Thorough Inn

Thorough Inn

A house, now divided into two dwellings. The building dates from the 14th century and has been substantially altered in the 17th, 18th, and 20th centuries. It is timber framed with plaster rendering, some exposed framing visible, and 20th-century brick nogging. The roof is covered with handmade red plain tiles, with some 19th and 20th-century extensions roofed in slate.

The building comprises a central 2-bay hall facing south with a rear stack (rebuilt in the 20th century), a 4-bay service crosswing to the left with an 18th or 19th-century stack in the second bay and vehicle access through to its right, and a 3-bay parlour or solar crosswing to the right with an 18th or 19th-century stack to its right. A 14th or 15th-century 2-bay extension extends to the rear. Further 19th and 20th-century extensions have been added to the rear of the hall and the extension. The building rises to two storeys with attics. Both the service and parlour crosswings were originally jetted to the front but have been cut back to the line of the lower storey.

No. 17 comprises the left crosswing. On the ground floor is one early 19th-century sash window with an altered lower sash. The upper floor has one early 19th-century sash of 16 lights with crown glass. The lower storey is infilled with 20th-century brick nogging; the upper storey retains 18th-century lightweight framing with primary straight bracing, exposed externally. Closely spaced joists of horizontal section are cut through and exposed. The vehicle access features 20th-century iron gates incorporating the name Thorough Inn and the date 1530, and a 19th-century half-glazed door is set in the left side of the access.

No. 19 comprises the remainder of the building and is plastered externally. The ground floor contains one 19th or 20th-century sash of 16 lights and a 19th-century shopfront altered to a tripartite sash of 4-12-4 lights. There is a 6-panel door with inserted leaded glazing in 4 panels, with a fascia and dentilled and moulded shallow canopy supported on two large scrolled brackets, with one stone step. The first floor has two 19th or 20th-century sashes of 16 lights. A continuous roof spans over the hall and both crosswings, hipped at the right end and at the rear of the left crosswing.

The vehicle access is located on the site of the original cross-entry but has been widened. No. 17 retains a blocked unglazed window below the rear tiebeam and a crownpost roof. The front and rear portions of this roof have been altered, leaving one plain square crownpost with one of two down-braces to the tiebeam and one of two axial braces to the collar-purlin.

In No. 19, the hall (span 6.70 metres) has a late 16th-century inserted floor with a chamfered axial beam with lamb's tongue stops and joists plastered to the soffits. The large hall window to the rear retains its transom with three diamond mullions above. At the right end is a blocked doorway into the parlour with a 4-centred head. The hollow-chamfered cambered tiebeam in the middle of the hall has mortices for deep curved braces almost meeting in the centre, and for spandrel-struts. Above is a cross-quadrate crownpost with four rising braces, all heavily smoke-blackened. At the right end of the hall, the collar-purlin has been severed, probably for a stack which has since been demolished. The front wallplate, which is hollow-chamfered with step stops, has been severed for a window, and at the right end is mutilated.

The right crosswing has chamfered binding beams with step stops and plain joists of horizontal section. It contains one of two internal tiebeams with a square crownpost and four-way rising braces, and a blocked unglazed window below the rear tiebeam. The wallplate scarfs are edge-halved with sallied and bridled abutments. The 2-bay extension to the rear appears to have been built shortly after the main structure and has the same type of scarfs in the wallplates. Much of the studding of the left upper wall has been removed where it abuts a large lean-to extension.

According to deeds held by the owner, the building was owned by Greene King brewers from 1886 to 1902, when it was known as the Bird-in-Hand Inn.