Cranwell House

Cranwell House is a house, now offices, dating from the late 18th century and early 19th century, with alterations made in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is timber-framed, with plaster and a roof of handmade red clay tiles. The main range faces southeast and features an internal stack in the rear right corner. The building has two storeys and an attic. An original two-storey wing is located to the rear right with an altered lean-to roof of shallow pitch, felted, and a single-storey lean-to extension beyond. A two-storey lean-to is attached to the rear of the main range, constructed of exposed 20th-century brick and with a catslide roof that slopes down from the main roof.

The front elevation features a bow shop window on the ground floor, containing 24 lights, a fascia, and a moulded cornice, with simple pilasters on either side. There is also an early 19th-century sash window with 8 over 8 lights. A central four-panel door, with lower flush panels and upper glazed panels, is set within an early 19th-century doorcase with a flat canopy. The front elevation has been faced with brick and plaster extending up to the doorcase, with a sloping board above, and the upper part is of ashlared plaster. A late 19th-century scrolled cast-iron bracket is attached to the left corner of the main elevation and is incomplete, likely having formerly supported a lantern. The roof is hipped, with one blocked hipped dormer in the left pitch and a 20th-century skylight in the right pitch. The front elevation has been extended to the right to align with the adjacent house, No. 100.

A relocated 18th-century half-glazed door, with 9 lights and 2 panels and ovolo-moulded glazing bars, is located on the left elevation, though the lights are blocked with plywood. It has been moved to a 20th-century lean-to. On the rear wing’s left elevation, a ground-floor window is a sash with 8 over 8 lights, and above it, a similar sash with 6 over 6 lights.

The interior retains the original staircase from the ground floor to the attic, with a moulded handrail, stick balusters to the first floor, and serpentine flat balusters to the attic.

The property was occupied from 1841 to 1856 by the Reverend Benjamin Hayter, the Minister of the Independent (Congregational) Chapel.