Old Marks

This is a house, likely dating from the early 16th century. It began as a single smoke-bay dwelling with a chimneystack inserted around 1600, when the parlour end appears to have been improved. The building is now four bays wide, with an outshut integrated to the rear (south) which was refronted in the early 19th century. A further two projecting gables were added to the north in the late 19th century.

The house has a timber frame, set on a sandstone base. The ground floor is faced with red brick with grey headers, while the first floor is hung with tiles, some of which are curved. The roof is tiled, with a central brick chimneystack set off-centre. The house has two storeys and attics in the gable end, containing four windows, mainly 19th-century casements. The north front has two projecting 19th-century gable wings and a plank front door within a moulded architrave. The west front features a 1600 ovolo-moulded window, described as 4x2, and a projection which was formerly a chimneystack. A 20th-century hipped porch with wooden supports has been added. The rear (south) side has the integral outshut, with its roof sloping to ground floor level. Four 19th-century gabled dormers, fitted with bargeboards and pendants, are visible. A plank door and triple casement windows are also present on this side.

A 19th-century brick scullery and outbuilding are attached to the east. Inside the former parlour (on the ground floor, west side) are a chamfered spine beam and a particularly unusual chamfered post with three tiers of overhanging panels, featuring lambs' tongue stops. The central room contains an open fireplace with run-out stops and an opening for a bread oven, along with a spine beam with lambs' tongue stops. The east room also has a spine beam with a 2-inch chamfer and lambs' tongue stops. A 19th-century winder staircase is located at the rear of the east room, while a 19th-century staircase is in the former smoke bay between the west and central rooms.

The principal bedroom above the parlour has a window with ovolo-moulded frames, exposed framing with a midrail, and gunstock jowled posts. A curved brace is visible in the outshut. Within the north wall are two panels of original combed pargetting and a section of display bracing featuring quatrefoil patterns dating from around 1600, believed to have originally been the exterior wall of the building before the late 19th-century gable was added. This style of framing is typical of the northwest but is rare in the southeast. A wooden bressumer, likely concealing an earlier fireplace, is present in the central bedroom, alongside curved braces to an internal partition and a series of vertical studs. In the end bedroom are jowled posts with run-out stops and curved braces. The roof retains original rafters, through purlins, a collar beam, and curved tension braces, as well as queen posts. The former smoke-bay to the east of the end room has smoke-blackened timbers, as does some timbering in the chimney bay. Original lath and plaster partitions and old floorboards are also present.