Anne Of Cleves House

Anne of Cleves House

House, later vicarage, now residential home. Built in the early 16th century with a late 16th-century extension and further later alterations and extensions. The building was converted for residential use in 1985.

The structure is timber-framed with colourwashed rendered and plastered infilling and brick plinth. It is covered by a plain tile hipped roof with rebuilt diagonally set triple brick stacks, some diagonally set and some octagonal with star tops.

Exterior

The front is two storeys with six bays, featuring a jettied first floor with exposed close-studded timber-frame. A 17th-century plank door beneath a stilted arch is positioned left of centre. The ground floor has three canted bay windows with early 19th-century metal casements and three early 18th-century two-light cross casements with leaded glazing. The first floor is lit by six late 18th or early 19th-century two- and three-light cross casements with leaded glazing. A south window bay, originally early 16th century, retains mortice holes under the jetty marking a former doorway. The rear elevation is two storeys with a cross gable to the left containing an attic and a cross wing projecting to the right. Rear windows are generally 20th-century casements except for an early 19th-century full-height bay to the gable wall of the cross wing.

Interior

Close-studded timber-frame is apparent throughout, with principal studs jowled to both middle rail and wall plate. Chamfered bridging beams feature tongue stops. A longitudinal passage between front and rear rooms was inserted in the 19th century.

Ground floor: The staircase has a moulded string, stick balusters, ramped and wreathed handrail, and scrolled tread ends. The main centre room, known as the Tudor Room, contains small-framed dado panelling, some late 16th century with the majority early 17th century. A small room to the north of the Tudor Room has a geometric plaster ceiling, now concealed by a 20th-century suspended ceiling. The south-west room, known as the Thomas More Room, is lined with intact small-framed panelling of masons' mitre construction. The bridging beams here are cruciform, with one featuring sunk-quadrant mouldings. A fireplace with a four-centred arch in plastered brick is set within a timber chimneypiece dated 1656. The lower tier consists of tapering Ionic pilasters with strapwork decoration flanking the fireplace. The two-panel overmantel is articulated by an upper tier of squat strapwork-panelled pilasters, each panel containing two fields of oval jewel mouldings tied by lateral keyblocks. The pilaster capitals are dated 16 (T over) and 56 (M over).

The south-east room, known as the Anne of Cleves Room, is lined on two walls with small-framed panelling of masons' mitre construction. A four-centred brick fireplace arch with sunk-quadrant moulding is set in a timber chimneypiece dated 1657. Tapering tiered pilasters with jewel mouldings have dated and initialled frieze blocks: 16 (TM over) to the left and 57 (AM over) to the right. The overmantel is divided into three panels by jewel-moulded pilasters carrying a cornice enriched with oval jewel carvings. The centre panel features fielded geometric decoration, flanked by panels containing heads carved in high relief beneath keyed round arches.

First floor: At the north-west corner of the first floor is one blocked three-light ovolo-moulded mullioned window. The right end room has a four-centred chamfered and plastered brick fireplace with an overmantel painting depicting red roses on an interlace background, dating to circa 1600.

Roof structure

All late 16th-century roofs share similar construction with principal rafters, cambered collars, and clasped purlins.