Old Timbers

Old Timbers is a farmhouse, later converted into three cottages and now a single house. The building dates from the later 16th century or possibly earlier, originally constructed as a three-bay timber-framed structure. An 18th-century dairy was added to the north west, and the building was refronted and extended by one bay to the east in the early 19th century, with most windows replaced in the early 20th century.

The construction is primarily timber-framed with a sandstone north west dairy. The south, east, and eastern part of the north front are refronted in brick to the ground floor and tile-hung to the first floor. The roof is tiled with three brick chimneysstacks: one positioned off centre and two external end stacks. The building is two storeys tall with irregular fenestration, mainly metal-framed casements with leaded lights.

The north or entrance front is timber-framed with plastered infill to the west side, but features a north western gabled sandstone dairy projection and brick with tile-hung first floor to the east. There are casement windows and a six-panelled door on this elevation. The west side has an exposed frame with a curved brace and an external brick chimneystack, with a projection containing a brick bread oven with a penticed tiled roof. The south side is brick with tile-hanging above and three triple casement windows with a plank door. The east front has no windows but features an external brick chimneystack.

Internally, the western end bay, currently the kitchen, has exposed square beams and a cambered entrance to a domed bread oven. The adjoining dairy to the north has an 18th-century brick floor, original shelving with five cambered alcoves below, and a plank door with pintle hinges. The penultimate bay to the west contains a late 16th-century open fireplace with a wooden bressumer and a chamfered spine beam with lambs tongue stops, together with an 18th-century tiled floor. The penultimate bay to the east has exposed square timbers and evidence that the division between it and the eastern bay was originally an external wall. The framing to the end bay is of late 18th or early 19th-century date.

Access to the first floor is by an early 19th-century staircase in the western bay with a plain newel post and stick balustrading. The first floor western bay has a curved tension brace, a tie beam, and a queenpost roof, with a box-framed partition visible. The penultimate bay has wide 16th-century floor boards, jowled posts, and a curved windrace. The eastern bay has 18th-century framing with diagonal braces. Some visible rafters are pegged with no ridgepiece, and the roof contains wattle and daub panels. The building retains several good plank doors with pintle hinges.

The building may be identified with a tenement referred to in 1579 in the Inquisition Post Mortem of Richard Covert at Cuckfield as being worth 40 shillings. The Tithe Map survey of 1842 describes it as a "House in three tenements and garden" occupied by agricultural labourers. From the 1851 census onwards, the building was occupied by grooms or domestic staff serving Dencombe House. The building was converted back to a single house after 1972 when the estate was sold.