Guildhall | Warwick, Lord Leicester Hospital | Briefing | Professor Lynn Courtenay

Early Roofing Systems in Northern Europe

Click images to enlarge.

Great Britain, Warwick, Lord Leicester Hospital | Guildhall
Professor Lynn Courtenay

The Guildhall, in distinction to the Banqueting Hall, is a first floor hall built above four chambers and is partially supported on cantilevered timber beams forming what is known as a jetty.

Great Britain, Warwick, Lord Leicester Hospital, Interior of Guildhall looking east

This hall occupies most of the south range of the quadrangle to the east of the main gate. The ground floor chambers are accessed via two doorways in the forecourt, while the ante chamber next to the gate contains a stair in the northwest corner which provides access to the west end of the Guildhall. The west part of the Guildhall contains a partitioned chamber at a higher floor level with a modern window looking into the hall. The jettied hall is three bays and leans substantially to the south (visible on the exterior especially); it measures 54' long and 20' wide with evidence of a former screen in the third (western) bay of the hall, aligned with the northwest entrance from the gallery of the east range of the cloister. There is no dais.

The hall is entirely timber-framed with close-studded walls and panelling, and it communicates with the east range of the cloister via an entrance in the northwest wall opening onto a landing in upper storey of the timber gallery facing onto the courtyard. A second (north) door in the Guildhall leads directly into another open hall (the Chaplains' Hall) now obscured by partial plastering, partitions, and the current museum installation.

The Guildhall roof is composed of principal trusses of arch-brace and collar construction. Each framed bay consists of seven common rafters, moulded purlins and arched wind braces in the lower half of the roof. Above the single purlins, the rafters rise to the ridge, and on the south side dormer windows were inserted in the 19th century. While the windows are mostly modern, traces of two earlier oriel windows were discovered in the easternmost bay of the north wall facing the cloister and another on the south front. The roof is impressive owing to the substantial moulded timbers of the arch-braces and collars, and the decorative character is enhanced by the addition of large bosses with carved niches placed in the centre of the collars. There are also traces of decorative foliate carving in the spandrels of the wind braces, stylistically similar to open roofs of the 15th century and typical of decorative open roofs that flourished in late medieval England.

Thus, as seen earlier in the Briefing, the Warwick Guildhall and its close neighbour, St. Mary's, Coventry, are vivid reminders of a substantive architectural tradition that relied on construction in wood for its primary expression.

Further information
Barron, Caroline. The Medieval Guildhall of London. London, 1974.

Chatwin, P.T. Trans. Birm, Arch. S. lxx (1952), 37–47.

Emery, A. Greater Medieval Houses in England and Wales. Cambridge; CUP, 2000.

Victoria County Histories, Warwickshire, vol. 8 (London, 1969), 423–427.

back to hospital main

back to briefing main