The Normans

The Normans, Yalding

House, formerly cottages, now house. Built in the late 16th or early 17th century and restored in the mid-20th century. The building is timber framed with rendered infilling and a herringbone brick infilled left return (probably 20th century). It has a plain tile roof and is arranged as a courtyard house.

The building comprises a front range facing south-east with a symmetrical central-entry plan of three timber-framed bays, the central bay being shorter, and a rear range with five timber-framed bays. The central bay contains a stack, with one room to the left (south-west) comprising two bays, one long bay to the right, and one very short gable-end bay. The front and rear ranges are joined by single bays on each side of a small courtyard. The structure stands two storeys and attic on a ragstone plinth.

The exterior features close-studded timber framing on all elevations, including courtyard elevations, except for part of the left return. Each floor has a secondary midrail halfway up the studs. The front elevation displays a continuous jetty with a moulded bressumer and enriched solid-spandrel brackets. A similar continuous eaves jetty, carried on projecting tie-beam and wall-plate ends, supports three gables, the central gable being smaller. All three gables have enriched bargeboards and moulded finials and pendants. The rear range has a hipped roof with hips returning forwards to form the sides of the outer gables. Eaves and ridges are continuous throughout the house, with long curved sprockets.

The front range has projecting gable-end stacks dressed in stone on chamfered stone plinths with stone slab offsets. The left stack features a red brick flue in English bond with tumbled shoulders. The right stack has two diagonally-set flues in red and grey brick in English bond with a moulded cornice. A central multiple brick ridge stack serves the rear range.

Windows on the gables are ovolo-moulded mullion windows: one four-light to each outer gable and one two-light to the centre. The front elevation has three regularly spaced windows. Each outer bay contains a twelve-light oriel window with three-light ovolo-moulded mullioned frieze windows, supported on enriched brackets. The central bay has a ten-light oriel with single-light ovolo-moulded frieze windows. On the ground floor, each outer bay has a similar frieze window and a twelve-light bay window on a chamfered ragstone base. The central bay has a four-light ovolo-moulded mullioned window, deepened to eight lights probably in a later alteration. A broad moulded rectangular doorway with a ribbed boarded door, reached by three ragstone steps, is positioned to the left of the central bay.

The left return has an eight-light moulded mullioned and transomed window at the left end of the rear range on a chamfered stone base, and a moulded rectangular doorway to the shorter central bay. The rear elevation has irregular fenestration of ovolo-moulded mullion windows, mostly original, to both floors. The right return has a three-light ovolo-moulded mullion window to the right end of the front range, behind the stack, and a boarded door in a 20th-century recess at the right end of the rear range. The courtyard elevations have ovolo-moulded mullion windows to each face on each floor, and an original rectangular doorway to the rear range in the rear right corner.

The interior contains exposed timber framing. The front range has a chamfered axial beam with chamfered tenoned cross beams to the right and left rooms on each floor, and an axial beam to the entrance hall. The rear range has a chamfered cross beam and chamfered tenoned axial beams to the left room on each floor, and a chamfered axial beam to the right room. Axial joists serve the central left room on the ground floor, and a chamfered axial beam the central right room. Each range has a clasped-purlin roof with diminishing principal rafters, curved windbraces, and intermediate collars, but no queen struts. Each corner is turned on three principal rafters of particularly large scantling. The attic has broad floorboards. Timber-framed partitions framed with two panels per storey are found throughout.

The ground-floor rooms of the front range have moulded rectangular doorways. More simply-moulded doorways connect the stair hall to the left room of the rear range on both floors, and to the head of the smaller right staircase on the first floor. The ground-floor rooms and left first-floor room of the front range contain moulded four-centred-arched stone fireplaces with rose and spear-leaf spandrels, dressing in very light relief, and vase stops with strapwork beneath them; the right first-floor fireplace is blocked. The ground-floor rooms of the rear range have broad, tooled stone fireplaces with plain chamfers, vase stops, and chamfered wooden bressumers. The left first-floor room has a small chamfered stone fireplace with a bressumer. A broad 20th-century open-well staircase in 17th-century style with turned oak balusters and a moulded handrail is located in the central bay of the left return. A small enclosed single-flight staircase serves the central bay of the right return. This is a relatively uncommon house type in this area.