Western Part Of The Former Oasthouse To Mill Farm

This is a late 18th-century timber-framed building, likely used as a stowage building for an oasthouse. It sits alongside Robertsbridge in Sussex. The building is timber-framed and clad in weatherboarding, with some areas retaining tarring. It has a gabled peg-tiled roof that slopes down to the ground floor on the south west side.

The original plan comprises a two-story and attic building with five bays, featuring an outshot with cart access to the south west. The south east gable has a large 20th-century attic casement window, alongside two blocked first-floor openings and a ground floor former cart access opening, now blocked with corrugated iron. A traditional clock face and weathervane were added in the 1930s. The north west gable has a small original attic window and two blocked first-floor openings separated by a loading door; the ground floor is open for storage, likely accessed by cart. The north east side abuts a later brick range, originally two hop kilns, which is not considered to be of architectural importance.

Inside, the ground floor features reused upright posts with bolted knees, a rear wall with diagonal braces, and a roof to the outshot with staggered purlins. The first floor contains upright posts with curved jowls and splayed central posts. The attic has a roof with staggered purlins, a ridgepiece, original rafters with some diagonal braces, and old floorboards. Bolted knees were added to the main rafters in the 19th century. The building includes side boards with beaded moulding, likely dating to the early 19th century, and used for storage.

Historically, this was the western range of an oasthouse to Mill Farm, which was adjacent to Hodson’s Mill. Old photographs taken after a fire in 1902 show a Georgian farmhouse to the south, which has since been demolished, leaving this building as the sole surviving farm building of Mill Farm.