The Old Mint House and Mint Cottage

The Old Mint House and Mint Cottage

This complex began life in the early to mid 16th century as three separate timber-framed buildings: a four-bay hall, a three-bay house (now called Mint Cottage), and a detached three-bay kitchen range with rear aisle. In the late 16th or early 17th century, these were unified into a single structure through the addition of a single-bay cross-wing at the eastern end of the hall (creating a continuous street frontage with the house) and a two-bay link range connecting the hall to the kitchen at the rear. Later modifications included single-storey lean-to outshuts added to the north side of the hall and east side of the kitchen in the late 18th or early 19th century, followed by further single-storey extensions at the north-west of the hall and north of Mint Cottage in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. Internal divisions and additional floors were inserted over time.

Construction and Materials

The buildings are timber-framed throughout. The ground floors are now cased in brick and stone (rendered in places), though the frames were probably originally infilled with daub panels. The first floors are hung with red tiles. The roofs are covered in red tiles and topped with red brick chimneys.

Street Frontage

Located next to Pevensey Castle, the south elevation faces High Street and presents a unified eight-bay composition. From west to east, this comprises the early 16th-century jettied hall (four bays), the gabled cross-wing (one bay), and the early 16th-century house, Mint Cottage (three bays). The hall's ground floor features, from left to right: a four-light leaded casement window, a three-light leaded casement, a low pointed segmental-arched oak doorway, a single casement, a bay window, and another matching doorway. Above are four casement windows. The cross-wing is not jettied but has canted bay windows on both floors and a tile-hung gable end. Mint Cottage has a pair of leaded casements flanking an oak doorway on the ground floor and three two-light casements above. The east and west ends are blank, but tall brick chimney stacks rise above the hipped roof ends; a further stack emerges through the roof centre, just west of the gabled cross-wing. The east elevation of Mint Cottage is built of coursed flint with ashlar quoins; attached at the rear is an early 20th-century lean-to with plate glass casements and fixed windows.

Link Range and Kitchen Range

The link range extends from the eastern end of the hall's rear elevation. This two-storey gabled building has a ground floor cased in stone and brick (partly rendered) and a tile-hung first floor under a tiled roof. Windows are later casements with diamond leaded lights and two-over-two panes. Beyond lies the mid 16th-century former detached kitchen range, similarly constructed with brick, flint, and squared greensand stone walls at ground level, a tile-hung first floor, and a hipped tiled roof. A dormer appears at the rear and a tall brick chimney stack rises through the centre. Windows are casements with leaded lights and plate glass. A late 18th or early 19th-century lean-to outshot with a three-over-three pane fixed window adjoins the eastern end.

Outshuts and Extensions

At the western end of the hall's rear is another late 18th or early 19th-century lean-to containing a two-light leaded casement and a later 20th-century timber-boarded door opening to a rear yard. Two extensions abut the north-west corner: a mid 19th-century brick single-storey gabled range (two bays long, one bay wide) with two three-light casement windows; and an early 20th-century single-storey hipped-roof range, also two bays by one bay, built of brick covered in hung tiles with leaded casement windows.

The Hall Interior (The Old Mint House)

The early 16th-century hall is built in four bays with principal posts supporting tiebeams and crossbeams. The first floor is jettied and uses central-girder construction supporting joists spanning the building. The easternmost bay was truncated when the cross-wing was added. Principal posts exhibit a mixture of swelling, splay-cut, and straight jowls. The ground floor is now divided into a main room at the west with a smaller room off a vestibule and a front hallway. Walls are largely lined in oak wainscoting, probably added in the 19th or early 20th century, though the timber frame is visible elsewhere with some later 19th or early 20th-century replacement timbers. The main room contains an elaborate wooden fireplace, possibly fitted when the wainscoting was installed, featuring atlantes and lions supporting a wooden overmantel carved with an Elizabethan court scene. Immediately below is a panel carved with soldiers, lions, scrolls, and foliage. The eastern room has a brick fireplace and chimney piece.

Close examination of surviving timbers (many reused) indicates the original ground floor comprised a heated main room at the east and a heated inner chamber at the west, originally separated by daub panels and a chimney. The front wall retains, from west to east: a pair of original window jambs with peg-holes from a removed cill; evidence for one extremely long 2.8-metre window formerly closed by a sliding shutter; and traces of a pair of centrally-placed openings closed by sliding shutters in the eastern bay. The rear wall was built of large panels infilled with lathe and daub, incorporating bracing. Though hidden by wainscoting, one ground floor panel is visible within the north-west outshut and incorporates a long footbrace rising to the westernmost principal post. At the same level in the next bay is the jamb and truncated cill of a centrally-placed unglazed window, whilst further east are two isolated sections of large daub panels. The ceiling joists remain visible throughout with chamfered lower edges.

The first floor, now reached by a staircase in the link range, also originally had a small chamber at the west and heated main room at the east, both open to the roof. It is now divided into three rooms opening off a north-side corridor with wooden floors and wooden-boarded doors featuring wrought-iron strap hinges, wooden latches, and bolts. The ceilings were added in the late 16th or early 17th century (most likely early in this period) using central girder construction. All girders are stop-chamfered but vary by room status: the westernmost chamber has stepped-and-hollowed stops, the next chamber has simple cyma stops, and the eastern chamber has barred-and-hollowed stops. One principal post in the north wall is a reused medieval timber with a splayed-cut jowled head and a quarter roll running the entire height of the western leading edge. Also visible in this wall are mortices for an unglazed first-floor window that incorporated diamond-section mullions. The westernmost room has comb-decorated daub beneath plaster on the interior west wall and a painted scheme added in the late 16th century when a first-floor fireplace was inserted into the chimney. This decorative scheme shows similarities with one at Shelleys, Lewes, East Sussex. The hall roof is of paired-rafter-and-collar construction, incorporating large scantling reused, soot-encrusted rafters as well as smaller scantling halved-on collars that are un-sooted and were purpose-cut for the present roof.

Cross-Wing Interior

The cross-wing originally housed a parlour on both floors, both heated by a chimney (since rebuilt) constructed between it and the main range. The walls have panel framing. Besides front windows, there was originally a window in the front gable and one at the north end of the east wall on the first floor. The ground floor includes early 17th-century wainscoting (some refitted) concealing original panels, including upper fielded panels carved with lozenge patterns containing foliage decoration. These incorporate a narrow closet door fixed shut, coinciding with a closet blocked since the mid 19th century at the latest. This ground floor room has a brick fireplace with a timber surround and overmantel featuring stippled carving showing the biblical hooking of leviathan (Book of Job 41), as well as elaborate strapwork including paterae, foliage, ionic capitals, and other decoration. Ceiling joists have chamfered lower leading edges terminated by stops. The first floor, now accessed via the main hall corridor, retains its original flooring, original panels, and ceiling joists with chamfered lower edges terminated by cyma stops. An iron brace has been added in one corner and strengthening bands applied to the girder. The fireplace is surrounded by later fielded panelling. A 1920s photograph shows traces of wall paintings in this room, which may still survive beneath the present paintwork. The roof structure is of clasped-side-purlin construction, framed in two bays with windbracing. The gables incorporate collars with queenstuds beneath, whilst the central truss has a raking queen strut.

Link Range Interior

The link range is of two bays with panel framing to the walls. It originally had a centrally positioned passage linking the front range to the rear kitchen range and providing access to a small courtyard at the east. In the re-entrant angle is a small room with a tiled floor and fireplace; partition walls have been removed so it is now open to the adjacent passage. On the opposite side of the passage is a timber staircase with a winder and straight flight and another ground floor room. The first floor has a single chamber containing a window in the west wall of three-pane ovolo design, with ceiling tiebeams having chamfered leading edges with cyma stops. There was originally an attic room accessed via another staircase (since removed). The roof is of clasped-side-purlin construction with a collar truss at the south end and a collar-and-queenstud truss above the central tiebeam and northern truss. The latter is daub-infilled and comb-decorated with an interlaced figure-of-eight design below the collar and an abstract design above.

Former Kitchen Range Interior

The former detached mid 16th-century kitchen range was originally of three bays with a rear aisle, comprising a central kitchen with an open fire (as in an open hall), an eastern chamber with a storage loft overshooting the kitchen, and a small western room with a further chamber above. The ground floor is now divided into two large rooms: a western room with a large inglenook fireplace and an eastern room open to the roof. An original arcade separates the main body from the rear aisle. The western room has a paved stone floor and a fireplace constructed of ashlar sandstone blocks patched in brick where two oven openings have been blocked. It was fully floored over in the late 16th or early 17th century, the ceiling supported by two girders with stop-chamfered lower leading edges. The eastern room took its current form in the later 18th or early 19th century when the lean-to was added and a series of changes were made: the original east wall was removed; the ground floor was paved in brick and stone slabs incorporating a stone well and handpump; the first floor was removed; the external walls were rebuilt; and the eastern hip of the roof was reconstructed. A wooden staircase with a winder and straight flight leads up to two chambers above the western room, open to the roof, with further stairs to the attic above the link range. The clasped-side-purlin roof is framed in three near-equal-length bays with none of the roof trusses positioned above those of the main frame. It is a hipped roof with collar trusses and windbracing.

Other Interiors

The lean-to outshot on the north side of the hall contains a short corridor providing access to the rear yard, flanked by one large room at the west and a winder staircase at the east leading to an attic vestibule and store. The mid 19th-century gabled range adjoining the lean-to contains two bathrooms and a kitchen. Further west is the early 20th-century range containing two store rooms.

Mint Cottage was not inspected internally but contains a large open-plan living area on the ground floor with an open fireplace and a modern bathroom and kitchen in the single-storey lean-to at the rear. A staircase leads up to a landing and two bedrooms on the first floor; the eastern room contains a large open fireplace.

Exclusions

The 20th-century brick buildings with gabled roofs covered in corrugated metal to the north of the former detached kitchen, and the late 20th-century bathroom and kitchen fixtures and fittings and late 20th-century ticket window in The Old Mint House, are not of special architectural or historic interest. However, any works to these structures and features that might affect the character of the listed building may still require Listed Building Consent.