The Bell Public House

The Bell Public House

Two houses combined to form a public house, dating from the 15th century with alterations around 1600 and during the 18th and 20th centuries. The building is timber-framed with plaster, roughcast rendering, and partly red brick in Flemish bond. The roof comprises handmade and machine-made red clay tiles and slate.

The structure comprises five distinct elements of varying dates. The first is a 15th-century house of high quality, probably a priest's house, consisting of two bays aligned approximately north to south, with an 18th-century external stack at the north end. South of this stands the two-bay parlour/solar crosswing of a 15th-century hall house. To the east is a three-bay range comprising a two-bay hall with a stack inserted around 1600 in the east bay, and an originally storeyed service bay. The roofs of these elements were rebuilt as gambrel attics in the 18th century. Along the north side of this range is an 18th-century lean-to extension forming a slated catslide of the main roof. North of the first element stands a brick stable block of the 18th century with a tiled hipped roof. The west wall of this block was extended south in the 18th century to form a brick facade to the earlier buildings facing the churchyard.

The building is primarily two storeys with attics; the stable block is two storeys. The west elevation has scattered fenestration of 19th and 20th-century date and a plain boarded door in a weatherboarded lean-to porch, with a half-hipped roof. The south elevation includes scattered fenestration, notably an early 19th-century bow window at the northeast corner of the lean-to extension (only the fascia and moulded cornice remain, with the rest altered in the 20th century), and on the first floor an early 19th-century sash window of 16 lights. The stable block has two 20th-century windows on each floor, two plain boarded doors, and one pair of double doors.

The first element features jowled posts with close studding and curved tension braces trenched to the inside. A blocked large first-floor window facing west towards the church retains mortices for moulded mullions and a rebate for hinged shutters. The chamfered binding beam has convex stops, and the chamfered joists of horizontal section also have convex stops, jointed with central tenons with housed soffit shoulders. A 17th-century framed ceiling with a main beam chamfered with lamb's tongue stops forms the floor of the 18th-century gambrel attic.

The hall contains a large wood-burning hearth of 0.33 metre brickwork against the south wall. An inserted floor of around 1600 comprises a chamfered axial beam and plain joists of vertical section supported on pegged clamps. The service bay has a binding beam with mortices and wattle groove for a former partition, interrupted by chamfers with step stops at the west end indicating an original doorway (an unusual feature in this position). Exposed joists of horizontal section are jointed to the beam with central tenons. A framed stair trap in the north part is now blocked. The ground floor north wall has been removed and the east wall rebuilt in the 18th century.

On the first floor of this range, lighting an internal stair, is an 18th-century borrowed-light of two lights, each containing 12 rectangular leaded panes with original glass, leading, and wrought iron saddle bars. This is a rare survival meriting special care.

Historical records in the owners' possession include a grant of a licence for use as a beerhouse in 1670, at which time the property comprised a beerhouse, stable, barn, cottage, smithy, and four acres.