Laurences

Laurences is a house dating from the early 17th century, incorporating elements of a medieval building, with extensions added in the 18th and 20th centuries. The house is timber-framed, with plaster rendering and a roof covered in handmade red clay tiles. Originally three bays facing southwest, it has a central chimney stack that incorporates part of the parlour or solar bay of the earlier medieval house in the right-hand bay. A 17th-century one-bay wing is situated to the rear of the stack. An 18th-century extension was constructed to the right, on the site of the medieval hall, with an external stack at its end. A 20th-century single-storey lean-to has been added to the left end and along the rear of the 17th-century wing, alongside a more recent rear wing built around 1985.

The front of the house has a four-window facade featuring 20th-century metal casement windows and a 20th-century door, sheltered by a bracketed canopy. The 18th-century facade has a modillioned cornice and a parapet, along with 20th-century decorative pargeting. The main stack displays grouped diagonal shafts, which have been rebuilt. A string course runs just above eaves level on the right stack, and a recessed panel is visible on its right face, featuring a flat brick arch and a horizontal band.

Inside, the hearth on the right ground floor is fitted with a chamfered mantel beam with mitred stops and 0.33-meter jambs, along with a salt recess, although the shaped head of this recess is crumbled. The original timber frame to the right of the hearth is plastered over, concealing it up to roof level. The left ground-floor hearth is blocked. To the left of the stack, a deeply chamfered axial beam with lamb's tongue stops is the only exposed timber. The main roof has a joggled butt-purlin construction, incorporating reused medieval rafters that are smoke blackened and trenched to indicate former collars. At the right end of the roof, three and a half undisturbed medieval rafter couples remain, the last couple being smoke blackened. It's likely that portions of medieval timber structure survive hidden beneath the plaster at a lower level. The roof of the rear wing is also of joggled butt-purlin construction. The roof of the 18th-century right extension is ridged and has a clasped purlin construction. An arched recess exists inside the right stack at roof level, possibly indicative of a former hearth, but the arch has been severed.