Is there a timber-framed building lurking beneath Staithe Farm?

  Photograph of Staithe farmhouse with six members of the Skinner family outside, taken circa 1867/68.

Here is one of the pictures of our ancestors my mother and I took to the remote hamlet of Tunstall thirty two years ago. It shows a united couple, Jane Betsy Skinner, seated on a chair. Her husband, John Pollard Skinner at the end of a bench with their little dog and four of their daughters, Laura, aged seven or eight, Louisa, aged about twenty five, Mary Ann, aged thirteen or fourteen and standing behind them, Emma Jane aged fifteen or sixteen.

   Staithe Farm Tunstall viewed from the south in this picture looks like a large Georgian House on three stories, but when my mother and I were invited inside to look at Thomas Skinner's name scratched on a pane of glass, I noted at the time, the ceilings were lower than I expected and the interior featured structural beams. I therefore set my co-researchers of the time, a mammoth task, to use their expertise and knowledge of architecture, historic buildings and their context to attempt to fathom the provenance of the farmhouse.

   I had thought, perhaps, the house might have been adapted from a warehouse on the cut/Staithe on the river Bure, but that theory has been ruled out by R and R Platts. More likely, if the Georgian brickwork were a later 'skin', a gentrification of an earlier timber-framed building, it would have been built as a timber-framed plaster-fronted dwelling house, as the one in the picture below. These are fairly typical of rural locations in East Anglia and date from the latter half of the 16th century. The building below has a tiled roof extension, whereas Staithe farmhouse has a single storey extension at the back of the west side of the house. According to the Platts, the top rooms, or third storey of Staithe farm is lit loft or attic space. As there is a window in the gable end on the farmhouse below, it is indicative there is a third storey with lit attic space at the top of manor farm.

   Cousin S.H. has suggested Staithe Farm may not have been a timber-framed building originally, as there is no sign of any jetty on the first floor. But there is no sign the manor farm below had any jetty either. Extensive study of some of the hundreds of timber-framed buildings in Colchester, Essex, by experts the late Richard Shackle, Dave Stenning, who was one of the architects instrumental in putting together the Essex Design Guide and Jess Tipper, formerly of Colchester Museums, has revealed how complex and multifunctional many of these timber-framed buildings were. I have put an isometric view of All Saints Court which was demolished in Culver Street East in 1939, despite the best efforts of the Civic Society to save it, below. Some timbers and the fireplace from this building were on display in Colchester Castle museum until its most recent refurbishment and are now in store. 

Isometric view of All Saints Court, Culver Street East, Colchester. Late 15th century constructed on three bays. Looking at this view of All Saints Court, the manor farm above and Staithe Farm above that, I wonder if it is possible that Staithe Farm, if timber-framed, were originally constructed on three bays between the two chimneys and beyond the door to the east of the building is an extension and all part of the gentrification which R & R Platts now think may have taken place in the reign of George l.