The Tree Inn

The Tree Inn is a public house with origins in the 16th century, significantly altered in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is situated on Fore Street in Stratton. The building is constructed with whitewashed and plastered frontages, some walls of stud with brick nogging, and has a slate roof. A brick chimney stands to the rear, and a chimney of local brick was repaired in the 19th or 20th century to the left gable end. The layout includes a rear courtyard with a coach entrance between two ranges linked at first floor level. The original hall is likely to the right of the coach entrance, with a rear right wing possibly serving as a heated parlour, alongside a kitchen and service rooms in the left-hand range.

The building is built against a slope, presenting a two-storey and basement form on the left, and two storeys on the right. The right-hand range and coach entrance are separately roofed and set at a slight angle to the left-hand range. The front elevation is long, with a 4+1+2 window arrangement and a platband on the left-hand range. Windows are a mix of 19th and 20th-century styles; the ground floor features tripartite sashes with 12 panes per light to the left, a 16-pane sash to the left of the coach entrance, a tripartite sash with 16 panes to the central light and 4 panes to the outer lights to the right of the coach entrance, and a double sash with 10 panes per light to the right. First-floor windows on the left-hand range are 3-light casements with 8 panes per light, with similar windows above the coach entrance and to the right of the first floor. A 4-light window is located to the right of the coach entrance. A blocked, arched timber doorway from the coachway leads into the left-hand range.

Inside, a ground-floor room on the right has a partly blocked fireplace at the right gable end, and two cross beams – one chamfered and stopped, and one boxed in. The ground-floor rear right contains a large fireplace with a fireplace beam. The left-hand range features exposed ceiling beams and a fireplace with a chamfered and stopped beam. The roof trusses over the right-hand range are pegged and rough-hewn, while those over the left-hand range are 19th century, with one surviving pegged collar rafter truss. A 19th-century dogleg staircase with stick balusters is located at the rear of the left range. Tradition states that Anthony Payne, a retainer to the Grenvilles of Stowe, was born here in 1610. Early 20th-century drawings indicate a former gable above the coach entrance, featuring an oriel window carried on brackets.