The Bucks Head Public House

WYMONDLEY STEVENAGE ROAD TL 2127 (South side) Little Wymondley

11/169 The Bucks Head P.H. 27.5.68 GV II

Inn, now a public house. Late C16 or early C17 built for Nedham family, post-Reformation Lords of the Manor, as Black Buck's Head Inn named after their crest. Altered in C17. Sold by family in 1712. Timber frame on brick sill, panelled roughcast with plain margins. Exposed timber framing on E side. Steep old red tile roofs. A 2-storeys and cellar, H-plan, 3-cells, lobby-entry, internal chimney plan inn facing N with only the gabled and jettied 1st floor of the 2 wings projecting to the front, and the staircase to the rear of the stack. Middle part of N front has entrance up steps with boarded door in heavy frame next the W wing, deep coved eaves cornice, and shallow rectangular 2-storeys bay window. Canted bay window below jetty of E wing, with 3-lights casement window with small panes to 1st floor of each wing and ground floor of W wing. Interior has exposed framework with jowled posts, axial chamfered and hollow-stopped beams to 2-bays hall part, old joists remaining in part of floor in E wing, and plain squared joists over the W wing. Large internal chimney serving hall and W wing built in stages. Clasped-purlin roofs. Pegged bracket supporting E end of axial floor beam in hall and eaves-cove suggest the hall range was heightened in the C17 to make 2 full floors. The fireplaces serving the W wing and the 1st floor are probably later additions. (RCHM (1911)149: VCH (1912)186-7: inf Mr. Farris).

Listing NGR: TL2145427405