Little Park Hatch

Little Park Hatch is a former farmhouse, now converted to a pub, dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, with various 20th-century extensions. The original building is timber-framed, now enclosed in red brick and clay tile hanging. The roof is clay tile, with 20th-century casement windows fitted with leaded lights. The later extensions are built in red brick laid in stretcher bond with tile hanging, tiled roofs, and casement windows, some with leaded lights and some without.

The building is planned as a three-bay structure with a lobby-entry arrangement, featuring a gable-ended queen-post roof with side purlins and a substantial ridge stack. The entrance lobby is positioned to the north, with one bay to the east of the stack and two bays (a larger and a smaller) to the west. The stack fills the width of the building to the south of the lobby. The location of the original stair is uncertain, though floor joists in the eastern bay may indicate where it once stood. At ground floor, the two western bays have been opened up to form a single space, and the most westerly bay opens south into a single-storey extension. Two doorways have been cut into the original west end wall to access the two-storey west end extension, which now houses the current stair.

At first floor, a north-facing corridor has been created to provide independent access to four rooms. Two of these rooms were created in the 20th century by subdividing the large central bay. The stairwell and a fifth room are located in the two-storey west end extension, with a bathroom in the north front extension.

The front façade is faced in red brick laid in Flemish bond with a brick modillion course at eaves level. The westernmost bay is masked by the shallow two-storey extension. The rear elevation is also red brick in Flemish bond, with tile hanging at first-floor level in the two westerly bays, while the east bay is entirely brick. At eaves level the rafter feet are exposed. The ground floor of the west bay is obscured by a single-storey rear extension. The east end wall is faced in narrower red bricks, laid in English bond.

Inside, the ground floor retains chamfered spine beams in all three bays with exposed floor joists, many of which have been replaced. The east bay now contains the gents' WCs, while the two west bays house the bar area. Stop-chamfered posts have been inserted to support the timber framework where original structural elements have been removed, notably between the two west bays and to the rear of the west bay. Mortises in the timber suggest the position of an original partition between the two west bays. The bays are heated by a large inglenook fireplace with a timber bressumer. Variations in brickwork and irregular smoke blackening indicate alterations to the fireplace, and a brickwork arch to the left may represent a smoking bay.

At first floor, the weathered timber frame of the original west end outer wall is exposed, as are the inner faces of the framework throughout the first-floor rooms, revealing tie-beams with vertical struts above. The partition wall framework between the west bays is exposed from both sides, showing evidence of an interlinking doorway. A single wooden peg remains in the south wall plate of the west bay. The large central bay formerly had a first-floor fireplace with a timber lintel, but this room is now divided into two smaller spaces. Doors are generally wide two-panel design, hung on H-L hinges fixed with screws, suggesting a 19th-century date for the fixings.

Within the roof space, many of the rafters, which are all of comparable size, appear to be original, meeting at the apex without a ridgeboard. Purlins and collars appear to be historic timbers, but there is no evidence of the struts visible in the rooms below, indicating alterations have taken place. Modern joists have been inserted between pairs of rafters approximately 70 centimetres below the level of the purlins.