Four Ashes

This is a house dating from the 16th century. It is timber-framed and finished with roughcast rendering, with a roof of Roman tiles. The house has two storeys and a three-cell plan. It features an internal chimney-stack with a plain shaft of old red bricks. There are four simple two-light casement windows on the upper floor, and two three-light and two two-light windows on the ground floor, all dating from the mid-20th century. A 20th-century plank door is sheltered by an open-gabled brick porch. A single-storey rendered lean-to extension is attached to the left gable end. The timber frame is arranged in four bays with a cross-entry layout. The central two-bay ground floor room has a main beam with a 3-inch chamfer and triangle stops. The chimney-stack, which serves two back-to-back hearths, extends into one bay of this room; its position suggests it is a later addition. The gable end wall of the parlour on the left has been removed to connect with the lean-to extension. Upstairs, there is good exposed timber studding and tension bracing, along with blocked original diamond-mullioned windows. There is no evidence of original internal room partitioning on the upper floor. The three cambered tie-beams retain traces of arched braces and the bases of plain square crown-posts are visible below the ceilings. There is no visible smoke-blackening, and the roof space is inaccessible. It is possible that an earlier chimney was located on the central part of the rear wall, where no timber studding can be seen.