Salters

This is a house dating from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with possible building in two phases and a roof raised in the 18th century. The walls are whitewashed cob on stone footings, and the roof is thatched, hipped at the right end and gabled at the left. Two axial stacks are present, one with a handmade brick shaft likely from the 18th or 19th century, and the other at the right end.

The house has a single-depth plan, with three rooms wide. The central room originally contained a fireplace backing onto a through passage, with a long unheated room to the left, formerly divided into two by a thin crosswall. A lower end room to the right was probably originally unheated, and a rear right outshut has a red tiled roof. There is a possibility the house was originally longer to the west, and the carpentry of the ceiling beams suggests a rebuilding or addition at the right (east) end.

A surviving 17th-century roof structure exists over the left-hand room and extended further to the right, but was replaced by a roof of probable 18th-century date with a higher ridge. A 17th-century staircase rises from the centre room, while a second, lower staircase is set against the rear wall of the right-hand room, with access from the former passage. The lower end (east) was likely originally unheated and the stack is from the 18th or 19th century.

The front has an asymmetrical arrangement of one and three windows. A probable 19th-century plank door is positioned to the right of the centre, and a semi-circular bread oven is to the left. There are 2- and 3-light timber casements with glazing bars. A pentice shelters the rear door to the left (west) end of the house.

Inside, the centre room has a large open fireplace with chamfered ashlar masonry jambs, a chamfered lintel with mason’s mitres, and a bread oven. A chamfered stopped axial beam and chamfered stopped lintel are visible at the doorway to the stair. The left-hand room retains a chamfered stopped axial beam, while the right-hand room has an 18th or 19th-century fireplace and a scroll-stopped crossbeam.

The roof over the left (west) end features two side-pegged jointed cruck roof trusses. The ridge indicates the roof structure originally extended further east, but was replaced with an 'A' frame roof with a pegged X apex and nailed collars. The left-hand jointed cruck truss sits unusually close to the thin gable wall.

The house is an attractive example of an evolved building and has group value with Luton Barton House opposite.