Wyatts

Wyatts, Blackmore

House on Wyatt's Green Road, dating from the early 17th century with a medieval rear range incorporated. The building was altered in the early 19th century and around 1900. It is timber-framed and plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles.

The main range faces south-east and consists of 4 bays. An axial stack occupies the second bay from the left end, originally forming a lobby-entrance but now blocked. An external stack stands at the right end. To the rear of the right bay is a service range of 3 bays with an 18th-century stack in its right wall. To the rear of the left bay sits an 18th- to early 19th-century wing of painted red brick in Flemish bond, with a single-storey extension beyond it featuring square proportions, a pyramidal roof and lantern. A single-storey extension was added to the left of the main range in 1964. The building rises to 2 storeys with a cellar and attics. A single-storey ancillary range abuts the rear right corner of the service range but is of no special architectural or historic interest.

The exterior was extensively re-styled around 1900 with 2 gabled full-height square bays of casements, 2 similar casements on each floor, and a central gabled dormer containing one more casement. A symmetrical elevation is created on the right elevation of the rear right wing with similar windows and a full-length canopy with a slate lean-to roof on wooden stanchions with quatrefoiled brackets; the stanchion feet have been replaced with 20th-century plinths. A 20th-century door sits at the front within a gabled porch. An early 19th-century 6-panel door survives to the entrance hall in the front bay.

Interior features include unusual floor structures in the left bay comprising 2 longitudinal beams, 2 bridging beams between them, and one bridging beam to each side, all chamfered with lamb's tongue stops, with plain joists of vertical section exposed above the first floor only. The bay to the right of the main stack has an axial beam originally chamfered, of which approximately 0.05 metres of soffit has been hacked off; above the first-floor room the equivalent beam is charred and repaired, with plain joists of vertical section. The right bay has chamfered axial beams with lamb's tongue stops at each storey, and plain joists of vertical section exposed above the first-floor room only. Two large wood-burning hearths on the ground floor have been rebuilt or re-faced with 20th-century bricks, retaining the original mantel beam of the right hearth only, chamfered with lamb's tongue stops. A 20th-century grate occupies the right ground-floor room. The original butt-purlin roof is of high quality, the purlins chamfered with lamb's tongue stops, indicating that the attics were designed as living accommodation from the outset. In the service range, the rear bay has an axial beam with hacked soffit and plain joists of vertical section, along with a wood-burning hearth tiled for a stove. The front bay was re-styled as an entrance hall in the early 19th century with semi-elliptical arches, 6-panel doors and reeded doorcases of high quality at both storeys; similar internal doors survive elsewhere.

The service range originally consisted of one storey with attics and was raised approximately 1.50 metres in the 17th century with heavy primary straight bracing and hardwood studding, and a butt-purlin roof similar to that of the main range. Most of the arched collars have been severed. The lower part of this range survives from a medieval house, though at the time of inspection in February 1989, only the right wallplate at the rear corner remained visible of the frame. A pivoted bell on brackets is attached to the gable wall. The left rear wing forms an open-well stair to the attic, the stair itself late 19th century or around 1900, with a 20th-century stained glass window and an 18th- to early 19th-century roof of high quality featuring 2 straight tie-beams, shouldered king posts and raking struts, and one bridging beam between the tie-beams, all of hardwood, fully jointed and pegged and chamfered with plain stops. A tablet in the rear wall inscribed AEW 1902 may indicate the owner and date at the time of the external re-styling and possibly the stair, but cannot refer to the construction of this wing, which is of handmade bricks with a much earlier roof.