Fair Meadow House and Itteringham Village Shop

Fair Meadow House and Itteringham Village Shop

A house dating to the late 17th or 18th century with a 17th-century cross-wing that may originally have been built as a purpose-built shop. The building is constructed of brick laid in an indeterminate bond and painted white overall, with pantile-clad roofs.

The main house faces south-west and consists of two storeys and an attic divided into three bays beneath a steeply pitched roof with brick parapets at the gables. Red brick chimney stacks rise through both gable walls. A brick plat band marks the division between ground and first floors. The centrally placed front door, dating to the late 20th century, is flanked by twelve-pane wooden casement windows. The first floor is lit in each bay by eight-pane casements, while the attic is lit by two flat-roofed dormers set wholly within the roof space. All windows are of late 20th-century date. On the south-east gable end are five cross tie-plates, with two smaller ornate tie-plates in the gable head forming the initials TR for Thomas Robins. Against the north-west gable end is a single-storey projection, probably a former service room, the roof of which has been extended to form a log store during late 20th-century renovations. A small extension with a mono-pitch roof also dates to this period. The rear of the main house is lit on the right-hand side by windows on the ground and first floors.

The cross-wing has one storey and an attic beneath a steeply pitched roof which extends into a catslide on the rear (north-west) side with tumbled-in brickwork. The main south-east elevation forms the shop front with a projecting frontage. A central front door, reached via steps, is flanked by large plate glass windows retaining their external blind boxes, all of mid-20th-century date. A flat-roofed dormer in the attic also dates to the mid-20th century. An inserted red post box stands to the left of the left window. To the right of the projecting shop front is a plank and batten door beneath a segmental brick arch, followed by another large plate glass window lighting the tearoom. The north-east gable end is pierced in the gable head by a 20th-century window, above which are two tie-plates forming the initials TR. The rear (north-west) elevation of the cross-wing features, from the left, two small windows in wooden frames of probable 20th-century date, a wide plank and batten door with long strap hinges predating the 19th century, and another plank and batten door of standard width. The right-hand end of the cross-wing is the former cottage, possibly the oldest part of the building. It has a steeply pitched roof with a brick eaves cornice and a parapet at the left gable end through which rises a tall red chimney stack. It is lit by a four-pane wooden casement followed by a plank door in a plain wooden frame, both of late 20th-century date. The roof is pierced by a sloping dormer.

Interior

The plan of the main house consists of a narrow central hall with a quarter-turn stair at the end, with a room on each side on both floors and in the attic. Very few historic fixtures, fittings and items of joinery remain, but the main structural ceiling timbers are intact, some bearing carpenter's marks. A spine beam spans the length of the house: it is boxed in within the hall but exposed in the flanking rooms, along with the ceiling joists. The spine beam is chamfered with lamb's tongue stops at both ends. In the south-east room, the south-east end of the beam is tenoned into a tie beam which also has lamb's tongue stops at the junction of the beams and at both ends. On the north-west wall in this room are two posts, but this is the only exposed wall framing in the main house and may relate to the timber-framed cottage in the cross-wing adjoining this part of the house. Both ground-floor rooms contain wide fireplace openings with lintels of reused timber and log burners. A room leading off from the south-west room, now used as a utility, retains two very roughly hewn cambered tie-beams. The first floor has exposed tie-beams at each end of the house and one between the two bays. At the intersection of the south-east tie-beam and spine-beam are lamb's tongue chamfer stops on the spine-beam. In the south-east room, the wide brick chimney breast has been altered to accommodate a small cast iron hobgrate with decorative front panels in a plain unpainted wooden surround. The chimney breast in the north-west room has also been altered to form a brick opening with reused timbers on either side. A dogleg stair between the two rooms leads to the attic, which has a principal rafter roof with cambered collar beams and two butt purlins chamfered where they are tenoned into the principal rafters.

The north-west corner of the cross-wing is occupied by the former timber-framed cottage, now used as the kitchen to the house. The south-west and south-east walls have square panel framing with brick infill, all painted white. A wide opening for a fireplace or range is now filled by an oven. The attic space, converted into a bathroom, has a principal rafter roof with collar beams and butt purlins, very similar to the roof over the house and possibly renewed when the house was built. The remaining cross-wing space is occupied by the shop and tearoom along the south-east side, with a store in the rear lean-to on the north-west side. The lean-to retains a roughly hewn cambered tie-beam, painted white. A chamfered spine-beam spans the length of the shop and tearoom with three chamfered tie-beams with lamb's tongue stops in the same arrangement as those in the house. The tearoom is open to the roof and has a mezzanine, with exposed roof structure of machine-sawn timbers of recent date. A cellar beneath the shop has a brick-lined floor and a door with gauze panels. The chamfered tie-beam in the cellar also has lamb's tongue stops, which may indicate reuse, as a decorative chamfer stop would not typically be used for a room that would not be seen.