Except in summer, the traditional house was cold and draughty, and at all times dark and gloomy. Its doors and windows admitted more air than light and gave little protection against the intruder. For most people their security lay in the paucity of goods worth stealing. People spent much of their time out of doors. Houses were for eating and sleeping, and only during the dark days of winter would people have spent much time within them. In the course of the later Middle Ages and early modern times, however, household furniture increased; domestic comforts, like cushions and curtains and decorated walls, became more common, and by small increments a house was slowly turned into a home.

The central hearth

Before the sixteenth century most homes had only a single hearth, centrally placed within the hall.

It was usually made of small stones set on edge, but sometimes of stone slabs, and occasionally of fire-hardened clay. Here a fire smouldered and was rarely allowed to go out because there was no ready means of lighting it again. Should it be extinguished, it had generally to be relighted with embers carried from a neighbouring house. This was a hazardous undertaking, and the rolls of the coroners's courts occasionally contain references to the disastrous consequences of the careless handling of a burning brand.