The fireplace surround in The Library at Combermere Abbey is a magnificent piece of Tudor carpentry, dating from the 1560s, when Richard Cotton – son of Sir George Cotton, to whom the estate was granted after the Dissolution – built the large timber-framed house.

The surround measures around fourteen feet square, and it is a composite of dozens of individual elements, of all sizes, pinned together to create a unified whole. Much of the decoration was carved, but not as much as one might at first think.

The decoration is typical of its period, but is not hugely sophisticated, and may have been the work of a local craftsman.  The tall columns to the extreme left and right, and several other details, show Italianate influence and more than hint at the Renaissance. Reference for this sort of work would not have been difficult to come by at this point. On the other hand, there are primitive and possibly mythological elements, and images of Native North American Indians. The English exploration of the eastern seaboard of what is now the USA began with Cabot at the end of the Fifteenth century, but really got underway with Elizabeth I’s skilled and intrepid ‘sea dogs’ from about 1560 – though the main thrust of exploration came after the defeat of the Spanish fleet in 1588. There was huge interest in the voyages of discovery, and images of North North American were widely distributed in England. Their presence on the fireplace surround might hint at a later date.

Depiction of a Native North American Indian

This panel is fascinating; it is unlike anything else in the ornamentation. Monsters are depicted devouring their own tails, and the style is Anglo-Saxon and pagan. The motif is common, and is considered to represent immortality (borne of the serpent or snake shedding its skin and renewing itself).  It is hard to see where the inspiration for this came from and why it was included.

This figure, bare-chested again and wearing a simple piece of fabric over one shoulder and across his groin, surmounts a semi-abstract face – from the mouth of which appears foliage and – what? – two avocado pears?

A stylised face of – perhaps – a wolf, above what may be more exotic fruit.

Humans have always had something of a macabre fascination with Xestobium rufovillosum – and that’s hardly surprising. The sound made by the death watch beetle has been imagined to be a harbinger of death for centuries. Its macabre reputation seems to have come from the tapping or ticking sound it makes, which can be heard (usually in the rafters) of old buildings on quiet summer nights. It is indeed a somewhat spooky sound, and the belief is that a death in the house is imminent.

A variation on the folklore is that the sound was usually heard by anxious relatives and friends who were sitting quietly by the bed of someone dangerously ill, usually at night. Hence they were observing a ‘death watch’.

Well, there hasn’t been a death at Combermere Abbey for many years, we’re glad to say, but the death watch beetles have certainly been busy. The beetles eat their way through wood, which they are able to digest using a combination of enzymes in the alimentary canal. They like wood which has already experienced fungal decay of some kind. The adult death watch beetle is only a quarter of an inch long but the damage it can do is remarkable. The Abbey beetles have certainly digested quite remarkable amounts of timber, as you can see in the picture below.

Thanks to the mythology surrounding the death watch beetles have been mentioned by writers as diverse as John Keats, Edgar Allen Poe and Ray Bradbury.

These photos of all-too-active, happily munching, death watch beetles larva were taken in the North Wing this week, and I think we can assume that beetles you see here came to a rather sticky end just after being photographed. You can hear the sound they make (at your own risk) by clicking here.

Although the demolition and removal of old and decayed building materials still continues in the North Wing at Combermere Abbey, new material is already going in. Brickwork is being reapired with Cheshire bricks, and having cut rotten wood away the joiners are cutting new pieces and they are being inserted. Some of the new timberwork is being pegged in, as it would have been in late medieval and Tudor times, but larger beams are being secured with deeply counter-sunk  steel bolts.

The new timberwork follows the pattern of the original wood exactly, even where it is going to disappear behind behind covering surfaces both inside and out. No short cuts are being taken and the original form of the Abbey’s timber frame is being followed faithfully.

The coping stones of what remains of the eastern side of the North Wing, which was built for the visit by The Duke Of Wellington in 1919 peep up through one of the lower scaffolding corridors on the north-eastern corner (see photo below).

September 23 2014: A couple of weeks on from the piece posted above we can see yet more progress in the North Wing. There are hundreds of newly-made bricks being added to the old ones, and new wood is meeting timber of several different ages. Where needed the larger beams are bolted into place – often with very sizeable bolts – and in other places the timbers are being joined with wooden pegs, as they would have been for many centuries.

It’s immediately apparent now how much easier it is to restore the North Wing with the roof and all supporting timber-work removed. Access from the four-storey staffolding walkway around the Wing is excellent, and reassuringly safe.

Kathryn Callander has just finished her fourth year studying Architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans. Her family is from San Francisco and she is a cousin of the owner of Combermere Abbey, Sarah Callander Beckett. On a recent stay at the Abbey Kathryn surveyed the timber structure of the Abbey from the inside of the building, taking a large number of measurements and feeding those dimensions into a CAD programme. With that data in place she was able to create an image of exactly how the Abbey looked when it was re-built as a private house by Richard Cotton in the 1560s, while Queen Elizabeth I sat on the throne of England.

Combermere Abbey had been a Cistercian house since 1133, and in 1539 it was seized by Thomas Cromwell’s agents under authority granted by Henry VIII. The last Abbot, John Massey, surrendered the building and all its lands, and in 1542 the entirety was granted to Richard’s father, Sir George Cotton, who was comptroller of the household of King Henry’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset.

Sir George and his brother Sir Richard Cotton were the sons of John Cotton and Cecily Mainwaring, who lived at Alkington – south of Whitchurch in northern Shropshire, and only a few miles from the Abbey. The two brothers came from a modest background in a part of the kingdom far from London and the court, but became hugely successful courtiers. Both men were knighted by Henry, and both were granted great estates (Sir Richard’s was in Hampshire).

It may be that Sir George lobbied to gain Combermere Abbey and its lands out of affection for the area where he was brought up. Certainly he would have known the Abbey and its lands well. He might have enjoyed the ‘Local boy makes good’ element. During his lifetime (he died young, in 1545, aged 40) he would certainly have collected the income from the estate, but his early death left the creation of a new house to his son – though demolition and the sale of materials not required for re-use may well have started earlier.

The west front of the Tudor house.

The Abbey church, its cloisters and almost all the ancillary buildings were demolished, and all evidence of their original positions was erased. The building materials were doubtless used elsewhere – probably sold off – and only a small amount was needed for the re-building – mostly timber and sandstone. Almost all that was kept of the Abbey’s structure was the high status central section around The Abbot’s Lodgings, which was in the style of a manorial great hall, with the main room on the first floor, and a relatively newly-built chimney on the east wall.

The stone-built ground floor seems to have been kept intact, and new wings were added to the north and the south. The building was symmetrical, with five identical gables (save for a quattrefoil in the centre) but the roof line dips sharply to the north (see below). The chimneys are assymetrical. The lantern in the centre of the roof was a Tudor addition, used by spectators to watch hunting of all and any kind on the land surrounding the Abbey. The gabled wings to the north and south projected forward to create a C-shaped plan.

Kathryn’s survey accords exactly with the 1730 drawing of the Abbey. This is very useful; having established that the depiction of the Abbey itself is valid we can put our faith in the other buildings and both the gardens and landscape.The west front of Combermere Abbey, drawn almost 200 years after the re-building.

It is possible that the further wing and other buildings to the south of the Abbey’s core were also built in Tudor times, given their architectural style, though possibly shortly after the main was block was completed. The much lower status range to the north west, separate from the house and probably not used as accommodation, was demolished at some point. Where this building stood is now part of the lake (the two meres were joined later to create a single 150-acre lake).

The north face of the Abbey and the return of that face.

These elevations show that at the northern end there were two gables and a valley in the roof. Again the stone ground floor has been retained from the pre-Dissolution structure (though possibly re-worked to some degree), but the projecting wings are entirely timber-framed.

We are very grateful to Kathryn for her work, and wish her well for the future.