Forgotten buildings: detached kitchens in Southeast England

Abstract

Few archaeologists study standing domestic buildings, but such investigation can yield novel insights into how people lived in their home environments, especially when it is coupled with documentary evidence. Recent research by a member of the UCL Field Archaeology Unit has led to the surprising conclusion that detached kitchens were, after houses and barns, the most common type of building during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Southeast England. Much of the new evidence comes from the assessment of listed buildings in the planning process and shows how commercial archaeology can serve academic research.