Bow Hill House

Bow Hill House

A house of 15th or early 16th-century origin, substantially altered and extended in the early 17th century and again in the late 18th or early 19th century. The building is timber-framed with pebbledash rendering and a plain tile roof, and displays a Gothick facade added during the later alterations.

The house follows a Wealden plan with an open hall of two timber-framed bays, the left bay being narrower than the right. The left end bay was rebuilt in the early 17th century as a four or five-bay cross-wing projecting to the rear. The right end bay was probably at least partly rebuilt in the 18th or early 19th century. The structure stands two storeys with an attic. The first floor of the cross-wing and possibly the left hall bay were jettied in the early 17th century, though these jetties were later underbuilt or altered.

Two gables project forward, one to the left cross-wing and one to the right hall bay, with the latter overlapping the left hall bay. Both gables have lower ridges than the main range and feature moulded bargeboards with differently moulded pendants. The facade of the right end bay is set back from the rest of the present front elevation, but was probably flush with the original hall wall. The cross-wing is gabled to the rear. A multiple red and grey brick stack rises from the front slope of the roof in the left hall bay, and a projecting red brick stack stands at the right gable end.

Fenestration includes tripartite Gothick sash windows with central mullions, pointed lights, Y tracery and rectangular hoodmoulds to each gable. The first-floor fenestration is irregular, comprising four Gothick windows: one pair of pointed-arched sashes with rectangular hoodmould under each gable, one similar single sash with a more rounded head under the stack, and one three-light casement with pointed lights and solid spandrels to the right end bay. The ground floor features canted flat-roofed bays with moulded cornices to both the cross-wing and the right hall bay, rising above internal floor levels, each with three broad tall pointed-arched Gothick sashes. A window with Y tracery appears to the right end of the ground floor. Half-glazed double doors in a narrow panelled architrave with paterae are located under and to the left of the stack. A porch spanning the gap between the canted bays has a swept leaded roof set on six slender columns of clustered shafts.

A short two-storey painted brick addition stands to the left gable end. A two-storey early 19th-century stair turret occupies the angle between the cross-wing and the rear of the hall, with a lower rendered and weatherboarded gabled section to its rear.

Internally, the right end of the hall retains its tie-beam with a stud partition under it on the first floor, and with a front principal post bearing the truncated end of the inner wall-plate. The base of a plain crown post is visible above the tie-beam. A pegged stud remains under the former central tie-beam.

The left cross-wing contains a chamfered first-floor cross beam with two pairs of chamfered axial beams tenoned to it, serving a 17th-century front room. A broadly-framed partition wall to the rear of this former room has a dropped doorhead towards its left end. The cross-wing roof is a clasped-purlin roof with diminishing principal rafters, curved windbraces, and vertical queen struts to cambered collars.

The late 18th or early 19th-century staircase features an oval skylight above it. This period also saw the installation of late 18th or early 19th-century fireplaces, doorcases and cornices. The ground floor of the right hall bay has a fireplace with a mantleshelf on fluted Corinthian columns. The first-floor right end room has a fireplace with enriched folding iron doors.