Stratford House

Stratford House, dated 1601 and built for Ambrose Rotton and his wife Bridget, is a remarkable survival of a 2-storey and attic timber-framed and plastered manor house. The ground floor has been partly refaced and underpinned with painted brick to support the jetty. The house features a gabled cross wing to the left and an off-centre gable and a slightly smaller gable to the right, all with slight jettying supported on moulded brackets. A central 2-storey gabled porch projects, with the first floor supported by long angle brackets. Exposed studding is visible between the cross wing and the porch, with a row of blocked wood mullion lights set high, level with the open ones to the sides of the porch. The first-floor studding is braced in a herringbone pattern, and the gables have short curved braces creating diamond patterns. The porch has a square-headed moulded jamb opening with the date and initials carved on the moulded cornice. The original battened and studded front door remains. The roof is of old tiles, with a rebuilt clustered brick chimney stack, featuring a diamond-shafted design, set on the ridge by the cross wing. Three-light transomed metal casements with leaded lights replaced 18th-century iron casements during a restoration in the 1950s. Internal alterations were carried out in the 1820s and 1830s, including the addition of a rear brick-built staircase wing and corridor. Much of the door furniture dates from this period. However, the two front rooms, flanking the studded passage from the front door, retain chamfered ceiling beams dividing the plastered ceiling into two compartments with deep cornice mouldings. The left-hand room still has a 4-centred arch stone chimney piece, and a similar chimney piece, cased in a reeded early 19th-century surround, is found in the first-floor room of the cross wing. A section of the original outside wall framing is visible on the back landing, alongside a hammer-head wall post near the attic stairs. The attics are plastered, with some rafters (partly renewed) and gable framing partially exposed. Group value stems from the building's exceptional survival, showcasing early 17th-century timber-framed architecture.