Little Chantersluer

Little Chantersluer

This is a house with origins thought to date from about 1400, with multiple subsequent phases of development including a cross-wing added around 1700.

The earliest phases of the house were timber framed, and substantial framing of this period survives internally. However, the external walls appear to have been largely rebuilt in brick, now heavily over-painted, which makes dating challenging. Some of the gable-ends are tile hung, and the roof is covered in clay tiles. Windows are painted timber casements, except for several steel-framed windows, and date from the 19th century or later.

The building's plan is complex, reflecting its multi-phase evolution. The earliest fabric is contained within the front two-bay range with a pitched roof facing south, which contains two rooms—one to the east and one to the west—with a central straight stair between them running from back to front, apparently carved out of the western room. These two bays may have contained the open hall of the early house. At the west end is a ridge stack of probable 19th-century date, and a second stack stands behind the east bay. The depth of the original house has been reduced and the roof lifted to allow a full first floor to be inserted, matching the floor height of the cross-wing to the east. The cross-wing is gabled to the north and south and is two bays deep, with a large external stack on the east wall serving the deep front bay. A framed stair enclosure occupies part of the small rear bay.

The depth of the cross-wing, which extends past the rear of the front range, creates an L-shaped footprint. The inside corner of this L has been infilled with a range running parallel to the front range. Both stairs in the house are accessed from within this infill range, which probably dates from the 19th century although it may be a rebuild of something earlier; it has subsequently been extended in the 20th century. Single-storey 20th-century extensions with varying hipped, pitched and pentice roofs screen earlier elevations across the whole rear of the building and most of the west elevation.

The building's early origins are largely obscured from outside. The principal elevation faces south, with the two-bay range lit by paired casements with a single horizontal glazing bar and a four-light bowed oriel window. The cross-wing has a three-light casement window on each floor, both slightly off-centre, with a tile-hung gable-end.

The east elevation more readily reads as a pre-19th-century building. It features the large shouldered external stack with a pair of square flues set diagonally, which step out at the top. To the left of the stack is a vertically panelled door, possibly contemporary with the cross-wing, now with a large glazed window cut into it and sheltered by a later hood.

The rear elevation is dominated by an assortment of irregular 20th-century extensions of differing dates and forms, unified by a consistent palette of white-painted brick, tile roofs, tile-hung gables and multi-pane timber casement windows. These extensions continue round onto the west elevation, leaving only the west end of the front range unextended.

The most distinctive interiors are on the ground floor. The east room of the front range contains what appears to be the earliest visible in-situ fabric: a truss between this room and the cross-wing. It has large square panels below a mid-rail—the square framing possibly a later intervention and including a possible blocked doorway—above which is a pair of heavy curved braces and a central post. The curved braces on the other side of the post continue past the back wall of the room and appear over the doorway from the rear range to the cross-wing, indicating the depth of the early house. The ceiling of the east room has been inserted; the heavy, closely spaced timbers, wider than they are deep, indicate a medieval date for the fabric. The west room in the front range has an elaborate carved beam running front to back supporting chamfered and stopped joists. The position and stopping of the beam suggest it was introduced from elsewhere, possibly another building, suggesting the same may be true for the whole floor frame.

The interior of the cross-wing has exposed wall and floor framing, partly shared with the earlier range but otherwise consistent with its likely build date, albeit reusing some earlier timber. The south and east external walls appear to be primarily of brick.

The ceiling joists in the rear range are exposed but are not diagnostic of age. As the house is now entered through 20th-century extensions to the west, the rear range, with its back wall opened up to these extensions, acts as a circulation space, giving internal access to the two front rooms, the cross-wing and both stairs.

On the first floor of the cross-wing, the lower parts of a roof truss are visible—a tie beam and base of curved queen struts—as is the framing of some internal walls. The top of the early arched bracing is visible within the front range, and elsewhere in this part of the house the framing of internal walls is partly exposed. Some of this framing, particularly along the back wall of the front range, is similar in character to the framing beneath the early truss.

The roofs over the cross-wing and front range reuse a number of medieval rafters, some with smoke blackening and some with evidence of now empty collar joints. The cross-wing is pegged at the apex with curved queen struts supporting clasped purlins. The purlin has scarf joints near the middle truss, possibly indicating a slightly later date for the smaller bay to the rear.