Oast 15 metres east of Hunters Hall

This is an oast house dating to about 1850. It is constructed of red brick and timber frame, with the upper floor of the stowage range clad in stained weatherboard, and has clay tile roofs.

The building consists of two parts: a two-storey rectangular stowage range with two rooms on each floor and a half-hipped roof, and a round kiln, or roundel, immediately to the east, with a first-floor level and a conical roof.

The stowage range is of brick construction at ground floor, with the bricks laid in Flemish bond, featuring vitrified headers. The upper floor is framed and weatherboarded. To the south, the stowage stands on a course of stone blockwork, but this does not extend to the west and north elevations. There is a break in the brickwork on the west end wall, with the brickwork to the north being slightly different to that to the south. Few ground-floor openings exist: a door and window on the north side, likely infilled where a cart entrance once stood; a second window on the same elevation, and a single door on the south side. The first floor has three windows on the north and south sides, and two to the west. Some apertures appear to be original, though altered, while others are later additions. All door and window joinery is 20th or 21st century. The roundel has a cogged eaves cornice and a single door to the east. The roof terminates with a timber cowl and vane.

Internally, the stowage’s floor and wall and roof frames show evidence of alteration, with some renewed and re-used timber. The basic layout of the space appears largely unchanged, and some features relating to the building’s original use as a oast house remain. A plank and ledge door between the two ground-floor rooms has hop yields for several years during the 1920s recorded in pencil. A 20th or 21st century ladder stair rises through what appears to be an original, though altered, hatch. A hop press is located in the west room on the first floor; the lower parts of the frame and the circular opening for the pressing plate are visible from the room below, where evidence remains of several hatches, now floored over. The roundel retains its brick stove, consisting of a vaulted brick chamber with a pierced back and sides and a cast-iron grate. A vaulted brick antechamber connects the stove with the east room of the stowage, giving access for tending the fire, and with the plenum chamber (the space around the stove beneath the drying floor). A 20th or 21st century solid timber floor has replaced the original drying floor.