Summary

This large imposing house appears to be medieval in origin, of which the roof structure and the external stone walls only remain.  It was radically transformed around 1600, creating a revised plan with a low hall and service room at the SE end, and a parlour at the other. The parlour has a large external stack, and there is a smaller rear stack to the hall.  The rear wing appears to be contemporary, and provided additional domestic accommodation. The unusual feature in this property is the first floor fireplace with its stack cantilevered on the end gable and the collection of graffiti on the fireplace lintel.

Description

This building stands at the south end of the High Street range of properties, facing Market Square.  A driveway, probably of some antiquity, passes close to the end gable, leading to other properties at the rear.

It is built of stone, originally with a thatched roof, now replaced by tiles, between raised coped gables with kneelers of ironstone.

In plan, the house consists of a two-bay low hall, with a narrow service room at the SE end, and a parlour with a large external stack at the NW gable end. 

The entrance appears to have been through a gabled porch projecting into the Market Place, the cut-off purlins surviving in the stone walling.  The main door thus entered near the upper end of the hall, a position now occupied by the dining room window.

The building is amply provided with 5 ashlar stone fireplaces, with high-set chamfer stops, Tudor type arches, and sunk triangular spandrels. Fireplaces of this type were a common feature of buildings of c.1600.

A small chamfered stone fireplace of this type occurs on the back wall of the entrance hall.  This has been partly cut away at a later date for a passage through to the rear wing.

The parlour at the NW end has a handsome stone fireplace on the rear wall, giving rise to a large external chimney breast.  The end gable wall is set at an angle, presumably resulting from constraints imposed by an earlier building on the adjacent site.  This is now a party wall with the Old Cobblers, next door. This room once had a later door inserted at the front, probably when the property was divided into separate dwellings.

The front window of the service room at the SE end has been widened much later probably in the 19^th century, to provide a shop front for a general store, sweet shop, and later a butcher.

The primary internal partitions of the house are timber framed, with staves for wattle and daub inflling; the infilling has now been replaced with more modern materials.  It is possible that the external walls were also of timber framing, as the chamfers in the parlour end are without stops, but this is contradicted by the partition head beams in the other two major positions.

The front windows have wide splayed reveals, and no doubt had stone mullioned windows with external hood mouldings prior to the present 3-light 19^th century timber windows.

Rear Wing

A two-storey stone-built rear wing stands behind the service end of the house, from which it is slightly outset.  The range is continued by the rear garden side wall, which has been rebuilt, and perhaps in the doing, the building has been narrowed.

The first room in this rear wing is of three bays, and has a large fireplace with a heavy timber fire beam, and a handsome ovolo-moulded oak side window overlooking the garden.

There is an external door to the side driveway, and a corresponding door to the garden, both of which may succeed original entrances. The two heavy ceiling beams have stopped chamfers.   It is not possible to determine the original use of this room, for the mullioned window central to the two further bays hints that the room is rather more than a simple service room.  It is possible that it is a survivor from earlier than c.1600, although the ovolo window is unlikely to be much. What amounts to the ‘cross-passage’ may have been partitioned off from this room, for which no evidence remains. 

Behind the internal fireplace now on the present end gable, a further single bay 1½ storey building with coped gable ends survived until c.1957-1962.  From old photographs this clearly had at one time a thatched roof, and itself had a fireplace on its west gable.  Internally, backing on to the stack this bay had a large fireplace on the present gable wall, its huge timber lintel still remains embedded in the end wall.  This single bay building, which appears to be a separate build from the rear wing of Stafford House, may be the building recorded in the censuses as a third Barnwell Building. Foundations of a stone wall parallel to the present garden wall have been found in the garden.  This second bay, with such a large fireplace, may well have been the bakehouse or brewhouse of the Stafford House complex.

The Roof

The roof structure is of particular interest.  It is composed of five bays of unequal width, divided by four trusses.  Truss 1, at the SE end is illustrated.  It has 250mm principal rafters set at 54 degrees, with two collars, the top collar with pegs for knee braces, short struts, and supports housed and tenoned purlins. The rear principal seems to be slightly tapered. This was a closed truss infilled with vertical staves, incorporating a door opening. The roof has slightly racked to the rear. 

Truss 2 has retained the ridge, and open collar, marked II on the front, and the rafters have been pegged to the purlins.  Truss 3 has no pegs on the exposed collar and Truss 4 is not visible, being embedded in later partitioning.  All bracings including the windbraces, once present, have been removed.

The truss spacing is significant, the two bays at the SE end are both approximately 3.2m centres, followed by a narrower bay at 2.75m, itself followed by two narrower bays at 2.2m each.  This reinforces the suggestion that the ‘polite’ end of the house is at  the NW end, with the service end at the south-east, an arrangement still remains today. 

The timber truss construction is entirely medieval in character, and it would seem that the roof supports are a legacy of a medieval house on the site.  As to when in the medieval period, there are no very early characteristics, and once established the form and assembly of parts becomes standardised over a long period of time, and only dendrochronology, if practicable, would offer a more precise indication of date.

Externally there is a large stone-built well in the garden, now covered over.

History

It is believed that Stafford House was the dwelling of Jane Stafford, whose will is dated 1591.  She was the widow of John Stafford who was born in Hanslope in 1501.  She married (1)) John Ashe, and (2) Robert Stafford.  They were related to the Spencer family of Althorpe.  The house descended to the Barnwell family, and, on the death of Isabel, a trust was set up for the benefit of the poor of the parish.  It is possible that the arrangements for the income of the trust were unsatisfactory, and after a little time the house was adapted to its present form c.1600 to provide accommodation in the manner of a poorhouse. Later the building was subdivided.