Mason'S Court

Mason’s Court is a timber-frame and plaster town house, dating from around 1485, with later alterations, and now divided into four dwellings. It is situated in Rother Street, Stratford-upon-Avon. The building is of Wealden house type, with two rear wings, the right wing originally being of the same width as the main range. The house is two storeys high, with a five-window front. The left wing has a jettied upper storey, supported by exposed soffit timbers and curved brackets, including lateral curved brackets and coving to the hall. The right wing has a later timber-framed underbuilding, with a bay to the right that is without a jetty. A through-passage, originally to the right of the hall, is now open at both ends with gates, providing access to the left entrance (No.1) and the end of the right wing (No.2), both featuring 20th-century plank doors. The windows have wooden mullions and leaded casements, mainly of two or three lights, with one four-light window in the right wing. The hall has a tall, original four-light, diagonal-mullioned window, shuttered inside and now glazed, and a small three-light oriel window set into the coving to the right. There is an end stack and a large stack with diagonal shafts where the main range joins the rear wing to the right. The left return is timber-framed with brick infill, and incorporates a lower 17th-century rear wing with a stone plinth and some square framing, alongside rear ridge stacks. The right return has a timber-framed gable with brick infill, and a circa-1600 rear wing with square framing, mostly with plastered infill and an end stack. The courtyard contains a catslide outshut with a gabled dormer to the rear of the main range; the wing to the right has timber framing over a stone ground floor. The interior of the hall (No.1) extends through two storeys, featuring a gallery. The right wing (No.2) has a front room with a former jetty bressumer, fragments of 16th-century wall painting, a fireplace with Tudor royal arms above, and a panel of latticework with a triangular-pattern frieze. There is circa-1600 panelling with a cornice and a door to a rear room; an exposed wattle-and-daub panel is visible over the passage to the rear, covered by the outshut roof. The building is a rare and documented medieval survival, relating to the burgage plots laid out in 1196.