Brook House

Brook House is a house dating to 1677, situated in Ashford Carbonell. It is constructed with a timber frame on a sandstone rubble plinth, with a brick gable-end to the rear. The roof is covered in plain tiles and features serrated ornamented bargeboards and fascias. A stone projecting eaves stack, partially enclosed by Brook Cottage, has triple brick flues with nibs, and another brick stack is located at the rear gable-end.

The house originally comprised two framed bays with a gable facing the street, later extended by a single bay to the rear. The west gable-end front has a probable 18th-century three-light casement window with leaded lights to the first floor, a two-light casement with leaded lights to the attic, and a 20th-century two-light casement to the ground floor. A cellar opening is framed in oak with two chamfered mullions and ventilation slats. Weathering boards cover the windows. The gable wall exhibits square framing four panels high, with jowled posts, a sill plate, girding beam, studs, mid rails, and straight upper-level tension braces. The gable-end truss contains a carving reading ‘1677’ and ‘HL’ or ‘HE’, along with four vertical struts, a mid rail, an upper collar with twin raking struts, and other structural members.

An outshut to the left has a tile-roofed lean-to attached to a stone stack and a casement window with leaded lights. The south front consists of two bays of similar square framing. It features 18th-century casement windows – a three-light window to the left and a two-light window to the right – on the first floor, both with leaded lights. The ground floor has a 20th-century two-light casement to the left, an 18th-century two-light casement with leaded lights to the right, and a small casement to the extreme right. A boarded door provides access to the cellar, alongside a framed cellar window opening. The return gable is mostly obscured by a rear extension. A 20th-century entrance door is accessed by stone steps, sheltered by a lead flat-roofed canopy with a timber boarded and coffered roof supported by thin timber Tuscan-style columns.

The rear extension to the south wall features square framing to each floor, with full-height posts and rails. There is a three-light casement with two leaded lights at both ground and first floor levels, the first floor window with a projecting stay. The rear extension's north side wall also exhibits similar square framing, with a ground-level two-light casement and a 20th-century door.

The interior ground floor displays chamfered bridging beams with ogee-chamfer stops. The first floor also retains chamfered bridging beams, along with 18th-century two-panel, four-panel and central-clasped boarded doors. The attic features a 17th-century boarded and ledged door. The roof is a single purlin structure with straight wind braces and a coupled rafter roof to the rear bay.