Rowfeys

Rowfeys is a house dating from the early 17th century, with alterations in the 18th century and an extension in the 20th. It is timber-framed with roughcast rendered and weatherboarded sections, and has a roof covered in handmade red clay tiles, with the exception of the lean-to which has concrete tiles and the rear extension which has handmade red clay tiles. The house is aligned approximately north-south and has three bays. The entrance is in the north gable end. There is an axial stack at the rear of the middle bay. The house is one storey with attics. Two gabled dormers are visible on the front elevation, one over the front and middle bays, and one over the middle bay to the right. All windows are 20th-century casements. A plain boarded door sits within an early 19th-century doorcase with a shallow canopy supported by profiled brackets. The front gable end is brick on the ground floor, rendered to match the rest of the façade, with projecting wallplates. The right elevation is weatherboarded to the lean-to, and rendered elsewhere.

Inside, the house features unjowled posts and straight bracing, with heavy studding at the rear left corner of the middle bay. The oak frame is constructed with main timbers double-pegged, and studs tenoned and single-pegged. Originally, the front and middle bays were of one and a half storeys, the rear bay was one storey, but they were all built at the same time. Lighter 18th-century framing raised the rear bay to match the others. There’s interrupted tie-beam construction around an original window aperture, now occupied by a 20th-century casement. Further interrupted tie-beam construction exists at the rear of the middle bay, framing an original doorway to the upper floor, and another now housing the first-floor hearth. The front bay has a chamfered axial beam with a complex mixture of stops; a lamb’s tongue is cut back with an additional notch at the rear. The near-axial beam in the middle bay is joggled to the left and chamfered with lamb's tongue stops cut back at the corners. The joists have plastered soffits. Free-standing posts have been inserted below both axial beams. Two pintle hinges are visible in a post at the rear left corner of the lower front room. The ground-floor hearth has a chamfered mantel beam with straight stops, rebuilt below it with 0.46-meter jambs and 18th/early 19th-century bricks. A plain ledged door with three panels, on wrought-iron strap hinges, leads to a largely rebuilt newel stair at the rear left of the middle bay. The documentary history of the site has been extensively researched, and the present name is derived from a recording from the 16th century.