Under the Houses
The vaulted cellars, and what they were for.
The most complete medieval thing in Winchelsea is the part of it you cannot see from the street. These quarters deal with the vaults: what they were cut for, how the wine trade worked above them, and how to read one when you are standing in it.
3 quarters
Every piece in this section-
IX
The Vaults
More than thirty medieval stone cellars survive beneath the plots — an unusual concentration. Built for the wine trade, cut into the sandstone, and evidence of a commercial scale the surface town no longer suggests.
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X
Wine, and Why It Needed a Cellar
Gascon wine as the trade that justified the vaults: how it arrived, what storage it required, and what the volume implies about the port's traffic.
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XIV
How to Read a Vault
Rib profiles, doorway positions and blocked stairs as dating evidence, and what the relationship between a cellar and the plot above tells you.
