Old Birtley

Old Birtley is a house at Haslemere Road in Witley, originally comprising a farmhouse and later farm cottages. The building consists of two structurally separate timber-framed ranges: an eastern range dating from the mid-16th century and a northern range dating from the early 17th century, with twentieth-century additions to the north east, south, west and north west.

The structure is timber-framed with the frame visible on the north and east fronts, infilled with brick or painted brick. The south and west fronts are brick to the ground floor (painted to the south) over a deep stone plinth to the northern part of the east front, with tile-hanging above. The roof is tiled and gabled except for the north east corner, which has a gablet, and there are two brick chimneysstacks rebuilt above roof level.

The plan comprises a two-bay end-chimneystack house to the east with a separately framed three-bay lobby entrance house forming an L-wing to the north.

The south side has irregular windows, mainly nineteenth and twentieth-century casements. The ground floor features a nineteenth-century gabled porch supported on chamfered wooden piers with an early nineteenth-century ledged and plank door. A twentieth-century French window is situated to the west. The western side includes twentieth-century flat-roofed dormers and a French window.

The east and north sides display exposed timber-framing. The central part of the eastern side has framing of thick scantling with midrail and curved tension braces to the ends, mainly infilled with brick in Flemish bond with vitrified headers, Sussex bond and stretcher bond. Small twentieth-century casement windows have been inserted. Twentieth-century extensions at either end lead to the north range, which displays three bays of timber-framing of higher elevation with midrail and diagonal braces on a stone plinth. The ground floor frame survives intact beneath the later lean-to to the north east. Irregular small twentieth-century casements are present. A twentieth-century addition exists to the west.

Internally, the east wing's ground floor contains a large room with an early seventeenth-century brick open fireplace with wooden bressumer and an intact curved bread oven. The spine beam has a deep chamfer with lambs tongue stops and the floor joists have been removed. A twentieth-century wooden winder stair in the north eastern corner leads to the upper floor, where the separate framing of the two wings becomes evident. The upper floor of the east wing has exposed wall frame to the sides and ends, a queen post roof with clasped purlins, and the upper part of the brick chimneystack is visible.

The northern range's ground floor has chamfered spine beams, a brick floor to the east, and a brick open fireplace with wooden bressumer and openings for a bread oven. The upper floor has exposed wall frame, partition walls, and one bedroom contains a seventeenth-century brick fireplace with an arched wooden head. A seventeenth or eighteenth-century half-winder staircase (with repairs) survives to the attic, which displays purlins and some original rafters.

The building appears on the 1871 Ordnance Survey map as Murrells Farm but was known as Birtley Cottages by the 1896-7 survey. A late nineteenth-century footgate of a pattern used on the adjacent Witley Park estate suggests the building belonged to that estate at this time.

Despite twentieth-century additions, two substantially intact separately framed timber-framed buildings survive: the eastern wing, a two-bay house of mid-sixteenth-century date (possibly with a smoke bay before the chimney was inserted to the south), and the northern wing, an early seventeenth-century three-bay house of lobby entrance type.