeting civil war troops. The 1890s work also saw the replacement of the stairs up from the kitchen, Finally, some internal doors were repositioned and a WC was inserted in the side of the dairy.
It is unclear how much of the C17 panelling is original to the house, and what was introduced in the C19, though the 1877 notes in Building News state that ‘the interior is but slightly altered from its original state, most of the rooms still retaining their ancient panelling and quaintly moulded chimney pieces’. As the restoration work was carried out using a philosophy favouring preservation of original material, Oak House has good potential to retain much of its original fixtures and fittings. Intriguingly, Oak House appears to have possessed early to mid-C17 wall paintings; a large fragment of one of these was found in the rear bed chamber of the parlour wing. This discovery suggests that painting may have been the original decorative scheme and that the panelling may date to the mid or late-C17 enrichment of the house. It is possible that further elements of early paint schemes are still concealed beneath the panelling.
On 25 July 1898 Oak House was formally presented to the town of West Bromwich as a museum. Many of the works of art and items for display in the museum were donations made by townspeople. Of particular note is the collection donated by Helen Caddick (1845-1928), a local teacher renowned for her travels which took her so far as Africa, South America and New Zealand.
Further works were carried out between 1948-1950, where the current layout was introduced, this added further subdivisions above the kitchen and service area. Works to the roof were carried out in the 1950s and 1980s
Details
A timber-framed house of around 1600 with mid to late-C17 additions.
MATERIALS: the house is mostly timber-framed with a mixture of materials used for the panels between the frame, and with some surfaces rendered. Chimneys are brick, and there is a brick section to the rear of the house. All roofs are covered in clay tiles. Doors and windows are timber.
PLAN: the house is orientated north-east / south-west, with its principal, front elevation to the north-east (referred to as north for simplicity). It has a central hall with cross-wings to east and west extending south to form a ‘U’ shape, with the western wing extending further south than its eastern counterpart. The hall has a gable extending from it at right-angles to the north. A porch projects north from the west side of the hall over the cross-passage between hall and western cross-wing. Adjoining the rear of the hall and internal sides of the cross-wings is a stair block which extends south further than the east wing though not so far as the west.
EXTERIOR: the house is two storeys, with the rear stair block having three stories over a cellar. The central hall element is under a pitched roof running east / west with a projection to the north under another pitched roof, at right-angles to that of the main roof. Flanking the hall are the two cross-wings to east and west, each under a pitched roof with gables to north and south. The rear stair block is under two parallel pitched roofs with gables facing south. These roofs have been extended downwards to east and west to meet the cross-wings. The gables of the timber-framed sections are decorated with finials at their apices.
The prospect tower rises over the ridge of the hall roof and north end of the stair block. The tower has a complex roof with six gables: two each to north and south, one each to east and west. Of the two southern gables the western one extends further south, while the eastern is abutted by the chimney of the rear stair block. The tower has an oriel window to its north and west elevations. In contrast to the plain framing of the rest of house except the porch, the timber framing of the tower is decorative in herringbone and quatrefoil patterns, and the individual timbers have geometric carving.
There are four tall, wide brick chimney stacks: the first stack is to the east end of the east cross-wing attached to the cross-wing’s roof at right-angles by its own pitched roof, the second stack rises through the ridge of the hall roof’s east end, the third rises through the rear stair block immediately south of the hall, and the fourth crosses the ridge in the centre of the west cross-wing. All the stacks have brick plinth bases. Three of the brick stacks are decorated with stepped corbelling up to oversailing tops and have flues which are eight-pointed star shape in plan. The stack to the rear stair block is rectangular in plan and decorated with recessed arched panels separated by piers.
Generally, the walls are in close-studded box-framing with mid rails and straight diagonal braces to the corners. The house sits on a low brick plinth, which was introduced in the late-C19 when the sill plate and bottoms of the lower timber studs were replaced. Most doors and windows are C19 timber, with the larger windows having moulded mullions and transoms, with smaller flanking lights mullioned. The features of these are based on a small number of surviving original windows and doors.
The principal elevation faces north and is comprised of three bays defined by gable ends, all of two stories. Each bay is jettied out at both first floor and at gable level, with exposed dragon beams under the corners of the first-floor jetties of the porch and corners to side elevations. The dragon beams and jetties are supported by scrolled consoles. The bays are, from west to east: the parlour cross-wing, the projection north from the hall, then the service cross-wing. The porch, forming a lower, narrower gable (still two stories) is over the cross-passage between parlour and hall. The three main bays each have an oriel window to both floors and the porch has an oriel window to its first floor only. Each oriel is supported by two scrolled consoles. The windows to the parlour wing and hall bay have mullioned flanking lights. In the service wing the oriel on the ground floor has flanking lights to its east; a studded plank door to the kitchen is to its west. The service wing’s first floor oriel has a window to its west, though separated from the larger window by a stud and two narrow infill panels. The oriels are irregularly positioned in the gable ends, with only the porch window, and the first-floor windows of the hall and parlour gables centred under the apices. The gables of the two cross-wings are close studded with two rails, while the gable of the hall has a single rail with close studding below it and a wide kingpost with raking struts above. The porch has close studding above and below a rail to its ground floor level, and ogee shaped braces to its first floor. The door is studded planks with straps in a moulded frame.
The east elevation shows the side of the eastern cross-wing and the southern ends of the stair block and western-cross-wing. The north end of the east cross-wing is covered by the brick chimney which is in English garden wall bond, with dentil courses marking first floor and eaves levels. There are two stone mullioned windows at first floor level in the chimney. From the eaves the brickwork rises as a stepped parapet to the roof gable behind before meeting the (rebuilt in different brick) plinth for the flues. South of the chimney the east wing is timber-framed with a dormer window under a pitched roof at first floor level and a doorway (a late-C19 insertion) to the dairy at ground floor level. The framing within the dormer’s gable is a broad king post and two raking struts, with these timbers embellished with carving. The brick stair tower has a triple-light stone-mullioned window to ground floor, and a late-C19 single light window at second floor level. Projecting brick drip courses are above the ground and first-floor windows, these continue to the east side of the south end of the parlour wing, which is also in brick, with stone mullioned windows to ground and first floor.
The south elevation shows the rears of the cross-wings and the stair block. At the eastern end is a short return of the east brick chimney, this has single-light windows in stone surrounds at ground and first floor levels, both later insertions. The west cross-wing and stair block are in brick in English bond to the lower parts and garden wall bond to the higher levels. The east cross-wing is timber-framed, with triple-light mullion and transom oriel windows at both ground and first floors, both floors have a single-light window to the west of the oriel, that at first floor level is a later insertion. The stair block has a basement storey lit by windows just above ground level. It has a pair of triple stone windows to its ground and first floors, and smaller double windows to its second floor. There are drip moulds between ground and first floor, first and second floor and second floor and gable. A plinth brick course denotes the break between ground floor and cellar. The gables of the stair block’s double pitched roof are behind scrolled Dutch-gable parapets, each with a stone quatrefoil opening. The slopes of the roofs from the stair tower have been continued down to meet the wings either side, forming triangular attic spaces between stair tower and cross-wings with each space lit by a single window; the one to the east is a later insertion. The west cross-wing has a stone three-light mullioned window to each floor and a drip mould between ground and first floors. Its gable is a parapet which extends out in kneelers to its base. The west side of the elevation is stepped out from the first floor to cover the jettying of the west elevation around the corner.
The west elevation shows the side of the western cross-wing which is timber-framed and jettied, supported by consoles. Its openings reflect its three internal bays, with the central bay which houses the fireplace narrower, with the chimney rising through the ridge. This central bay has a mullion and transom window to ground and first floor. The larger flanking bays each have oriel windows of five lights to the ground floor and four light dormers below the eaves. The south end of the elevation is a return in brick from the rear of the house; this brick section is stepped out using corbelled bricks to cover the jettied timber framing to the rest of the elevation.
INTERIOR: ground floor surfaces are stone flags to the hall and service areas, late-C19 woodblock to the parlour rooms, and oak boards over the cellar in the stair block. Upper floors have oak floorboards, though in many places these are replaced with pine. Ceiling beams are exposed and are chamfered with stops. Walls generally have plaster covering, with higher status rooms have wood panelling, the exception being the rear bedroom in the parlour wing which is plastered, and where early-C17 wall painting was found. Occasionally timber framing is exposed, largely in the dairy and upstairs in the service wing. While much of the wall panelling was brought in during the 1890s works, there is C17 panelling original to the house in both floors of the parlour wing. The fireplaces with Delft tile surrounds date from the 1890s. Some doorway positions were altered in the 1890s, though many C17 doors are retained. Roof trusses have a tie beam separated from a mid-height collar by three posts. In the roof, mid and late-C20 repairs have resulted in replacement of some rafters and repairs to purlins. Unusually the parlour wing rather than service wing adjoins the cross passage, an arrangement opposite to the usual.
The main entrance is through the porch on the north elevation. The porch’s ceiling shows its dragon beams meeting a spine beam which is centred over the moulded inner doorway. This leads into the cross-passage, which is open to the hall on its eastern side. The hall has a fireplace to its eastern end, beyond which is the service wing with kitchen to the north and dairy and walk-in ‘L’ shaped storage cupboard to the south. A large chamfered beam runs centrally the length of the hall ceiling, with the ceiling south of this beam removed to allow light from the prospect tower through the house. A door on the west side of the cross-passage leads to the parlour, with the cross-passage continuing south into the stair block, from where there is another doorway to the west into the central fireplace bay of the parlour wing.
The kitchen’s ceiling shows large stop-chamfered beams, including the diagonally set eastern dragon beam from the jettied north front of the house. The fireplace to the east of the room is in the mid-C17 brick addition to the east elevation, though has been altered and narrowed with a C20 concrete lintel. It is thought that originally the kitchen’s fire was on the west wall, sharing the chimney with that at the east end of the hall. A late-C19 service staircase is south of the kitchen, between it and the dairy. It is possible that the external door in the north elevation of the kitchen is an enlargement of an original window.
The front (north) parlour room has its fireplace to the south; this has a C19 Delft tile surround and uses one side of the chimney which takes up the narrower bay between the two parlour rooms. The rear (south) parlour room has the same arrangement of chamfered ceiling beams as the south parlour, but its fireplace has more elaborate panelling over it, here decorated with arches, diamonds and flowers.
The stair-block has a room on its east side, identified as a former pantry from the inventories, but now with wood-panelled walls. The stairs are ‘U’ shaped and have splat balusters pierced with a variety of designs, newel posts and pendants are a mixture of faceted and perforated, and the handrails have decorative strips carved in a range of patterns. This mixture of decoration may indicate alteration incorporating re-use of a stair from another location, though the current configuration was in place before the C19 works. The cellar is accessed from a C17 door in the stair block and has a stone floor and a fireplace.
The main stairs arrive at a landing on the first floor and continue up to the attic. The landing has four rooms leading off it: two rooms to the west, one to the east and one straight ahead to the north. The room to the east is part of the stair block phase and was a bedroom. The room to the north is over the hall and was formerly a bedroom, but in the late-C19 works had the south part of its floor and ceiling removed. The opening is protected by a rail supported by splat balusters. A Delft tiled fireplace with wood panelled surround is at the east end of the room, and a door to the north allows access to the room over the porch. A door east from the former bedroom with balcony leads to the landing for the stairs up from between kitchen and dairy below. This landing extends to a corridor with its east end within the eastern brick chimney stack. Off the corridor are two rooms to the north now in use as offices and a room to the south of this over the dairy, formerly the cheese loft, now partitioned to form a WC on its west side. The south wall of this landing exposes a large section of timber framing displaying carpenter’s marks.
The parlour wing has two bedrooms, north and south of the chimney, with closets to either side of the chimney. The front (north) bedroom in the parlour wing has particularly high-quality panelling, with a thistle motif to the top row of panels, and a chimneypiece (enclosing a C19 fireplace) with pilasters, arches and grape and vine carvings. The rear bedroom has a fireplace dating to around 1800, and a coved ceiling probably from the C19 works. A section of wall painting found in this room is on display here.
The main stairs continue up to a small landing on the attic floor. The attic has a room to the east, in 2023 in use for storing some of the museum display items. In the north-west corner of the landing is a doorway behind which are stairs up, formerly allowing access to the prospect tower. A doorway in the north side of the landing leads through to a gallery running east / west and looking down through the removed floors below to the hall. The gallery has a pierced splat banister balustrade. At either end of the gallery are doors accessing the attic spaces. The floor of the prospect tower room above has been removed, a fireplace in the wall indicating its approximate level.
