Bell House

Bell House is an inn, later converted into a private house, dating to the late 16th or early 17th century. The southern part and central chimney date to the 17th century, while the front and a bay window were added in the 19th century. The building is timber-framed, but largely replaced in red brick, which is painted externally. It has steep red tile roofs.

The house is two storeys high and three windows wide, facing east onto the road. It has a two-cell plan with an internal chimney and a lobby-entry. A narrow structural bay in the middle provides space for a former stairwell beside the chimney stack. The east front includes a pair of recessed sash windows on the left-hand side, a single sash window to the right, a door in the middle with a four-panel, flush-beaded design and a flat hood supported on shaped brackets. There is a large, hip-roofed projection to the left with continuous glazing and a canted return to the door, and a segmental bow window on the right-hand side.

Inside, the timber frame is exposed on the first floor of the front range. The ground floor features chamfered axial beams with hollow stops on the north side of a room, but ogee stops on the south side. Large back-to-back fireplaces have chamfered lintels with hollow stops. The rear stair is in a timber-framed lean-to. The framed rear wall appears in a rear outshut. Raking braces are visible on the central post of the south end wall, and posts remain in the external brick walls. A squint-butted scarf joint is found in the wallplate at the rear. The north part of the house contains a straight tie-beam with queen-struts supporting a clasped-purlin roof. An inserted attic floor is present, with a chamfered axial beam and squared joists. The southern part of the house shows structural differences, including raking queen struts and first-floor ceilings intended for plastering with an axial beam. A larger fireplace lintel is in the north ground-floor room (using reused timber on the south side).