Brookside

WETHERDEN

1227/0/10006 ELMSWELL ROAD 28-MAR-03 Brookside

II House. c.1600 with early C19 alterations. Plastered and whitewashed timber-frame. Welsh slate roof with gault brick central ridge stack. 2-unit lobby-entry plan. 2 storeys. 2-window range on both floors of 3/3 sashes with moulded architraves. Central door. On left end a similar 3/3 sash on both floors. Lean-to under catslide roof to rear. INTERIOR. Tall panel framing with jowled posts. Simple plan form with parlour to left and hall to right with chambers above, each of a single bay with central chimney bay. Back-to-back open fireplaces with exposed brickwork and piers. Hall fireplace with chamfered bressumer with scroll-stop to right (damaged to left). Parlour fireplace with chamfered bressumer and curved hearth back. Timber-framing employs a high proportion of reused timbers from a medieval house. Studwork of average spacing, some unpegged. Midrail to front wall and right-hand gable. Rear wall has full-height studding. Most or all studs are medieval reused. Jowled storeyposts, chamfered wallplates of early C17 form with bladed scarfs and narrow chamfers. Uncambered chamfered tiebeams. Simple clasped purlin roof with deep and narrow collars. A number of reused, smoke-blackened, medieval rafters with redundant halvings for collars. 4 rafters have double collar-halving from hipped structures; the medieval building was therefore hipped at both ends. A little-altered house of the period and an interesting example of the reuse of earlier timber framing.