It can be demonstrated that, after houses and barns, detached kitchens were once the most common building type present in the landscape of south-east England, yet today very few examples survive. Those which do mainly date from the period 1450-1550 and are surprisingly large and complex. They range in length from two to four bays and usually have more than one ground floor room and at least one, often two or more upper chambers. Although all incorporate non-standard features, in general appearance the surviving examples closely resemble small houses. It is often only their location, close to the rear of a main house of more standard layout, which indicates their true function. Documentary evidence suggests that, in addition to the kitchen itself, the buildings housed such service rooms as bakehouses, and milkhouses. The upper chambers gave extra storage and accommodation.
It should be stressed that those kitchens which survive are likely to represent the larger, more elaborate examples. Many of those which have been lost may have been nothing more than single-roomed, single-storeyed outhouses. Yet the fact cannot be ignored that there would have been a considerable difference in status between those households with, and those without detached kitchens, despite the surviving houses being of similar size and layout. The importance of the detached kitchen in relation to vernacular studies should not be underestimated.
It is normally assumed that detached kitchens were only commonplace on monastic and manorial sites. However, historical sources suggest that during the late medieval and tudor times many vernacular households in the south-east of England incorporated such a building. The following analysis is primarily confined to a small area at the eastern end of the county of Sussex, but probably illustrates the norm. Recently other researchers have recognized surviving detached kitchens in Essex, Hampshire and Kent.
Just how common such buildings once were is illustrated by the particularly detailed survey of Robertsbridge Manor made in 1567 [published in full in Sussex Record Society XLVII (1944)]. This mentions a total of 123 messuages (excluding a small number of cottages and tenements) mainly located within the township of Robertsbridge and the parishes of Ewhurst, Northiam, Burwash and Ticehurst. Of these, 43 had detached kitchens; over one in three. There is a noticeable variation between the figures for the township of Robertsbridge and the rural areas. Of the 48 houses within Robertsbridge only eight (17%) are mentioned as having kitchens, whereas in the rural areas this total rises to 41%. Only upon holdings of less than 15 acres were kitchens rare: they are mentioned on 48% of holdings above that size. Based upon the above it can be argued that during the mid 16th century, in this part of Sussex at least, detached kitchens were the most common building type after houses and barns.
A similar survey of the rural manor of Hammerden in Ticehurst taken in 1618 mentions 69 messuages, but in this instance only eight had detached kitchens. These statistics support the hypothesis that such buildings experienced rapid destruction as they fell redundant during the late 16th century, a theory which is further supported by presentments in the court rolls. The Hammerden court rolls indicate that during this period some tenants sought permission from the lord of Hammerden to destroy their kitchens. Thus in September 1560 Robert Anoke obtained licence to devastate one old kitchen, whilst in March 1563 Thomas Manser permitted a kitchen to fall and devastate, and in September 1568 a licence was granted to Anthony Hunt to demolish an old kitchen on 'Rouleghe' - present day Rowley. After this opening spate of three cases in eight years, the records are silent as to the destruction of kitchens, the only exception being an isolated reference to a licence granted to John Umfrey to 'demolish an ancient kitchen on Tallowes' (Upper Tollhurst) in 1609. The general lack of references after 1568 may indicate how commonplace such destructions had become, though alternatively it may merely reflect a less stringent exercising of manorial control over building repairs - the point has not as yet been checked. In general, the court rolls of other manors show a similar situation regarding the destruction of kitchens.
It is likely that already by 1567 the popularity of the detached kitchen was on the wane. This may explain the dearth of such buildings within the wealthy township of Robertsbridge. For example, although 23,25 High Street, Robertsbridge (a high-quality continuous jettied building of c1520) was probably initially constructed with a detached kitchen, an attached rear kitchen was soon afterwards added to the house. During the same period attached kitchens appear also to have been added at Henhurst (now Parkhill) and Westdown, both in Burwash and both listed in the 1567 Robertsbridge manorial survey without detached kitchens.
Figure
1
Two typical Medieval detached kitchens
Very few examples of vernacular detached kitchens survive. One at Little Brook, Crowborough exists today as a shed in front of the house, but usually they are now incorporated into rear wings, or demoted to use as an oasthouse, a type of building which was becoming more commonplace at precisely the same time as kitchens were falling redundant.
From surviving monastic examples one might expect detached kitchens to take the form of a single room, square in plan and open throughout its height. A building of this type behind Slatters in Mount Street, Battle, was initially identified as such a structure, but subsequent building works showed it to have been much later than originally thought, and to have had an entirely clean roof: it is now thought more likely to have been a late-17th-century slaughter house. However, the example at Little Brook, Crowborough does comply with this general design.
In all, over a dozen examples of detached kitchens have now been identified in eastern Sussex by the authors, and others are suspected. Only Little Brook is of the one-room plan. The others are of 2-4 bays and typically measured 7.9 - 11.6 m (26' - 38') long by 5.2 - 6.4 m (17' -21') wide. Apart from an open area in the vicinity of the hearth, all are two storeyed with at least one, and usually two upper chambers. A medieval arrangement which is emerging as typical is a building in which a two bay 'kitchen' room has one bay open to the roof with a chamber over the second bay. In addition there was a further ground floor room (in some instances more than one) having a chamber above. At 12-13 High Street, Battle, the upper chamber beyond the kitchen was sub-divided by a longitudinal partition. In some instances a gallery ran across the open bay linking the chambers. By the post-medieval period the open bay had developed into a smoke-bay. In both appearance and area of accommodation these structures closely resemble small houses. Indeed, many kitchens have in the past been cited as examples of the so called 'unit system' where two equal-status independent houses (perhaps initially occupied by two brothers, or by father and son) shared the same holding. The kitchen at Comphurst, Wartling has close studding and a continuous jetty fitted with a moulded fascia, though internally it is very plain.
Figure 2
Former detached kitchen at Comphurst, Wartling (TQ 6465 1161)
It is often only the location of these structures close to the rear of a main house of more standard layout which indicates their true function. In some examples the internal arrangement of the kitchen indicates very clearly its subservience to the main dwelling. At Comphurst a wide passage led through the service rooms of the kitchen to give direct access to the house. The same is true at Darwell Beech, Mountfield, whilst at The Mermaid, Rye, a rear wing within the main house is itself fitted with a long passage so as to give convenient access to the kitchen beyond. In this instance the kitchen was largely rebuilt as an attached structure during the late-16th century.
Figure 3
Given the house-like appearance of detached kitchens, it is worth re-assessing existing records to ascertain whether any kitchens have been wrongly classified as houses. A small three-bay mid-16th century smoke-bay structure at Grovelye, Warbleton was recorded in 1979 as a small dwelling. Subsequent historical research by Dr Elizabeth Doff has shown that the house upon this holding was considered to be a 'Capital Messuage'. Such a description does not equate with the recorded structure, which, it is now considered, is far more likely to have been constructed as a detached kitchen serving a now demolished house. Likewise, in the same year Darwell Beech, Mountfield was recorded as an example of the unit system. Only during the building's dismantling was the subservient nature of the south-eastern dwelling recognized and the structure re-interpreted as a detached kitchen.
Neither is the need for re-assessment limited to standing buildings. The two-roomed 'building 3' from the 1952 excavations of the deserted medieval village of Hangleton, north of Brighton was reconstructed at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum as an example of a typical 13th or 14th century village house. This particular house was chosen because it was the best preserved, the remains having been partially protected as a result of the platform having been cut into the hillside. Of particular note was the base of an oven incorporated into the north-eastern corner [E W Holden, 'Excavations at the Deserted Medieval Village of Hangleton, Part 1', in Sussex Archaeological Collections Vol.101 (1963) pp.54-181]. To the authors' knowledge the interpretation of this structure as a house has never been challenged, though its location cut into the bank immediately behind building 8 (the likely house) seems to us far more consistent with a kitchen use than that of a house.
That the term 'kitchen' or 'coquina' was used in contemporary documents to indicate a multi-roomed, multi-function structure should be no surprise. Locally the term 'barn' or 'horreum' was used regardless of whether it referred to a single-roomed structure used solely for the storage and processing of cereals and pulses, or to one of the locally common multi-roomed, multi-function farm buildings which incorporated as one of its several uses the storage and processing of crops. Likewise, presentments in the court rolls invariably refer to the dwelling on a holding as the 'hall' or 'aula', though it is accepted that this referred not just to the hall, but also to its attendant service rooms and chambers. Very occasional references to a chamber block or 'camera' are thought to relate to detached lodging ranges, either for the use of the owner or for guests and servants.
Proof that the term 'coquina' does indeed relate to multi-roomed structures in which the 'kitchen' was the most important room is to be found in a 1567 description of Great Worge, Brightling. The 'wealden' style house upon this holding still survives and is accurately described room by room in the survey. Measurements given correspond closely to those of the surviving house. Having completed the description of the house the entry goes on to read 'Item. There is builded on the west side [ie rear] of the same dwellinghouse 14 foot distance from the same one kitchen made of timber and covered with tile which was lately built by Thomas Glyd the elder, now farmer here, containing in length 30 foot, in breadth 16½ foot having in it one room for to dress meat in, with a reredashe oven and an oast to dry malt, loathed over, and two other rooms one for a bakehouse and another for a milkhouse, loathed over' [British Library ADD MSS 45194]. It is clear from the description of the house that the term 'loathed over' refers to a first-floor loft or chamber. A second documentary reference to such a kitchen comes from Essex in 1356 when the abbot and convent of Westminster gave the vicar of Kelvedon 'one hall situated in the manor of the said abbot and convent near the said church, with a solar and chamber at one end of the hall and with a buttery and cellar at the other. Also one other house in three parts, namely a kitchen, with a convenient chamber in the end of the said house for guests, and a bake-house' [Alan Savidge The Parsonage in England, its History and Architecture (London 1964) pp. 17-18 - we are grateful to John Walker for supplying this information].
It will be noted that in both of the above entries the additional ground-floor rooms fulfilled a service function. At Kelvedon the upper chamber served as a guest lodging: their use at Great Worge is not noted: general storage or lodgings for servants are possibilities, as is their use as dower quarters.
Seventeenth century documents relating to Beestons, Warbleton, one of the larger surviving detached kitchens in eastern Sussex, sheds some light on the possible use of this building during the 17th century. A will of 1637 refers to the property as having 'two houses', but a deed of 1635 refers to the same property as a 'messuage, barn, kitchen . . .' [East Sussex Record Office SAS RF 3/1-25]. Of the two, the will probably gives a more accurate picture as to the use of the kitchen in the 1630s, by which date this particularly large detached kitchen may well have become a house in its own right. In all probabilities the deed quotes from an earlier outdated description. Use of this kitchen as a house would explain its survival, for it was not converted into an oasthouse until the 18th or 19th century.
Some kitchens survived remarkably late. Thus, at Gate House Farm, Ewhurst, the detached kitchen mentioned in the 1567 Robertsbridge survey was rebuilt as a detached structure around 1600 and was not incorporated into the main body of the house until later in the 17th century. Furthermore, a map of Robertsbridge manor made in 1727 shows occupied structures shaded in pink and farm buildings in grey [East Sussex Record Office A4728/8]. Two houses, both described as having detached kitchens in 1567, are shown with a smaller pink-shaded structure to one end, suggesting that at that date the detached kitchens still survived. The house on one of these has been rebuilt, but The Cross Inn, Ewhurst still survives and shows the detached structure to have been located beyond the service end in a traditional position for a kitchen. The house and kitchen at Darwell Beech, Mountfield were not joined to form a single structure until c1730.
It has long been thought that a house incorporating an attached kitchen was
of superior status to a similar structure without an attached kitchen. In the
light of the above, it is perhaps time to reconsider this conclusion. Although
late-16th-century and later houses incorporating attached kitchens are often of
high status, in earlier buildings the attached kitchen normally took the form of
a single open room attached either to the end or rear of a house of standard
medieval layout. Examples are Combe Manor, Wadhurst; Ketchingham, Etchingham and
Honeys Green, Framfield. 
Figure 4
Combe Manor, Wadhurst (TQ 6224 2848)
A standard
medieval hall house built with a single-room attached kitchen accessed from the
exterior. In the mid-16th century, the kitchen bay was floored and a new
three-bay kitchen extension added to the medieval house.
Given that it is now evident that many detached kitchens were multi-roomed structures with upper chambers, surely a household incorporating such a structure is markedly superior in status to one which incorporates a single-roomed attached kitchen, and not the reverse as is usually assumed. There is a further worry. Take two houses of similar size and layout, one formerly serviced by a detached kitchen and the other absent of any form of kitchen whatsoever. Today both would seem to represent households of equal status, whereas in reality one would have incorporated almost double the accommodation and must therefore have been of markedly superior status. This has obvious and major implications for the study of vernacular buildings.
In order to address these implications we need to know whether any variation in layout can be recognized between those houses which possessed a detached kitchen and those which did not. For Robertsbridge, historical and architectural surveys exist. From these it is evident that eighteen houses survive from before 1567, of which five had detached kitchens. Of those which did, four had typical service arrangements of two rooms whilst at the fifth such an arrangement is implied but cannot be proven. Out of the thirteen recorded houses which did not have detached kitchens in 1567, two had rear attached kitchens, four were too fragmentary to gain any information (though on historical grounds The Tonne probably had an attached kitchen), one example had two rooms at its service end and five examples had a single room at this end. In the thirteenth example the arrangement is unknown. This would suggest that there is in fact a design variation between those houses with and those without detached kitchens in that those with had two service apartments, and those without more commonly had one only. The one proven example of a house with two service rooms but no kitchen is small, and here the front 'service' room possibly acted as a shop. Further research now needs to be undertaken before it is known whether this variation in the layout of the service rooms in relation to the existence of detached kitchens is peculiar to Robertsbridge, or general. If the latter, then two buildings of identical size, one with single and the other with double service rooms would represent households of very different status and size.
The existence of a single service room in houses lacking a detached kitchen is probably best explained by the use of the hall hearth for cooking. In such houses a separate room would have been required for the paraphernalia associated with cooking, as well as for the preparation of the food. This room, rather than being called the service room is probably best described as a preparation kitchen. Such a room appears to have existed in the house of William Creche at Hooe in 1462 [P. Brandon The Sussex Landscape (1974) p. 142]. It was a small building of only three rooms, being 'hall, bedroom (camera) and kitchen (coquina)'. The kitchen in this instance was certainly used to house the cooking equipment.