The Old Dower House

CODDENHAM HIGH STREET TM 1354 8/17 The Old Dower House - (formerly listed with Gryffon 9-12-55 House as Crown Inn) GV II

House, early or mid C16 with alterations of C18 and later. Part of the winter house built for the Woodhouse family of nearby Crowfield Hall (see also Items 8/18 and 8/19). 2 storeys. Timber-framed and plastered on a high plinth of tarred brick. Hipped plaintiled roof with gabled plaintiled dormers and an axial chimney of red brick. Late C18 small-pane sashes. A slightly set- forward block has a good early C18 staircase window with semi-circular head and thick glazing bars. Late C18 or early C19 6-panelled entrance door with flat cantilevered canopy. The front parlour is of unusually rhomboid plan to give a frontage parallel with School Road. The range was originally jettied on two consecutive sides. 1st floor joists and beams are well roll-moulded; wide open fireplace with moulded lintel, above it being C17 moulded plaster animal figures - one being a lion, the others badly disfigured. The chamber above has moulded beams and beside the fireplace is an altered original garderobe of brick. A small parlour has good and unusual C17 wall painting of a repeated strapwork design in pink, which survives almost entirely on 3 walls. The external walls were raised and a new roof built in C18. An early C18 staircase, remodelled or perhaps replicated in early C20. From 1603 to 1625, the house became the Gryffon Inn.

Listing NGR: TM1337754287