The Post Office

The Post Office is a house, possibly with earlier church connections, dating back to the 15th century. It was extended in the 17th century and again around the late 18th or early 19th century, and altered in the late 19th or early 20th century. The building is constructed of rendered stone with a clay double-Roman tile roof, featuring gabled ends. It has axial and gable-end stacks with later brick shafts.

The original south cross-wing dates from the 15th century and features a two-room plan, originally incorporating a central through-passage. Above these rooms was a chamber open to a three-bay arch-braced roof. While the through-passage partitions have been removed, markings on the east head-beam suggest a wide doorway once led from the passage to the larger east room. It’s uncertain whether the west room was open to the passage or whether the first floor chamber was heated. In the 17th century, a lateral stack was built on the north side, providing a fireplace for the chamber above. A new wing was added to the north at this time, and in the late 18th or early 19th century, a parallel range was built in the northwest angle, forming a rectangular overall plan.

The east front is asymmetrical, with four windows. The right-hand three-window range features 19th-century three-light casements and a plank door. A gable-end of the cross-wing is visible on the left, with a four-pane sash window on the first floor above a raking buttress. The south return has three-light casements and a doorway through the passage at the centre, featuring a chamfered wooden pointed arch frame and a later plank door. The rear west elevation includes 20th-century windows and a three-window range with small two-light casements on both the first and ground floors, alongside a lean-to porch, a doorway, and a large 20th-century conservatory.

Inside the original south cross-wing, ground floor partitions have been removed, but a head-beam on the east side retains grooves for a screen and markings for a wide opening. There's a stone fireplace with a replaced bressumer on the east end wall. The chamber above, now partitioned and ceilinged, is open to a three-bay arch-braced roof with cambered collars, chamfered tenoned-purlins with run-out stops, curved wind-braces (mostly missing), and common rafters. A later lateral stack is located on the north side of the cross-wing, incorporating a fireplace with a chamfered timber bressumer with cyma stops. The northern range has chamfered cross-beams with diagonal stops and a roof structure with tenoned-purlins halved, lapped and dovetailed to the principals.