Dudswell House

Dudswell House

This house originated as a medieval hall house of probable 15th-century date, and was partly rebuilt or substantially remodelled in the 17th and 18th centuries, with 20th-century additions. An adjoining barn of unknown date, shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1877, was enlarged around the mid-20th century.

The west frontage is constructed of handmade plum brick laid in Flemish bond with red brick dressings. The remaining elevations are in red brick and tile-hanging. The roof is covered in small clay tiles. The medieval part of the building is timber framed.

The building faces west onto Dudswell Lane and has a rectangular plan. The surviving low end of the medieval hall house is encased within the eastern part of the building, whilst the western part was rebuilt or substantially remodelled in the 18th century. An extension on the eastern half of the north side dates to the late 1920s or 1930s, and an addition on the east end dates to around the mid-20th century. A long barn adjoins the south-west side of the house.

Exterior

The west-facing single-pile 18th-century frontage has two storeys under a steeply pitched roof with box eaves and red brick chimneys at each gable end. The symmetrical three-bay façade has a chamfered plinth and flush windows with eight-over-eight pane sashes (ten-over-ten panes in the right bay) and flat gauged arches to the ground floor. The central entrance bay contains a six-panel moulded door with a rectangular fanlight and a doorcase with panelled pilasters, panelled reveals and a heavy moulded flat hood on brackets.

Adjoining the right (south) gable end is a long, slightly projecting weatherboarded barn over a brick plinth. It has a steeply pitched roof clad in small red clay tiles and a single small two-light Yorkshire sliding casement. The left (north) gable end of the house has been rebuilt in 20th-century brown brick laid in stretcher bond.

Beyond this, the irregular north elevation (dating to the 1920s or 1930s) is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with brick dressings. Behind the 18th-century frontage is a gabled bay of two storeys and an attic, lit on the ground floor by a large multi-pane sash window with margin lights and a gauged brick arch. The first floor is lit by two eight-over-eight pane sash windows with cambered brick arches, and the attic by a single four-light window. To the left, a lower two-storey gabled bay has slightly projecting eaves and plain bargeboards. The ground floor, which also projects slightly, is lit by three casement windows with wooden frames and leaded lights, and the first floor by a flat-roofed canted bay window with wooden mullions and leaded lights.

The long south elevation is also irregular. From the left, a wide gabled bay of two storeys and an attic has a cross gable on the right roof slope. It is lit on the ground floor by two large multi-pane sash windows, on the first floor by another large sash with margin lights, and in the attic by a four-light casement. Behind a 20th-century gabled porch lies the cross passage of the medieval house. Beyond this is a two-storey gabled bay which encases the surviving low end of the medieval house. The jetty remains visible externally, but the first-floor framing is obscured by later tile-hanging, pierced by three single-light windows. The ground floor contains two wide three-light windows which are almost full-height. A large chimney stack rising through the roof towards the gable end serves a fireplace that was added in the 17th century.

Interior

The front section of the house was substantially updated in the 18th century and may retain elements of the earlier building, although any evidence is concealed by later finishes. The front door opens onto a central corridor with two rooms on the left (north) and one long room (formerly two rooms before the party wall was removed) on the right (south). The left room has a boxed-in spine beam, panelled window shutters and round-arched display alcoves on either side of the fireplace. During works to the house, the rear (east) wall of this room was exposed, revealing a complex mix of brick walling of different dates and mainly 18th and 19th-century timber stud framing, having clearly been rebuilt and altered many times. The two rooms on the right of the corridor retain substantial bridging beams and joists and similar round-arched display alcoves. The roof structure over the front section has undergone significant alteration or reconstruction and incorporates elements from an earlier building. Most notably, a strut of the south internal truss is formed from the sill of a late 16th or 17th-century window with clearly defined mortices for the mullions and ferramenta.

The timber-framed medieval section of the house is encased in the rear (east) part of the building, mostly hidden by later additions. The first floor is jettied on the north and south elevations: the south jetty is visible externally, but the north jetty is partially obscured by later additions and only the jetty joists can be seen from ground-floor level within the building.

On the south elevation, a two-centred arched frame of the entrance doorway leads onto the cross-passage. This retains clear evidence of two doorways that would have provided access to the buttery and pantry to the east. The door openings have been infilled (and a new doorway created in one opening), but the original post forming the jamb of the south door survives in situ and contains the probable scar of one of the original door's pintle hinge pins. The timber-framed wall that originally divided the buttery and pantry has been removed. The soffit of the central beam contains mortices for a central post and two large down braces, and numerous housings for large infill staves. On the east wall is a wide 17th-century fireplace opening lined in red brick with a brick hearth. The joists of the first floor (visible from the ground floor) are almost certainly largely original. At first-floor level, the majority of the wall framing is concealed, although the two corner posts of the jettied south wall are visible, and the two down braces and some infill staves in the east wall of the south room survive.

The roof structure above the rear section is almost certainly coeval with the surviving early elements of wall and floor framing at first and ground-floor levels. The rafters to the south of this roof space, over the open hall, retain evidence of smoke blackening, but the rafters over the two chambers are relatively clean and were almost certainly never exposed to smoke from an open hearth. The central truss contains a steeply cambered and carefully worked high collar, indicating that it was intended to be visible.