Westbury House Flats 1, 2, 3, 4

OFFLEY LUTON ROAD TL 1427 (West side) Great Offley

12/114 Westbury House 9.6.52 Flats 1, 2, 3, 4. (formerly listed as Westbury Farmhouse under School Lane)

GV II

Farmhouse, now flats. C15 or early C16 former open hall house with 2-storeys. S crosswing, floor and chimney inserted in hall in later C16 (according to records probably between 1564 and 1569 by Robert Ivory (inf Mrs. Vera Davis)); jettied porch and taller N crosswing probably of that time or early C17, C19 and C20 gabled rear additions. Timber frame on stuccoed brick sill, roughcast. Plaster to ground floor of S wing at front. Roughcast single-storey L-shaped brick outbuilding at S end. Steep old red tile roofs. A 2-storeys and attics, H-shaped house facing E set at back of farmyard, with 2 gabled crosswings, gabled jettied porch with pointed archway, and 2-storeys canted bay window to right of porch. Very large internal chimney at junction of centre and N wing with semi-circular attached shaft to broad stepped face of chimney above roof with red brick corbelled cap renewed. Internal gable chimneys at rear gable of each wing. Narrow projecting stair tower in rear angle of centre with N wing. Front has 3-light flush C19 lattice casement windows generally but 2-lights to attic top of gable of N wing. Gabled dormer on N roofslope also lights this attic floor. Interior has elaborately moulded cross-beam carrying inserted floor in hall with hollow moulded bracket support from chamfered post on rear wall. Structure of older S service wing of 2 bays with jowled posts, convex-curved tension braces set inside wall studs, clasped-purlin roof with one purlin in each slope carried on collar-and-queen-struts. Mortices under tie-beam for cross-partition into 2 rooms on 1st floor and presumably for service rooms on ground floor. Edge-halved scarf in wallplate. (RCHM (1911)161: VCH (1912)39: Pevsner (1977)265: RCHM Typescript).

Listing NGR: TL1409927094