Mayflower House

Mayflower House is a house dating from around 1600, with extensions made in the 20th century. It is timber framed and plastered, with a roof made of handmade red clay tiles. The building has three bays facing south, with a stack located in the middle bay that creates a lobby entrance. At the rear, there is a full-length lean-to extension and a one-storey extension with attics added in the 20th century at the right end. The house has two storeys and attics, featuring a three-window range of 20th-century casements and a central 20th-century door.

The house has four octagonal chimney shafts, each with a roll moulding at the base and rebuilt at the top. It features jowled posts, close studding, and an edge-halved and bridled scarf in the wallplate. The first and attic floors have chamfered beams with lamb's tongue stops and plain joists of horizontal section. There are mortices for early glazed windows, and a blocked window on the first floor at the centre front, which may have had ovolo mullions and saddle bars concealed in plaster. The stack is positioned behind the axis, allowing space for a now-missing stair in the lobby entrance, with the flues emerging at the ridge.

On the ground floor, there are two large wood-burning hearths; the right mantel beam has been renewed, while the left mantel beam is original, featuring a cranked upper surface, chamfered below with mason's mitre stops, and chamfered brick jambs. On the first floor, there is one hearth to the right of the stack with chamfered jambs, a four-centred arch, and original plaster. The roof has clasped purlins with straight wind-bracing. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments reported a modern date of 1620 on the west gable and noted that an original bay window at the west end of the house, which had six transomed lights with moulded mullions, was missing as of 1985. The building was formerly known as nos. 1 and 2 Railway Cottages and Elms Hall Farm Cottages. A photograph and plan of Mayflower House can be found in A.L. Cummings' book, 'The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay, 1625-1725', published in 1978, where it is described as prototypical of the earliest New England houses.