Brockhampton: Moated Medieval Manor House

Next we drove the few miles on to Brockhampton, a moated medieval manor house maintained by the Trust. It has been lived in by the manorial lords or their tenants since the 1300s. The main building is quite intact and credible, and there is much apparent period furniture. How to make a narrative out of such a thing, even a small structure, is an interesting question. Do everything medieval? Elizabethan? Jacobean? The Trust's answer this time was to select several actual families that lived at Brockhampton over the centuries, and do a room or rooms featuring them and their epochs. It is quite well done, I think.

The moat and gatehouse were purely for looks

Ruins of a chapel next door...it was a "chapel of ease," not the
parish church...this evidenced by the fact there are no burials
on the site (according to the archaeologists)

The gatehouse; one of the more photographed buildings hereabouts

Vaulting/roofing in the gatehouse

Moat/water feature

Main hall

Vaulting, looking up to the second floor, where the bedrooms are

Master suite, so to speak

Note that when John married into the Brockhampton family,
he took their name

Another bed-chamber, another chapter in the story

Thus: stitched-in above are the instructions to a new servant;
note especially the next-to-last paragraph: "Be aware that I
customarily awake from my first sleep at about 12 midnight,
and may require hot drink as I bide my time until my second
sleep"...a rare reference to the bi-modal sleep pattern of our
ancestors

Moving on a century or two...in a crowded household, the little
kiddies slept in the same room with their parents...and this in
a relatively well-to-do household

Thus

"Mind your head"--at the top of a low staircase

Kitchen/dining; 19th century now

Thus (note built-in microwave)

Finally, the 20th century family room/office...neat place to visit;
the grounds are loaded with interesting trails and hikes, but we
had to move on in search of a place to park for the night...