Queens Folly

House dated 1626, formerly known as Brick Cottage. A well-preserved early 17th-century dwelling of modest status.

The building is completely timber-framed, set on coursed sandstone footings and clad with peg-tile. It features a brick stack on a sandstone ashlar base with a staggered brick chimneyshaft of early, possibly original brick. The roof is covered with peg-tile.

The house is arranged on a three-room plan facing basically south, with two storeys and attics in the roofspace, plus lean-to outshots across the whole of the rear. A large axial stack between the left (west) and centre rooms serves back-to-back fireplaces. The left end room was the parlour and the centre room was the kitchen, with an early winder stair to the rear of the stack. The small right end room was unheated and probably served as a buttery, dairy or pantry. The present kitchen occupies secondary outshots across the back. The partition between the original kitchen and service room has been removed. The original kitchen was two bays while the former service room was one bay, with the arrangement of the two bedchambers above reversed. This created a rather small kitchen chamber, and the fireplace there may be secondary. While no evidence of a lobby entrance is exposed, direct entry appears to have always been into the kitchen as now.

The front elevation shows irregular fenestration with three ground floor windows and a single centre first floor window, all 20th-century casements with a diamond pane leaded effect. The front doorway is right of centre, containing a 20th-century Tudor arch with a contemporary plank door and coverstrips. The roof is gable-ended, stepping down over the right end section (two bays internally). At the left gable end overlooking Lower Green Road, the gable is carried on a moulded beam enriched with guilloche and including the carved date 1626 along with the initials IMI.

Interior carpentry is well-preserved. The wall framing is of large scantling with curving tension braces. The front parlour features an intersecting beam four-panel ceiling with chamfered beams and scroll stops. It has a stone ashlar fireplace with a chamfered Tudor arch to the oak lintel. The chamber above has a similar ceiling and smaller fireplace. The kitchen ceiling has a chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam with a similar axial beam to the chimneybreast, and a plastered fireplace with a cambered and chamfered oak lintel. Joists here and over the former service room are chamfered with step stops. The kitchen chamber fireplace is small, in brick with a plain oak lintel. The roof of five bays, with the eastern service end at two bays at a lower level, appears to be of one build and is carried on a series of tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and queen struts. Minor later modernisations have been made to the house.