Gobions

TL 6730 GREAT BARDFIELD HIGH STREET (north-west side) 8/169 Gobions ( formerly 21.12.67 listed as Durham House)

GV II*

Wrongly shown on O.S. map as Durham House. House. C14, altered in C16 and C20. Timber framed, plastered with exposed framing, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 3-bay hall facing SE, with C16 inserted stack in NE bay, and 3-bay crosswing to right. The house follows the obtuse angle formed by the site, at the corner of High Street and Bell Lane, and all original structural members intersect at the same angle. External stack at left end, C19 internal stack in rear bay of crosswing. 2-storey lean-to extension in rear angle, early Cl9, completing the parallelogram plan, C20 single-storey gabled extension and C20 gabled porch to rear. 2 storeys. 3 C20 2-storey oriels with diamond-leaded casements. Plain boarded door, blocked internally. Hipped gablet at right end of main roof. Grouped diagonal shafts on main stack. Mortises in a post to the right of the left oriel indicate that originally there was one full-height oriel in this position, a little wider than the present one. The crosswing comprises the service end, and has mutilated beams and plain joists of horizontal section. In front of the stack there is a fragment of a plank and muntin screen, between the former screens passage and the hall. A cambered tiebeam has a biblical text in C16 white lettering on a black ground, 3 lines of text along the entire length, in English but damaged and difficult to read. The hall retains an incomplete ogee doorhead in the left end, now an external wall but formerly leading to the parlour. In the same end wall there is curved saltire bracing and some original daub, and in the rear wall of the hall there is triple display bracing. The C16 inserted floor has a moulded axial beam with spiral-leaf carving. The left internal truss of the hall has non-functional hammerbeams, the ends carved with a male and female head, and arched braces to the tiebeam, with spandrel-struts. Above ceiling level all the roof timbers are heavily smoke-blackened. The roof is of crownpost construction, complete, with crownposts on both internal tiebeams, moulded and cut to the same obtuse parallelogram shape as the whole building, each with 2 down braces to the tiebeam and 4 rising braces. (C.A. Hewett, English Historic Carpentry, 1980, 178-9 and 304, and E. Mercer, English Vernacular Houses, 1975, 116, 117, 119, 155). RCHM 23.

Listing NGR: TL6745430466