Watton Place And Attached Garden Wall

Watton Place and Attached Garden Wall

Large house, now offices, situated on the southwest side of High Street in Watton-at-Stone. The building dates from the late 15th century, when it consisted of a two-bay open hall and two-bay solar cross wing. It was floored, heated and extended in the late 16th or early 17th century. The structure was altered again in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The building is constructed of timber frame with some red brick casing and additions, all roughcast and whitewashed, with steeply pitched tiled roofs. The current form is predominantly one storey and attic, with two storeys and cellars, together with a large triple-gabled block added at the lower end.

The entrance front features 17th-century brick casing across the ground floor. An early 18th-century six-panelled door, one-third glazed with a moulded doorcase and bracketed hood, occupies the original screens passage position at the left end of the hall. To its right is an early 18th-century flush frame sash with thick glazing bars. A small original brick panel with three trefoiled niches is set further right. A stack was inserted at the upper end of the hall on the front pitch and later rebuilt.

The cross wing to the right does not project. Two first-floor single-light casements and exposed plates flank an external 19th-century stack with offsets. At the far right stands a 19th-century slate-roofed red brick kitchen lean-to outshut with dentilled brick eaves on the return.

At the lower end to the left of the hall is a later and taller three-bay triple-gable fronted block, originally probably jettied on all sides. The ground floor to the front is slightly set back with early brick casing and plinth. Three early 19th-century flush frame sashes with thin glazing bars light this level. The jettied first floor is roughcast with three similar sashes, unevenly spaced with a larger gap for a stack in the valley between the two right bays. Three of the four original decorated red brick shafts remain, displaying cable twist, octagonal and honeycomb patterns with projecting moulded caps; these have been restored. The left return is entirely roughcast with 19th-century half-glazed doors and two single-light small-pane casements on the first floor. An external 18th-century stack towards the rear has offsets to stock brick capping.

The rear elevation features a 19th-century door into the hall with a bracketed hood, and to the right, 19th-century small-pane French windows with architrave and a horizontal sliding sashed box dormer. To the left is stock brick casing onto the solar wing with a ground-floor three-light small-pane casement. An entrance with a bracketed hood serves the kitchen lean-to. The later block to the rear has a ridge parallel to the hall range with a hip to the far right.

The rear block's ground floor is constructed of 17th-century irregularly bonded red brick. An entrance to the left of centre features a segmental head with an open gabled pentice porch. To the left is a flush metal-frame two-light small-pane casement, and to the right, an early 19th-century sash with glazing bars. The first floor is roughcast and slightly set back behind a brick-cased ground floor with slate coping. Flush-frame sashes with glazing bars light the first floor; that to the left, serving the stairs, contains 16 panes. The left or inner gable end was originally jettied with a first-floor sash and bargeboards, with part underbuilt in stock brick.

The interior preserves a large arched brace in the hall and a 17th-century chamfered axial binding beam. Large scantling with heavy jowled posts supports cambered tie beams to crown post roofs; four-way braces remain in the solar wing. An early 19th-century open-well stair with moulded ramped handrail is located in the later block. The cellars contain early arched-headed recesses.

Attached to the front left and extending approximately 50 metres to enclose two sides of the garden is an 18th and 19th-century boundary wall constructed of red brick and flint, varying in height from one metre to three metres. Knapped flint panels face the road, with a canted angle at the corner.