7, Bird-In-Hand Street

No 7 Bird-in-Hand Street is a small house, likely from the 18th century, with possible earlier origins and minimal modernisation in the 19th and 20th centuries. It features a weatherboarded timber frame set on coursed sandstone footings, with a brick stack and chimney shaft, and a peg-tile roof.

The house faces northeast onto the street and has a narrow site with a two-room plan, gable-end facing the street. The larger front room has a significant lateral stack on the left side, which it shares with the adjoining No 6.

The building is two storeys high, with attics in the roof space. The exterior includes a single window on each floor. The ground and first floor windows are 20th-century casements with rectangular panes of leaded glass, while the attic features a possibly original two-light casement with diamond panes of old leaded glass, some of which are tinged green. The front doorway, located to the right, has a 19th-century plank door beneath a shallow flat hood supported by shaped timber brackets. The roof is tall and steeply pitched.

The interior inspection was limited to the ground floor. The front room has an axial beam that is chamfered with run-out stops, although the fireplace is blocked by a 20th-century grate. The rear room contains plain axial joists, and some of the wall framing is exposed, made from relatively slender timbers with straight braces.

No 7 may have originally been built alongside No 6. It is part of a notable group of listed buildings associated with Groombridge Place, contributing to the character of Old Groombridge village.