Four Wents And Four Wents Cottage

This is a house, formerly an inn, dating from the 15th century, with alterations in the 16th century and around 1681. The building is timber-framed and exposed with plaster infill, with the ground floor partly clad in red brick, sandstone, and weatherboarding. A return elevation is tile-hung. It has a plain tiled roof. The house originated as a hall house and has cross-wing elements. It is two storeys and an attic, standing on a plinth. The end left bay has a small panel frame, and the right side has close studding on the first floor. The right-hand bays are jettied and return to the right end and left bay, which is recessed. The roof is hipped overall, with gablets and two hipped dormers. Chimneys are located centrally to the left and are clustered to the right on the return wing. There are four wooden casements on each floor, of irregular sizes, with boarded doors to the right, set within a gabled porch, and to the left, within a larger gabled porch that has side lights and painted plaster lozenge decoration in the gable, along with the date B.C.E. 1681.

The interior of Four Wents only retains a stack with a sandstone base, an inglenook, and an in-situ domed bread oven. The roof is a crown post roof with tall, unmoulded posts braced eccentrically to the collar purlin and tie beams, all soot blackened. The building may have originally been Wealden, with a single jettied wing (presumably combining service and solar functions), extended at the lower end by a close studded and continuous jettied cross-wing.