Bredfield Place

A timber-framed and brick house on the north side of Dallinghoo Road, Bredfield, with rendered and whitewashed walls and a plain tile roof. The building originates from the 15th century but incorporates substantial alterations and additions from the 16th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

The original structure comprises an open hall of two bays with a screens passage and a two-storey parlour range, now subdivided and extended. The garden front is dominated by a 20th-century addition at the far right featuring an open loggia to the ground floor with two rectangular openings divided by a central pillar, and two 3-light casements to the first floor above.

The older left-hand portion displays a projecting gabled single-storey porch dated 1857 to the bressumer, which bears the initials T.G (standing for Thomas Grimwood) overlapping in the timber. The porch features carved bargeboards showing acorns and oak leaves. Flanking this porch are three 3-light 19th-century casement windows set in simply pargetted walling, with a canted bay window of similar date at the far right containing central French windows. The first floor has three 3-light casement windows of 19th-century date. An axial stack of two flues rises to the ridge, with a single-flued 20th-century stack positioned to the right, slightly below the ridge.

The left-hand gable end features a canted bay window spanning ground and first floors, fitted with 19th-century sash windows and brackets supporting the jettied gable, which displays simulated framing of applied 20th-century planks. The rear elevation contains several outshuts of 19th and 20th-century date. At right of centre, aligned with the screens passage, stands a 2-storey gabled porch wing with a 6-panel 20th-century door. To its right is a lean-to outshut with two 20th-century single-light casement windows, and to its left a 2-storey lean-to with 2-light casements and a doorway, all with cambered heads. Above is a 4-light dormer window with a flat roof. The 20th-century addition to the rear right features a large rectangular opening to the ground floor and a 4 x 4 pane sash window to the first floor.

The interior retains significant medieval and later timber-frame details. The ground floor drawing room (originally the hall) has chamfered ceiling beams, now enclosed, and contains a heavily moulded chimney bressumer of circa 1500 decorated with roll, cavetto and hollow chamfered mouldings. Above this are fragments of wall painting showing chevron patterns. The rear wall of the screens passage displays close studding with angle braces. The ground floor room beyond has a 17th or early 18th-century wall constructed of thin timbers with a lengthy passing brace, wall posts with jowled heads supporting a chamfered ceiling beam. The furthest ground floor room features a late 18th or early 19th-century buffet cupboard arrangement with a large central arch flanked by smaller lateral arches (the left arch being a 20th-century reconstruction). The arches are ornamented with fluted pilasters at either side, complete with moulded caps and bases and projecting keystones. Shaped shelves occupy the arches, with drawers and cupboards to the base.

The first floor above the original hall is subdivided into two bedrooms and a corridor; the corridor shows close studded walling. Two roof trusses with cambered tie beams originally rested on massive arch braces, of which only one survives. The trusses feature unmoulded central crown posts of square section. These posts project into the present attic space, where they can be seen to support arched axial braces connecting with the collar purlin, collar beams and common rafters. The solar displays close studding to the external walls and a chamfered ceiling beam with ogee end stops.