Pilstye

Pilstye is a house dating back to the 15th or early 16th century, with alterations made in the late 16th or early 17th century and restoration, alteration, and additions around 1948. It is constructed of timber frame on a 20th-century brick plinth, with some rubble, and is clad in 20th-century weatherboard. There are brick stacks and plain tile roofs.

Originally an open hall house, a floor and stack were inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century. The house is two storeys high, with three first-floor windows. A gabled two-storey 20th-century extension is situated to the front right, alongside a lean-to addition. A 20th-century garage, now integrated into the house, extends to the rear right. All windows are 20th-century, with wooden frames, mullions, and leaded casements. The southeast-facing garden elevation features windows of three, four, and two lights on each floor. The roof is half-hipped with a gablet at the left end, and there is an old corniced stack near the right end.

The rear elevation includes a lean-to, a central window of four lights with a five-light window above, a five-light first-floor window, and a 20th-century external stack to the right bay. An entrance is on the right return side, featuring a 20th-century studded barrel door.

Internally, the central ground-floor room has a probably rebuilt fireplace with a chamfered timber bressumer and chamfered beams and joists with stepped cyma stops. In the left room is a beam with similar stops to the joists, featuring lambs tongue stops to the chamfers. Between these rooms is a large cross-beam with a deep chamfer and stepped cyma stop. The first floor reveals elements of the timber frame, including jeweled wall posts. Some timbers are 20th-century replacements, including curved queen struts set on the tie-beams. The roof is a collared common rafter roof, indicative of a former crown post roof (the crown posts having been removed). Evidence shows that the roof was originally hipped with a gablet at the right end, and that the rafters have been sooted. Some rafters have been replaced, and the ridge has been raised slightly.

The house occupies the site of a late 14th-century royal hunting lodge.