Providence Grove

This is a house dating back to the 15th century, with significant alterations and remodeling undertaken in the late 16th or early 17th century, and later additions. The house is timber-framed, featuring rendered wattle and daub infill on a cement-rendered plinth, and has a plain tile roof. Originally, the house comprised an open hall of two, or possibly more, framed bays. A third bay was added or rebuilt when the rest of the house was floored over in the late 16th or early 17th century. The eaves were likely raised in the late 17th or early 18th century.

The house is two stories high, with a jettied right gable end. The timber framing exhibits a mix of styles: the older part shows irregular square and rectangular panels with long, curving tension braces, while the later 17th-century section has rectangular panels from the window sill to the wall plate, and short, straight tension braces. The gable of the 17th-century section features herringbone decoration to the first floor, with a coved jetty supported by carved corner brackets for access to the attic. A moulded bressumer is present, adorned with billet moulding and three crudely carved quatrefoils above; the central quatrefoil bears the painted date “1611.” The apex of the gable has king-strut and herringbone decoration.

Mid-20th century casement windows are fitted throughout, with two on the first floor to the left and one on either side of the roughly central entrance. A half-glazed door is set under a 19th-century gabled hood. The interior contains a red brick end stack to the left, and an integral lateral stack to the rear on the right. The left ground-floor room has a massive chamfered cross beam supported on carved wall posts and flat, heavy joists, along with a large stack incorporating a partly infilled inglenook fireplace, and a winder staircase made of oak. The original 15th-century roof survives in two bays to the left, with a central cambered tie beam exposed to the first floor. The remainder of the roof is partially visible in the roof space. A mortise in a king-strut indicates the former presence of a collar purlin, showing the roof was originally of crown-post construction. Curved windbraces, and mortices for large curving struts from wall posts to the tie beam are visible at the left gable end. 20th-century flat-roofed additions, set back to the left and rear, are not of significant architectural interest. Local tradition suggests the house was once larger, and the "1611" date on the right gable end is based on local hearsay. Other nearby houses share similar 16th/17th-century decorative gables.