Merry Down

Merry Down is a house dating from the early to mid 17th century, with extensions made in the 18th or 19th century. It features a rendered timber-frame and cob construction with a brick and flint plinth. The roof is steeply pitched and covered with clay pantiles, and it has gabled ends. There are rendered brick axial and gable stacks.

The house has a three-room plan, with the left and center rooms heated by back-to-back fireplaces in the central axial stacks, and an entrance lobby in front. The right-hand room, which has a gable end stack, may have originally been an unheated service room or a later addition from the 17th or 18th century. There is also an unheated outshut behind the right-hand room, dating from the 18th or 19th century.

The building is two stories high and has an asymmetrical west front with three windows. The windows are small 19th-century two-light casements with horizontal glazing bars. To the left of the center, there is a doorway featuring a fielded and flush six-panel door, with the top panels glazed, and a gabled rendered porch. Another doorway to the right of center has a 19th-century panelled and glazed door. There are also 19th-century casements in the gable ends, with the right-hand gable featuring a projecting stack with set-offs. At the rear, the main roof extends down as a catslide over the outshut on the left, with elements from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Inside, all three rooms have chamfered axial beams and exposed joists, with the center room's joists being broad. The left-hand room displays exposed timber framing in the rear wall. The interior also features exposed wall framing, wall plates, and tie-beams in the chambers. The left-hand chamber has a chamfered axial beam with cyma stops and an attic above with an exposed tenoned purlin roof structure. The roof structure over the center and right-hand end is not accessible.