The Glass House

The Glass House is a house dating to 1603, with restoration work undertaken in the mid-to-late 20th century. It is timber framed with a ground floor of close-studded timbering and rendered infilling, and a tile-hung front, with close-studded gable ends. The roof is tiled. The house has two storeys and a garret. A rendered plinth runs around the base. A continuous jetty is supported at each end by carved scrolled brackets. Eaves are also jettied to the gable ends on similarly-moulded bressumers and brackets. The roof is half-hipped. A brick stack is positioned on the front slope of the roof, towards the centre, featuring a brick string towards the base and top, with a suggestion of a fillet to the front, and two rectangular flues angled on each side. The windows have irregular placement: three ovolo-moulded wood mullioned windows are present; one four-light window towards each end, and one two-light window under the stack. The ground floor incorporates two 17th-century two-light ovolo-moulded mullion frieze windows to the left and two to the right; each pair originally flanked a deeper window, of which only the mortices remain. A six-pane sash and a four-light leaded wood mullion window now occupy the left and right window areas respectively. Brick patches are visible beneath each cill. Each gable end features a four-light ovolo-moulded mullion attic window with diamond subsidiary mullions, set within a moulded architrave. The left gable has a six-light ovolo-moulded mullion first-floor window with diamond subsidiary mullions, and a similar ground-floor window. The right gable has a ten-light mullioned and transomed first-floor oriel window with subsidiary mullions, two-light side-lights, multiply-moulded sides and head, and a coved plastered soffit. A similar oriel window is located on the ground floor, alongside ovolo-moulded mullion frieze windows, with a later brick pier under one end and a small gable with a plain-tile roof. A ribbed door is set in a squared moulded architrave under the stack. A timber-framed rear lean-to, with patched brickwork, extends slightly further to the right and left than the main range, and a clasped purlin is visible in the left gable end. The interior has not been inspected. It is believed the house derives its name from a formerly continuous row of first-floor oriel windows along the front elevation, where the eaves of the main roof were jettied or continued downwards to cover them. The date 1603 is said to be displayed internally. An illustration from 1867 portrays the house without the front oriels.