Former The Old Rising Sun

Former The Old Rising Sun

A medieval hall-house, now restaurant, located on the north side of Guildford Road in Fetcham. Probably dating to the later 14th century or earlier 15th century, the building was altered in the 16th century and subsequently, with additions made around 1790 and 1807. It is constructed with timber framing rendered with cladding (possibly stone), supplemented by tile-hung brick and weather-boarded timber framing. The roofs are covered in red tile and some red pantiles, with brick chimneys. The building has a T-shaped plan formed by a three-bay medieval hall range with an added wing at the right-hand end, and various extensions to the rear.

The principal range consists of two low storeys and three bays. It features a slate-roofed verandah covering the centre bay, which contains a plank door with strap hinges and a nine-pane sashed window on each floor to its left. The first bay has an added semi-octagonal bay window with a panelled door on its right-hand side. The third bay is covered at ground floor by a lean-to addition, with the roof centre cut away to accommodate a nine-pane sashed window at first floor level. The roof is hipped at the left end and gabled at the right-hand end, very close to the wing, with a chimney at the left end of the ridge. The left gable wall has a nine-pane sash at first floor and a lean-to addition towards the rear. A weather-boarded two-storey wing stands at the rear centre, having a lean-to at its gable end with visible studs and nogging.

The higher two-storey wing projecting at the right-hand end is tile-hung, featuring a transomed six-light casement window at ground floor and a four-pane sash above, with a hipped roof. The right-hand return wall has an extruded chimney stack to its first bay. Its continuation (probably originally agricultural rather than domestic) is of weather-boarded timber framing in two sections, with a modern porch in matching materials added to the second section, and a hipped pantiled roof.

The principal features of architectural interest lie in the interior. The main range contains most of the structure of an open hall, which may originally have been aisled, though a ceiling was inserted in the 16th or 17th century. This hall appears to have been three bays in extent and of post-and-truss construction with a crown-post collar-rafter roof. At first floor, three formerly open frames are visible, approximately 3 metres apart, with the third abutting the wing. These frames feature cavetto-moulded tie-beams and similarly decorated arch-braces of large scantling at both ends of the first beam and at the rear end of the second (the other missing, leaving a vacant mortice). The third tie-beam is severed for a doorway, with braces, if present, concealed. Cavetto-moulded wall-plates are also visible, including one in the front wall beyond the first frame, indicating that the structure continued in that direction.

Three plain crown posts of square section are visible in the roof, each with arch-braces to a collar purlin, along with close-set braced coupled rafters, all of large scantling but none decorated or smoke-blackened. The wall-posts are mostly concealed, although the foot of that at the north end of the first frame bears cavetto moulding. The outer face of the third frame, narrowly separated from the side of the wing, is plastered through the full height, suggesting there was no contemporary cross-wing at this end. The timbers of the inserted ceiling and an associated longitudinal passage are crudely shaped and undecorated, with a small inglenook fireplace at the end wall of the first bay. The exposed timber framing of the wing, the rear end of which is open to the roof, appears to date to the 18th or early 19th century, and there is a rectangular fireplace in the side wall of the front room.