Bumpit

House of 15th and 16th-century date, specifically dated 1587. Timber framed with exposed framing and plaster infill, partly clad in red brick, with plain tiled roofs. The building is L-shaped, comprising a main range of 3 framed bays with screens passage, which was added and built into an earlier hall house. The earlier hall house is now reduced to 2 framed bays and functions as a service wing from 1587 onwards.

The west (entrance) front has 2 storeys and a garret set on a basement, with small panel framing. A stack is positioned to the rear, centre right. The fenestration is irregular, with 2 wood casements on the first floor and 3 on the ground floor; blocked mullioned lights are visible on both floors. A plank and stud door to the left is set within a carved and moulded four-centred arched surround. The right return front is clad with red brick, featuring a plinth, plat band, and a carved wooden triglyph frieze to the gable. The left return front has large panel framing with tension braces, and is partly clad with red brick in the 15th-century wing.

Internally, the main range contains a 3-cell layout with screens passage. The hall is of single-storey height. A stack is positioned away from the screens passage, with a newel stair and through passage to the parlour. Structural evidence indicates a now-lost 2-storey porch that once stood over the screens passage entry, and the end right bay may represent a later addition. The roof is a staggered purlin roof.

The house contains significant wall paintings. In the parlour, 16th-century trompe l'oeil wainscotting is concealed behind 18th-century pine panelling. This wainscotting is brush-grained to imitate pine, with stencilled arabesques, a dado rail, and landscape scenes above; further panelling survives above, certainly in a different style and possibly of later date. An upstairs room contains a painted fireplace with an unreadable inscription and two figures—a woman praying before a lectern on the left and a man in similar position on the right—together with relics of a frieze, cartouche, and other figures. This fireplace is polychromed with carved flowers in geometric shapes on the lintel, and a painted acanthus frieze runs around the room. A third upstairs room displays grotesque figures of female masks, birds, lions, and foliage, with a painted billet frieze and the inscription "If in God's might you now begin, then shall not the Devil move thee to sin".

The house is dated by an inscription (1587) on a post at the top right of the west front. It is connected to the Ropers of Lynsted Lodge, who owned the property in 1587. Sir John Roper was the great nephew by marriage of Sir Thomas More. The name Bumpit derives from Geoffrey de Bonnepette, and a house on the site is first mentioned in the Subsidy Rolls of 1254. The building was used as a parish workhouse in the 18th century.