Cherry Trees Including Post Office and Art Gallery

Cherry Trees, including Post Office and Art Gallery, The Green, Matfield

A house, art gallery, and Post Office complex. The main house dates from the early to mid-15th century, with alterations made in the 17th and 19th centuries. The Post Office and art gallery were probably added in the late 19th century. The house is constructed as a timber frame clad in weatherboarding, with a peg-tile roof and brick stacks. The Post Office and art gallery are weatherboarded with slate roofs; the art gallery was converted from a shop.

The complex faces west. The house extends on a north-south axis, with the Post Office and gallery adjoining at right angles at the front left (north west). The house originated as an open hall with a storeyed end to the right (south). The lower (north) end has been partly rebuilt, and the position of the original entrance is unclear. In the late 16th or early 17th century, the hall was floored and an axial stack with back-to-back fireplaces was inserted in the lower end bay of the hall, creating a lobby entrance arrangement. In the early to mid-19th century, the right-hand (south) room was converted to a parlour with an end stack added. The rear (east) outshut may also date to the 19th century. The partial rebuilding of the north end is likely 17th century.

The exterior presents 2 storeys for the house and single storey for the Post Office and art gallery. The house has an asymmetrical 5-window front. The roof is hipped at the left end and gabled at the right end. A 19th-century gabled porch with shaped bargeboards leads to the lobby entrance, with a panelled outer door flanked by one-light windows with diamond leaded panes. Various 19th and 20th-century casements are present. Two 3-light windows to the right of the porch have 20th-century diamond leaded panes; three first-floor casements have glazing bars. To the left of the porch, two gabled dormers with casement windows and glazing bars rise above the Post Office and gallery. The Post Office and gallery buildings are gabled to the front under a 2-span roof with curly pierced bargeboards. The Post Office to the left (north) has a 5-light transomed timber window with one pane occupied by the letter box. The gallery features a late 19th-century shop front with a half-glazed recessed door flanked by 6-pane windows with 4-pane windows on the inner returns of the doorway.

The interior of Cherry Trees is notably unspoiled with well-preserved carpentry. The hall retains its 15th-century moulded, brattished dais beam and 17th-century cross beam with exposed joists. The 17th-century fireplace has a chamfered lintel. The inner room probably retains 15th-century joists, concealed behind 19th-century plaster, and has a 19th-century timber chimney-piece. The north fireplace to the axial stack is blocked. The wall framing is very complete, with jowled wall posts and big curved tension braces. On the first floor, the 15th-century crosswall between the chamber over the hall and over the right end room is exposed and preserves early joinery alongside old wall and ceiling plaster.

The 15th-century roof survives complete over the centre and right (north) end of the house. It is crown post construction with a plain post featuring 4-way bracing at the south end of the hall and a moulded octagonal crown post with 4-way bracing just south of the inserted stack. The timbers are heavily sooted above the hall. Beyond the stack, sooted rafters are supplemented with clean ones, and a cambered birdsmouth tie is used over the north end.