Little St Leonards

Little St Leonards is an early 17th-century house on Blackmore Road, significantly altered in the 18th and early 19th centuries and extended in 1989.

The building is timber-framed, plastered and weatherboarded, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. It follows a half H-plan with a main range of 2 bays facing north-east, a 3-bay cross-wing to the left, and a 3-bay cross-wing to the right. The rear bays of both cross-wings are reduced to lean-tos. A single-storey lean-to extension was added to the rear between these two lean-tos in 1989, replacing a smaller conservatory.

The front elevation presents two storeys with three 18th or early 19th-century windows in Gothic style on each floor. Each window has one wrought-iron casement and 2 fixed lights with arched heads and transoms, chamfered hardwood frames, original iron saddle bars and handmade glass. To the left of the middle ground-floor window is an original window with 3 ovolo mullions, 4 wrought-iron saddle bars of diamond section, and 20th-century sheet glass in the original glazing rebates. A plain boarded door to the left of this window has a simple canopy on profiled brackets. The front and left elevations retain 18th or early 19th-century plaster in traditional zigzag pattern in panels, with minor 20th-century repairs in matching patterns. The right elevation is partly clad with 18th or early 19th-century red brick in Flemish bond, partly painted, with the upper part of the right stack reduced in 19th-century bricks. The roofs of the cross-wings were rebuilt in the 18th or early 19th century to align with the main range roof. The building has wrought-iron gutter brackets and weatherboarding at the rear of the right wing. Rear windows are 20th-century but styled to match the front windows.

Internally, the timber frame comprises unjowled posts and heavy studding with primary straight bracing, fully jointed and pegged. The main range has a chamfered axial beam with stops obscured and plastered joists to the soffits. In the left cross-wing the first internal binding beam is chamfered with lamb's tongue stops; the second has been replaced with exposed joists of vertical section, many replaced in the 20th century, with inserted posts in the rear bay. The right bay has a chamfered axial beam with lamb's tongue stops and exposed plain joists of vertical section.

The 18th or early 19th-century stack in the main range is built with earlier bricks and re-pointed with cement mortar. The hearth at the right end is original but has been reduced progressively for smaller wood and coal fires. An original doorway survives in the partition between the middle and rear bays, with an 18th-century battened 3-plank door to the stair and early hinges.

On the first floor more framing is exposed. Each cross-wing has an original doorway from the main range, and straight tie-beams are present. Later 17th-century inserted ceilings in all parts have chamfered beams with lamb's tongue stops and plain joists of vertical section; in the left wing the beam is extended or repaired with 2 forelocks. The middle range retains the original clasped purlin roof.

The building is shown under the same name in the First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1874. The complete set of 18th or early 19th-century casement windows is a rare survival. Windows in similar style appear in the chancel of Mountnessing Parish Church.