Mill Tavern

The Mill Tavern

This timber-framed building was constructed around 1600 as a dwelling house, with substantial additions and alterations made during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The main structure uses timber-frame construction with the upper floor clad in hung peg tiles. Extensions to the east and south are of brick, while those to the west are stone and brick or rendered with applied timber framing. The roof is covered in clay peg tiles with red brick chimney stacks. Doors and windows are timber and of varying dates.

The building's original plan appears to be a variant of the typical lobby-entrance type plan. It is three bays wide, running north to south with the entrance front facing east. A substantial central stack sits between the two northerly bays, with a third, narrower, originally unheated bay to the far south. A second stack was subsequently inserted in the south bay. The main entrance remains in its original location to the east of the central stack, though it is now accessed through a late 19th-century porch. At ground floor, the two southerly bays have been opened up to form a single bar area. At first floor, the division between these rooms remains intact, and the stair is enclosed within the south-west corner of the building.

Behind the main building is a second range, possibly all or part of which originated as an outshut with a catslide roof. It has since been extended upwards to form a second storey. To the south is a single-storey extension with a double-pitched roof of 20th or 21st-century date, though it occupies the same footprint as an earlier range shown on maps from at least 1845. To the west is a single-storey range at right angles to the main building, dating from the mid-19th century and originally detached. This building was possibly used for stabling or storage but has since been linked to the main building and was converted into a dining area in the 1990s.

The front (east) elevation includes a shallow late 19th-century extension running along much of its width at ground floor. The ground floor windows are heavy-sectioned mullioned windows contemporary with the extension. At first floor are two three-light casement windows, likely in original openings, with gabled dormer roofs and applied timber framing added later above them.

The rear (west) elevation comprises a two-storey hipped-roof bay clad in stone and brick; a single-storey outshut beneath a catslide roof; and a two-storey hipped-roof extension rendered with applied timber framing. The north elevation is particularly interesting, with exposed timber-framing visible at ground floor. The framing suggests a wide horizontal window just below the ground-floor wall plate (now blocked), and possibly something similar at first floor, where a gap in the tile-hanging, infilled with render, forms a similar horizontal shape.

Interior

At both ground and first floor, much of the timber framework is exposed. Within the ground-floor rooms the overhead floor structure is visible, with each bay showing a substantial axial timber carrying floor joists from front to back. The timbers are chamfered with ogee stops. The north bay has a large open fireplace; the brickwork has been remodelled but the heavy timber bressummer remains, bearing apotropaic marks to ward off evil, including a 'W' and several inverted 'V's. The south-facing fireplace in the large central stack has been reduced to a small opening with a brick surround.

On the first floor, principal axial timbers with chamfers and stops, and wall framing, are exposed. The three chambers over the main part of the building are accessed from a spinal corridor running north to south along the back of the building. The chambers to either side of the central stack have large brickwork fireplace openings; their date of most recent reconfiguration is uncertain but may be early 20th-century. Both rooms have cupboards to the east of the chimney stack, and that in the north bay contains a blocked two-light window with an ovolo moulded mullion and frame. One of the lights appears to retain the central iron bar which would have supported leaded glazing. The attic is reached via a ladder stair to the west of the central stack. The queen-post roof structure divides the space into three rooms, with spaces between truss members infilled with plastered lath panels and a door-height opening beneath the collars. The space is lit at either end by a small gable-end window. From within the roof space it can be seen that the central stack has been rebuilt.

Linked to the building is the single-storey stone and brick outbuilding, which has a single open space internally, open to the pitch of the roof, with the tie-beams of the trusses exposed.