Urban Archaeology lecture 8 on Domestic Archaeology and Architecture.

1. Domestic Archaeology
Behind Closed Doors?

2. Today
• What is ‘domestic’ archaeology?
• What can it tell us about social history?
• Social revolutions and personal adaptations

3. The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
Ce-cil F. Al-ex-an-der, Hymns for Lit-tle Child-ren, 1848
Our domestic arrangements reveal a lot
about the society in which we live.

4. Domestic Spaces
How have our domestic habits changed?
What can be considered domestic?
Can we see the signs of this changing world?

5. Permenance & Domesticity
Unlike industrial archaeology changes in the
fundamentals of domestic architecture tend to
be superficially slight…
© goldring

6. Scara Brae A Modern Kitchen
©Malcolm Morris ©Pbroks13
Kuchemaistrey East End Kitchen
Nuremberg, 1485
© ceridwen

7. Social Changes and Personal
Responses
• Actually though changes in the ways that people live
can be enormous.
• Changes in society which we have already looked at
caused changes in lifestyle and housing
• But peoples houses were (and are!) also adapted and
modified to suit their needs and aspirations.
Houses are the manifestation of the
personal, family and social relationships
which make up domestic life.

8. Public and Private Spaces
We have come to associate the
domestic with the private this is a
very recent innovation in thinking
which even today doesn’t make
much sense.
Medieval Hall House at Weald and Downland Museum Lakeside Terrace: A pedestrianised area in the Barbican Estate.
Copyright Angus Kirk Copyright Oxyman

9. Social Revolutions
We tend to think about changes in
housing in terms of major social
changes which have characterised the
19th and 20th Centuries.
Actually though, changes have been Cash’s Houses Coventry © Dr Neil Clifton
constant and have often been driven by
the changing lifestyles as much as by
‘external forces’ such as
industrialisation, slum clearance or
post-war reconstruction.
Scotstounhill Tower Blocks © Chris Upson

10. Personal Revolutions
Once of the most significant
changes in the British use domestic
space was the move from public to
private living.
In many ways this can be seen to
represent the break between the
medieval and the modern.
House of medieval origins on the Assington Rd., Newton near
Sudbury. ©Jurek and Trish Sienkiewicz
But it often gets lost in the
‘romance’ of the old house.
Developments in housing in the
late 20th century were often built
with the nuclear family in mind.
Houses on Collyer Road, Calverton, Nottinghamshire
© Copyright Alan Murray-Rust

11. Large Scale Changes
We can see these large scale changes in the
urban landscape.
A little bit of detective work can give us clues to:
• Why an area looks as it does
• When an area was developed
• Who an area was built for

12. Adaptation
New houses are built all the time but we don’t
stop using the old ones.
Hall House
House of medieval origins on the
Assington Rd., Newton near Sudbury.
Partially Jettied Medieval House ©Jurek and Trish Sienkiewicz
Stratford-upon-Avon
© Tim Knight Terraced house façades, Montague
Street Hartlepool.
All Images geograph © Copyright Andrew Curtis

13. Adaptation
Changes are still taking place, things which today seem
like they might be small additions (conservatories)
minor changes (knocking through into the dining room)
or adaptations which are now taken for granted
(conversion of houses to flats) may be seen as
‘watershed’ moments in the development of housing.

14. Conclusion
Domestic archaeology is the archaeology of
changing public and private space.
Changes happen quickly and can be seen in the
houses we live in (we are often responsible!)

15. During Coffee…
Changes in domestic life happen very quickly
How many cupboards do you remember in your parents or
grandparents houses when you were a child?
Who remembers seeing an outdoor toilet?

16. Optional Further Reading
Domestic Interiors
Downey, Georgina
Oxford, Berg 2013
English houses 1300-1800: vernacular architecture, social life
Johnson, Matthew
London, Longman, 240pp. 2010
Stuff
Miller, Daniel
Cambridge, Polity Press, 2010
Space, Property, and Propriety in Urban England
Harding, Vanessa.
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 32, Number 4, Spring 2002,
pp. 549-569 (Article)
Published by The MIT Press
Domestic Space: reading the nineteenth-century interior
Bryden, Inga and Floyd, Janet
Manchester and New York; Manchester University Press, 1999
Domestic Interiors Project Bibliography: http://csdi.rca.ac.uk/didb/biblio.php