1 Coppard's Bridge

This is a large timber-framed house, originally dating back to the mid-15th century, and subsequently altered and extended throughout its history. The house is located in a rural setting.

The building was originally four bays, comprising a central two-bay open hall that projected on its southwest end, with a parlour to the southwest and a chamber above. To the northeast were a pair of service rooms, also with a chamber above. Around 1600, the open hall was ceiled over, a chimney was inserted, and the service bay was adapted into a kitchen with a rear aisle and a fifth bay. A lean-to outshut, likely a washhouse or brewhouse, was added at this time, also with its own chimneystack. Further alterations occurred in the early 18th century when the house was divided into two cottages.

The northwest (entrance) front has a red brick ground floor, with the upper portion tile-hung, and features five irregularly spaced multi-pane metal casement windows. There are two centrally placed cambered headed doorcases with plank doors. The roof at the northwest end slopes down to ground level, over red brick, with a triangular brick buttress. The southeast side showcases exposed timber framing with plaster infill, a gabled dormer, a triple window to the outshut, and a 20th-century extension (which is not of special interest). The southwest end is of red brick with a tile-hung first floor.

The southwestern ground floor room, originally the parlour, has large square ceiling joists and two 18th-century plank doors. The adjoining room to the north (the original open hall) contains a late 15th-century moulded and crenellated dais beam, an almost complete plank screen, a wide four-centred arched doorway, evidence of a dais bench and a spire truss. The inserted ceiling features a roll-moulded spine beam, chamfered floor joists with lamb's tongue stops, an open fireplace with a bread oven, two plank doors, and a tiled floor. To the north (the original service end and circa 1600 extension) is a cross passage with arched heads leading to the original service rooms, and two further rooms with open fireplaces. The first floor retains an exposed timber frame of good scantling, including partition walls and ceiling beams, and old floorboards. Two bedrooms have circa 1600 fireplace bressumers and retain brick hearths edged with a timber kerb. One of the two arch braces of the hall truss remains in place. A good quality blocked wooden ovolo-moulded mullioned casement is in the northwest wall of the kitchen chamber, and sockets for mullioned windows survive on the ground floor. Further plank doors remain. The stairs to the two attics, over the hall chamber and service chamber, consist of straight flights of solid triangular-section treads on sloping carriages, potentially reused from medieval stairs. The roof structure was rebuilt circa 1740 as a shallower butt purlin roof, but some medieval rafters survive within the southern hip, and tie beam mortices indicate the former presence of crownposts.