Chestnut Tree House

Chestnut Tree House is a 17th-century house, likely dating to the late 17th century, with later 18th and 19th-century additions and alterations, and restored in 1982-85. The house is timber-framed with plastered brick infill, brick, and has a plain tile roof with 20th-century double Roman tiles to the outshut. A pebble-dashed brick stack is visible.

The house originally comprised three cells with a central stack, with a side outshut at the north-west end that links to a 19th-century single-storey, gabled outbuilding. There are two short wings on the south-west side, the southern one probably a 18th-century rebuilding of an earlier, slightly shorter wing. The timber frame is underbuilt below midrail, mostly in 20th-century brick, while above midrail it is exposed, demonstrating large-scantling jowelled wallposts, tall narrow panels, long raking braces, and tie-beams, collars, and vertical studs in the gables. The house has 1980s glazed doors and casement windows, mostly small-paned with leaded glazing.

The north-east elevation has a centrally plastered ground-floor section with a three-light window to the right, and one- and three-light windows to the first floor on the right. A doorway leads to the outshut. A six-pane window is visible in the brick outbuilding. The south-west elevation incorporates a 1980s conservatory (which is not of special interest) that masks entrances to the outbuilding and outshut. The central section features paired brick wings; the left wing is 19th century with a 1980s hipped-roofed bay window, and the right wing is 18th century, with a small window, hipped roof, a doorway with a bracketed canopy and small window above, and a two-light window to each floor on the left (the ground-floor window having a segmental brick arch). An old three-light wood-mullioned window is located on the first floor of the right bay. The south-east end has a 1980s canted bay window with a two-light window above; the ends of clasped purlins are visible.

Inside, the north-west room contains a brick inglenook fireplace with two arched recesses in the rear wall and a timber bressumer, alongside a chamfered spine beam with stepped cyma stops and old joists. A similar spine beam and rebuilt fireplace are found in the south-east room. An arched soffit to a beam in the old wing indicates the former position of a doorway. On the first floor, the timber frame is exposed and a brick chimney rises in the central bay. The roof exhibits wattle and daub partitions between bays which formerly rose full-height; through purlins are clasped by collars and rafters; old rafters bear carpenters marks. The outbuilding has an old tiled floor.