The Mill House

TL 7240-7340 RIDGEWELL STAMBOURNE ROAD 6/4 The Mill House

II Hall house, late C15, altered in C16, C17, C19 and C20. Timber framed, plastered, roof thatched. 4 bays aligned approx. E-W, comprising 2-bay hall, service bay to W, parlour/solar bay to E. Aspect S. Inserted timber-framed chimney in W of hall, C16, and brick stack inside, C19/20. External chimney stack at E end, C19. Single-storey N extension from E bay, weatherboarded and roofed with red clay pantiles, C19. Single storey with attics. C20 door, one C19 fixed window, 2 C20 casement windows, one more in swept dormer. Roof half- hipped at W end. Interior has jowled posts, curved bracing trenched outside heavy studs. Rebated rear doorway present but blocked, present front door in position of original front door. Inserted floors throughout, supported on pegged clamps, with axial beams in 2 E bays, plain-chamfered with lamb's tongue stops, joists of horizontal section in hall, plastered to the soffits elsewhere. Collar-rafter roof, heavily smoke-blackened over hall, originally hipped and not smoke-blackened at E end, later extended to form a gable. The laths over the hall are smoke-blackened also, but not as heavily as the rafters, indicating that they were replaced while the open hearth was still in use. The timber- framed chimney necessitated the removal of one collar and the insertion of an extra tiebeam. It is complete with jointed and pegged mantel beam and inclined studs on 4 sides, rising to a platform just below roof level, above which the flue is continued through the thatch with brickwork. Graded II for the remarkably intact C16 timber-framed chimney, a rare survival.

Listing NGR: TL7329640785