Groundwell House

Groundwell House is a house probably dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, which incorporates earlier features. It was substantially added to and altered during the 19th and 20th centuries. The main range is constructed of rubblestone brought to course with ashlar dressings, while later additions feature red brick dressings. It is roofed with mid 19th-century Welsh slate.

The original range is square on plan, two rooms deep, comprising two storeys with an attic and partial cellar. It measures five bays by five bays. A two-storey wing was added to the rear left during the early to mid 19th century in two separate building campaigns. A single-storey 20th-century brick addition to the left side exists but is not of special architectural interest.

The original range features stone quoins and a chamfered plinth. The original windows are hollow-moulded cross-windows with hoodmoulds and relieving arches on the ground floor. The entrance elevation has a central door of six raised and fielded panels set within a moulded architrave with a tripartite keystone and console-bracketed pediment, flanked by the ends of later tie-rods. Many windows have been altered and now have four-pane sashes (except for a two-pane sash to the first floor of bay two) in keyed plain stone surrounds with sills lower than the original windows. A moulded cornice runs along the elevation. The roof is hipped with a central valley from which two stacks rise, and is adorned with three gabled dormers.

On the rear left a two-light hollow-moulded stone mullioned cellar window is visible. The ground floor has a 19th-century two-light window to the left and on the right a low-level three-light ovolo-moulded wooden-mullioned window, both with timber lintels. To the right is a 19th-century round-arched stair window with a four-pane sash and fanlight with intersecting glazing bars. The right bay is partially masked by the wing addition, but an old attic window with hoodmould remains visible.

The right return features a two-light hollow-moulded stone-mullioned cellar window to the right of centre. Two ground-floor windows are present: that on the right is a later three-light window with a timber lintel, while that on the left and the four windows above are original, except for a four-pane sash to the first floor of the right bay. The windows of bay one are blind, and the ground-floor window bears the date "1757" incised on the left jamb. One gabled dormer is positioned on this elevation.

The left return retains original windows, those of the two right bays being blind with mullions and transoms removed from the two left-hand windows on the first floor. One gabled dormer is present. The adjoining wing has brick quoins and brick surrounds to segmentally arched openings. The left-hand section (formerly a cheese room) has a three-light window and board door, while the right-hand section has two three-light windows, a board door, and a two-light window above. The roof is hipped at the left end with a stack between the sections.

The interior contains notable features. The cellar windows have iron stanchions and wooden lintels. On the ground floor, the rear right room has large-scantling chamfered beams with stopped cyma stops. The rear left room features an early 17th-century (or possibly earlier) style moulded Tudor-arched fireplace, the lintel partly replaced in concrete; the original lintel is said to have been dated "1660" on the right corner. On the first floor, the rear left room has another moulded Tudor-arched fireplace. Some original doors survive throughout the house. The dog-leg stair has wave-moulded soffits to the treads, a pilastered and corniced dado, though the balustrade has been removed. The attic retains old floorboards. The roof structure features old principal rafters, collars, and staggered butt purlins, though the rafters themselves have been replaced.