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Summary The building is essentially a substantial late 17th or early 18th century town house retaining some features of this period, which has been extensively refurbished in the early 19th century, the façade having been refashioned in accordance with late Georgian expectations.
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A detached house of two storeys and attics, built of stone, with a tiled roof between raised coped gables. Gable end stacks. The ground floor consists of a central stair hall, flanked by a dining room (SE) and a drawing room (NW), and kitchen in a short two-storey rear wing. The original plan appears to be a living kitchen with a large stone inglenook fireplace in the NW room, and a parlour in the SE room. The entry door position was always central and the original stair may have been a dog leg stair at the rear of the hallway. A single storey rear extension behind the original kitchen provided service rooms, and was added after 1779 and before 1818. |
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| The spine beam over the NW room is plain without chamfers. This room presumably also had a door from the hall, removed when the front end of the hall was widened. | ||||
The first floor spine beams are concealed in plaster. The large stack from the living kitchen has been squared up, leaving a recess for a small side window. The roof structure, visible in the attics (left), consists of three bays, with two collar-beam trusses and tenoned purlins. The timbers are slight, with 150 x 100mm principal rafters, 120 x 100 collar, and 150 x 190mm purlins. The slender character of this construction is that of the late 17th or early 18th century. |
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The house had a major refurbishment in the early 19th century, when it appears the front stonework was refaced, and handsome ironstone flush quoins provided to new small sash windows. The lintels of the windows are of wide-splayed wedge form. The elevation is capped by a bold timber moulding perhaps concealing the cogged eaves which remains at the back. Internally a new staircase was inserted, with a pole hardwood handrail scrolled on to an iron stanchion at the bottom (the balusters replaced in recent time), and the window reveals panelled, with shutters provided to the ground floor.
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| Photographic evidence suggests that in the early in the 20th century the stone lintels were defaced by the cutting of false joints, leaving a narrower centre part now painted white. The present rear wing, containing the kitchen, is probably a mid Victorian or later addition built on a wider footprint and including additional first floor accommodation. | ||||
Description
This date, for the primary build of this house, is corroborated by the
jewelled stop chamfer in the living kitchen, and by the kneelers terminating the coped gable ends externally. A date of 1690 has been cut into corbels under the kneelers in modern times. Although the authority for this precise date is not known, there is no architectural reason to dissent from it.