Abbots Mead

Abbots Mead is a former farmhouse dating from around 1500. It is two storeys high and consists of a three-cell open hall house, constructed with timber framing and plaster. The roof is thatched and half-hipped, featuring an axial chimney made of red brick from the late 17th century, which was recapped in the 19th century, along with two 19th-century end chimneys. The windows are mid-20th century oak casements with leaded lights, and there is a 20th-century plain-tiled gabled entrance porch with a boarded door.

Inside, the two-bay open hall has an open truss with a cambered tie-beam, and the arch-braces are chamfered, springing from shafts with well-moulded capitals. The roof is smoke-blackened with coupled rafters, and the structure features good close studding with convex arch windbracing at the corners. There is one blocked rear cross-entry doorway with a 4-centred arched head and some original diamond-mullioned windows. The assembly marks are unusually prominent. The heavy unchamfered floor joists are located at the parlour end, and there is an early ladder stair. Originally, both end walls of the open hall had infill omitted at a high level, allowing heat and smoke to enter the end chambers. A fireplace was added against the cross-entry in the 17th century, and an upper floor with chamfered joists was inserted in the hall. The 19th-century alterations include a single-bay extension to the left. Abbots Mead was formerly known as Valley Farmhouse.