Lower Grinsty Farmhouse

REDDITCH B LOWER GRINSTY LANE (south side) SP 06 NW

1/128 Lower Grinsty Farmhouse 10.4.54

GV II

Farmhouse, now house. c1600; restored late C20. Timber-framed with painted brick infill on brick base; plain tiled roofs. Hall and cross-wing plan; hall of single framed bay aligned east/west; large external chimney with tiled off- sets on south side; cross-wing of two framed bays at west gable end. Two storeys and attic. Framing: mainly four panels from sill to wall-plate with short straight braces in upper corners; collar and tie-beam trusses with four struts beneath collar; hall truss has V-strut above collar and north cross- wing truss has a single central strut in the apex. The framing of the north gable end is heavier than elsewhere as it would originally have been the dis- play front. Windows are C20 casements with leaded lights. North elevation: hall has a ground floor 3-light window and a first floor 2-light window; lean- to porch on timber post adjacent to cross-wing in original cross-passage postion but present doorway in adjoining cross-wing wall; cross-wing gable end has blocked original openings and a single-light ground floor window; 2-light ground and first floor window in east side elevation with C20 door in angle with hall (see above). Interior not inspected. An inventory of 1617 suggests that the farmhouse became a "forechamber" or extension to The Hall House (qv) nearby; the latter, an earlier single-bay dwelling, was altered to form the dining hall and parlour to the farmhouse, whilst the farmhouse consisted of buttery and four separate chambers. Alternatively the inventory may refer to the farmhouse alone and the "hall house" mentioned refers, as is usually assumed, to the hall inside the main building and The Hall House may have become an outbuilding. The farmhouse and The Hall House form an unusual and remarkably well-preserved domestic group of considerable historic interest. (BoE, p 152; Richard Harris, Survey for Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, Janaury 1984).

Listing NGR: SP0231665604