22, Main Street

22 Main Street, Lyddington

House; late 17th or early 18th century, incorporating fragments of an earlier building. The house was substantially rebuilt in 1758–59, restored in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with a late 20th-century single-storey extension to the rear. The walls are of coursed ironstone, with quoins of Lyddington purple, ironstone and some Clipsham stone. The roof is of Collyweston slate with ashlar chimneys.

The building is three units on two storeys with cellar and attics, arranged in an L-shape with chimneys above the gable ends. A modern single-storey extension has been added to the back wing.

The main elevation to the west is symmetrical. Four semi-circular steps rise to a centrally placed front door (restored) with leaded lights and a leaded fanlight. Above the door on the first floor is a two-light window, with three-light windows to either side on both ground and first floors. All windows are wrought iron casements with leaded lights in mullioned and transomed oak frames. A cellar window with stone mullion is located to the rear of the main range. The roof contains three regularly spaced hipped dormers to the front of the main range and one to the back wing; the roof to the rear of the main range also has three modern velux windows. The roof features stone-coped gables with ogee half pendants to the kneelers. Both front and rear have chamfered plinths.

The entrance hall has a stone threshold and terracotta tiled floor, with a small window connecting to the dining room to the north. A door at the back of the hall leads into the corridor connecting the living room and dining room either side. Both these rooms have encased axial beams, dados, cornices and panelled shutters; the living room contains a window seat and the dining room has panelling below the window. All doors are original two-panelled examples. The living room contains a fireplace with a coloured stone surround, a decorated cast-iron slip plate and fender. Graffiti dated 1759 is carved into the wooden mullion of the window.

The dining room has a Lyddington purple stone floor and an early 19th-century fireplace (restored) with reeded jambs and corner roundels, flanked by restored cupboards and recessed under a substantial bressumer with wide stopped chamfer. The bressumer has been raised on brick pads to support the north end of the axial beam. The east wall of the dining room is formed by a simple panelled wooden screen with fretwork panels to the top corners.

Behind the dining room, a corridor to the cellar divides the front range from the back wing, which contains the kitchen. The kitchen floor is of terracotta tiles with a large fireplace topped by a bressumer carved to form an arch. Subsidiary flues flank the fireplace; the right flue has a cast iron hob and oven. Plain panelled spice cupboards at the back of the fireplace and a window seat have been restored. The back door is of plank and batten construction with strap hinges; a small viewing door at the bottom shows the door was originally hung the other way up. The cellar is constructed largely from recycled materials, including millstones on the floor and a ceiling beam with wide chamfer. A small square well with raised edge cuts through the floor.

The open-string staircase rises from the main corridor with square flat-topped newel posts and turned balusters; the landing is surrounded by a fretwork balustrade. The first-floor plan mirrors the ground floor, except the back wing has been subdivided to form bathrooms. All first-floor rooms contain transverse beams, and all except the middle bedroom in the main range contain restored 19th-century fireplaces. The attics have been dry-lined and ceiled above the purlins.

The roof is of five-bay construction with principal rafters and trenched purlins with collars below the purlins. Some carpenters' marks are visible but no full sequence survives. There is no ridge piece. At the north end, the smaller bedroom chimney is visible as a later addition to the main stack.

The house dates to the late 17th or early 18th century, though earlier fabric in the ground floor of the back wing—particularly the taller plinth in its end gable—indicates a building existed here before the 17th century. Substantial rebuilding occurred in the mid-18th century. The garden falls within the scheduled area of Lyddington Bedehouse, a palace of the Bishop of Lincoln; the manor of Lyddington was held by the bishop until it was seized by the king in 1547. In 1551 it was acquired by the Earl of Exeter, Lord Burghley, who demolished the lodging and service ranges of the palace, which extended into what is now the garden of 22 Main Street.

No record of tenure is known before 1720. In 1743 the house was held by Edward Sharman, a miller, whose family remained as tenants until the house was sold in 1876. In 1757 and 1758, Sharman drew up two separate agreements with the Earl of Exeter: the first for rebuilding the house with 'four rooms upon a floor at his lordship's expense', and the second for making garrets and a cellar. According to James Hurst's accounts as the earl's agent, the work involved masons, a carpenter, slaters and a glazier, with payments also made for bricks needed for interior partition walls to the ground floor. The present interior plan can thus be precisely dated, and much of the joinery detail appears to belong to this period, particularly the staircase, doors and panelled screen in the dining room. This period evidently saw the Sharman family's fortunes at their height, as very few significant changes were made during the rest of their tenure or subsequently, though a porch and modern conservatory between the back wing and main range have been demolished. Some internal features were removed and have been restored in the recent programme of work, notably the panelled screen in the dining room, while others, particularly fireplaces, have been replaced with reclaimed examples. The wrought iron casements with leaded lights have also been restored.