Briardene

Briardene is a house dating from around the late 16th or early 17th century, with later additions. It is built with a rendered timber frame and has a steeply pitched clay pantile roof with gabled ends. Brick axial and gable end stacks provide the chimneys.

The original plan was a 3-room lobby entrance configuration; the central and left rooms were originally heated by a back-to-back fireplace within an axial stack, with an entrance lobby positioned in front of the stack. The right-hand room had its own gable end stack. Later additions include an outshut on the right-hand end and an extension to the rear left corner. A more recent subdivision into three cottages has since been reversed, bringing the building back into single occupancy.

The front of the house, facing southeast, is asymmetrical with four windows. It features 3- and 2-light casement windows with glazing bars. A central doorway is flanked by these windows. Three dormers break the roofline, each with a small 2-light casement. A lean-to outshut is present at the right end, and a brick gable-ended wing is set back on the left end, featuring 2- and 3-light casement windows and a plank door.

The interior retains some timber frame elements, including sole-and-wall-plates, rails and studs, and jowled wall-posts supporting a tie-beam and collar roof, with ceiled apex and common rafters. One tie-beam is ovolo-moulded. The left-hand room contains an ovolo-moulded axial beam, and crude wall paintings on the chimney-breast depicting two spoked circles, a tree with a bird, and birds and their footprints. The central room has stop-chamfered ceiling beams, a fireplace lintel with an inscribed flower motif, and an exposed midrail scallop pattern.