The Old House

The Old House is a substantial house dating from approximately 1575, originally built by Edmund Harding, with alterations and reworkings in the early 20th century. It is constructed in timber frame with red brick infill, and some red brick rebuilding to the front elevation, with an ironstone plinth. The house has slate roofs. The layout is an H-plan, spanning two storeys and attics.

The front (west) elevation features a centrally placed, two-storey and attics porch gable, projecting from the main block, with a brick ground floor and weatherboarded upper floors. The ground and first floors have evenly spaced 1:1:2:1 sash windows with glazing bars in moulded surrounds. The cross-wings each have a semi-circular window with radiating glazing bars to the attic. The main block has 1:2 hipped dormers with sashes. Each cross-wing has a substantial external chimney stack with three diagonal shafts to the outer wall; the left-hand stack is truncated. To the left-hand side is a later block, externally of 19th-century brick but likely reworking an earlier, possibly 17th-century, structure, with a clay tile roof and two storeys. A cambered arched carriageway is present to the left, along with 2-light casements with glazing bars and a part-glazed door under a sloping, bracketed hood.

The rear elevation shows the cross-wings projecting further than at the front, each with a smaller two-storeyed gable adjoining the inner wall, projecting to the same line. Similar sash windows are present to those on the front. Semi-circular windows are found in the cross-wing attics. The main block has a substantial external brick stack on a coursed stone base. In front of this sits a semi-octagonal, single-storeyed addition from the early 19th century, reworked in the 20th century and formerly featuring a canopied trelliswork verandah.

Inside, the ground floor room in the south cross-wing retains early 17th-century panelling with fluted pilasters, strap-worked beams, a two-leaf door within a moulded archivolt with a keyblock, and a large ashlar chimneypiece with composite columns and a broken entablature. The first-floor room above this has early 17th-century panelling and a plasterwork ceiling of the same date, depicting Cupid at the centre of an ornate strapwork design. Other ground and first floor rooms contain 17th and 18th century panelling, some of which was imported. The 18th-century staircase features carved spandrels, turned balusters, a moulded handrail and fielded panelled dado.