The Old House

SP 9436-9536 ASPLEY GUISE CHURCH STREET 5/9 The Old House 22.10.52 GV II* House. Built c.1575 by Edmund Harding with early C20 reworkings. Substantial timber frame with red brick infill, and some red brick rebuilding to fron elevation. Ironstone plinth. Slate roofs. H-plan, 2 storeys and attics. Front (W) elevation: off-centre C20 2-storey and attics porch gable projects from main block, with brick ground floor and weatherboarded upper floors. Ground and first floors have 1:1:2:1 sashes with glazing bars in moulded surrounds. Cross-wings each have semi-circular window with radiating glazing bars to attic. Main block has 1:2 hipped dormers with sashes. Cross-wings each have substantial external chimney stack with 3 diagonal shafts to outer wall, shafts of LH stack truncated. Adjoining to LH and incorporating external stack is later block. Externally C19 brick but probably reworking earlier (possibly C17) structure. Clay tile roof. 2 storeyed. Cambered arched carriageway toLH 2-light casements with glazing bars. Part-glazed door under sloping bracketed hood. Rear elevaton: cross-wings project further than at front, and each has smaller 2-storeyed gable adjoining to inner wall, projecting to same line. Similar sashes to front ones. Semi-circular windows to cross-wing attics. Main block has off-centre substantial external stack of' red brick on coursed stone base. In front of this, filling and projecting from central recessed bay, is semi-octagonal single-storeyed addition, early C19 but reworked C20 when canopied trelliswork verandah removed. lnterior: S cross-wing ground floor room has early C17 panelling with fluted pilasters, strap-worked beams, 2-leaf door in moulded archivolt with keyblock, and large ashlar chimneypiece with composite columns and broken entablature. First floor room above this has early C17 panelling and plasterwork ceiling of same date showing Cupid at centre of ornate strapwork design. Other ground and first floor rooms have C17 and C18 panelling, some of it imported. C18 staircase with carved spandrels, turned balusters, moulded handrail and fielded panelled dado. Woburn Sands and District Society The Story of Aspley Guise, 1980 p.14.

Listing NGR: SP9440036218