The Axe And Compasses Public House

The Axe and Compasses Public House is a building that originally served as a house, dating back to the 16th century for the southern wing and the early 17th century for the main range. It features a timber frame with a roughcast finish set on a high brick plinth. The roof is steep and covered with old red tiles, hipped at the southern end and half-hipped at the northern end. The structure has a three-unit central chimney plan and faces west, incorporating an earlier crosswing at the southern end that projects only to the rear.

The building is two storeys high and has four windows along the front. The first floor includes a three-light flush casement window at the northern end, while the ground floor has three flush box sash windows with 8/8 panes. Access is via a door that is reached by four steps, with two margin-light sash windows to the right and a canted bay window to the left, which has two casement windows in the northern part beyond. The entrance features a four-panel half-glazed door. There is a lean-to at the northern end that is plastered and tiled.

Chimneys are located externally, with one at the northern end and another at the eastern end of the crosswing at the southern side. Inside, the public house has open fireplaces, chamfered axial beams with hollow and bar stops, a 17th-century moulded plank door leading to the stairs, and smoke-blackened rafters that have been reused in the roof of the main range. The name of the establishment may have originated from meetings of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters around 1800.