Gay House

Gay House is a house dating from the 17th century, with a 20th-century extension. It is timber framed, roughcast rendered, and has a roof made of red clay pantiles. The house has four bays facing southeast and features an axial stack in the second bay from the left end. To the right, there is an 18th or 19th-century extension, and at the rear, there is a single-storey lean-to extension from the 20th century. A large two-storey crosswing from the 20th century is located to the left. The building is one storey with attics. On the ground floor, there are six 20th-century casement windows, and on the first floor, there is one more casement window along with three in slated lean-to dormers. A 20th-century half-glazed door is located at the front of the gabled porch. The house features jowled posts, primary straight bracing, and chamfered axial and transverse beams with lamb's tongue stops, as well as plain joists of vertical section. There are two large wood-burning hearths, and the roof is ceiled. In the 20th-century left extension, there is a re-used 16th-century floor structure, which includes a chamfered axial beam and joists of horizontal section joined to it with soffit tenons with diminished haunches, reportedly taken from an agricultural building around 1965, along with other re-used timber. Gay House is recorded under the same name in the tithe award of 1841, without farm buildings, as part of Maltings Farm, which covered 58 acres.