Albright Hussey

Albright Hussey is a house, now restaurant, standing within a moated site on the east side of the A528 at Bomere Heath. The building originated in 1524, was enlarged probably in the mid-to-late 16th century, and enlarged again in 1601. It was further altered and rebuilt to the rear in the mid-to-late 19th century.

The structure is timber-framed with plastered infill in its early parts, with later red brick additions featuring grey sandstone ashlar dressings and an attic. The rear is painted brick. Plain tile roofs cover the building. The timber framing of the early 16th-century part displays square panels with diagonal struts forming lozenge patterns. The late 16th-century addition has ground-floor closely-spaced studs with middle rail and S-shaped tension braces, and first-floor square quatrefoil panels with carved quatrefoils to the rails; cusped S-braces are present to the rear. Close studding appears beneath windows. The composition comprises one early 16th-century framed bay with a later porch to the east, a 1601 addition to the west, and a service range to the rear. The building rises 2 storeys, with a 3-storey 17th-century addition and a rear range of 2 storeys with a gable-lit attic.

The south front is divided into two blocks. The right-hand block features a jettied first floor with moulded bressumer; a porch jettied on three sides with chamfered brackets and cable-moulded shafts to the corners of each floor. A large 16th-century external brick end stack stands to the right with a stone plinth and five star-shaped shafts with oversailing caps. A 19th-century external brick end stack serves the porch with an oversailing cap. The 2-window front has 19th-century four-, six-, and seven-light wooden mullioned and transomed diamond-leaded casements. Square oriels to the left sit on shaped brackets. The right-hand gable end has a porch to the left with a blocked 16th-century first-floor window featuring a moulded wooden cill and two carved scrolled brackets. A boarded door to the right displays a Tudor arch with carved spandrels, ovolo-moulded surround, and flanking moulded shafts with moulded capitals and brackets. The gable was rebuilt in the 19th century but retains a tie-beam with carved vine trail ornament.

The left-hand block features a chamfered stone plinth, flush quoins, and cyma-recta moulded string courses above the ground- and first-floor windows. A parapeted gable end to the left has moulded coping. An external brick lateral stack to the rear bears ashlar dressings and an ashlar shaft with moulded base and cornice. The 2-window front has 2- and 4-light double-chamfered mullioned and transomed stone windows with leaded lights. A 3-light double-chamfered mullioned stone attic window contains leaded lights. A boarded door between the windows, off-centre to the left, has a straight-sided arched head. The left-hand gable end displays double-chamfered mullioned and transomed stone windows: 4-light to the ground and first floors, and 3-light to the attic, with cyma-recta moulded cornice. A large 20th-century raking buttress is present. The rear service range has an external brick end stack to the west and a 19th-century one-storey wing at right angles with integral brick end stack.

The interior contains significant features. The 16th-century right-hand first-floor room has a deeply moulded cross-beamed ceiling divided into 3 by 3 compartments, with chamfered posts and a stone fireplace featuring a corbelled segmental arch and moulded reveals. The porch to the right has chamfered dragon beams. The 17th-century left-hand ground-floor room contains a pair of chamfered beams with ogee stops running front to back, a straight-sided chamfered-arched doorway to the rear, oak panelling, and a 17th-century rendered fireplace to the rear with chamfered reveals. An old oak winder stair is located to the rear. The central first-floor room has three chamfered beams with ogee stops, chamfered posts, chamfered and stopped wall plate, and two blocked doorways—one segmental-headed and one chamfered with ogee head. The right-hand first-floor room contains deep-chamfered beams, chamfered and ogee-stopped joists, and the former end wall of the 1524 part to the left with lozenge-pattern framing. The left-hand first-floor room has chamfered beams and a chamfered-arched stone fireplace with panelled spandrels. A small room taken out of the left-hand first-floor room features oak panelling. A large open former kitchen fireplace exists in the rear range.

The porch was formerly dated 1524, and wainscot panelling in the 17th-century addition was formerly inscribed "Made by me Edward Huse 1601". Neither inscription was noted at the time of survey in January 1987. A drawing made in 1821 shows the timber-framed range before the roof was rebuilt, depicting a gable to the front, a steeper gable over the porch, and a further gabled range behind, parts of which are probably incorporated in the present rear range. Some historical sources date the 1601 block to circa 1560. A chapel formerly stood to the south-east, of which only a few carved fragments remain.