Sweetbriars

TL 97 SE WALSHAM LE WILLOWS THE CAUSEWAY (WEST SIDE)

2/31 Sweetbriars 15/11/54

GV II

House. C15. Timber-framed and rendered, with panels of comb-patterned pargetting, restored C20 black glazed pantiles. 1½ storeys; 3-cell plan. The internal chimney-stack has a plain shaft of old red brick. 3 gabled dormers with fluted bargeboards and 2-light square-leaded casement windows. On the ground floor, one 4-light casement window with transome and 3 cross windows, all with square leading, some C20 restored. Enclosed and gabled porch; entrance door with 6 raised and fielded panels. A small single-storey gabled extension at the right end. Basically a medieval house with a central open hall flanked by 2 storied ends; in the C16, the chimney-stack with 2 back-to-back hearths was inserted at the lower end of the hall, blocking the cross-entry, and the 2 service rooms at the lower (north) end were made into one. The inserted ceiling in the hall has heavy chamfered main beam and joists, all with scroll stops, and the lintel over the open fireplace has triple roll-moulding on the soffit and a complex central motif in the form of a cusped circle, embellished with formalised leaves and an ornate Tau cross. The original ceilings to the 2 end rooms have plain heavy unchamfered joists, those at the upper (south), end of better quality; remains of stair traps at both ends. The open truss over the hall has a cambered tie-beam and long arched braces, originally meeting in the centre: plain pilaster strips, now mutilated, ran down the front of the main posts. Smoke-blackened rafter roof, with the remains of original plaster in one end partition. The roofs over both ends have been reconstructed with side purlins: the gable end framing indicates that they were originally hipped. At the north end, the remains of an oriel window on the upper floor.

Listing NGR: TL9991071164