Culverts

Culverts is a house dating from around 1700, located in Eastwick Village. This impressive building is two storeys high with attics and features five windows. It is constructed of red brick and has a steep old red tiled roof, with raking gable parapets and three hipped dormers. The house has a three-unit plan, with a former passage between the east and middle rooms that runs beneath a hipped rear stair turret, which contains a winding stair accessed from the middle room. There is a gable chimney on the east side and a central chimney situated between the west room and the middle room. Notably, a culvert carries a brook beneath the west room.

At the rear, there is a modern low extension that is not of special interest, except for a fine Doric wooden doorcase with a full entablature and triglyphs, which has been sourced from elsewhere. The front façade is made of warm red brick in Flemish bond, featuring a plinth, a floor band, and segmental arched flush box sash windows with 6/6 panes. The east and middle parts have paired windows on each floor, with a battened door situated between them. The broad wooden surround has heavy trusses and a deep moulded flat hood.

The east gable displays dark headers, a floor band, and two small blocked windows on each floor, along with a stepped section of raking brick coping at the gable parapet. Inside, the ground floor features heavy axial chamfered ceiling beams, while cross beams are present in other ground floor rooms and in the end rooms on the first floor, supporting the axial beams. A fine two-panel raised and fielded moulded door with old iron strap hinges is located at the attic landing. Original cyma-moulded mullioned two-light windows with iron casements can still be seen at the attic level in the staircase and dormers. Culverts is an impressively urbane large brick house from around 1700 and is part of a picturesque group in the middle of the village.