Pound House

PAYHEMBURY ST 00 SE 3/88 Pound House - - II

Small farmhouse. Late C17, possibly an earlier core, renovated in 1986. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stack topped with C19 brick; thatch roof, tile to the cartshed. Plan: 3-room lobby entrance plan farmhouse facing north-north-west, say north. The centre and left (east) rooms are the main rooms and the axial stack between them serves back-to-back fireplaces. Since the rooms are so similar it is not possible to determine which was the parlour and which was the kitchen. The lobby entrance is in front of the stack. The corridor along the front of the centre room is an original feature. It now contains the C20 stair. A similar corridor ran along the front of the left room but the partition was removed in 1986. The right (west) room is now used as a kitchen. However before 1986 it was some kind of cellar or store and open to the roof. The house was once 2 cottages, each with a separate front doorway and it is tempting to interpret the house as originally as pair of 1-room plan cottages. Nevertheless the owner claims to have unblocked the original lobby entrance doorway and that early documents refer to the place as a farmhouse. It is 2 storeys with a secondary lean-to cartshed on the left end. Exterior: irregular front fenestration with 2 ground floor windows and 5 first floor windows. These are all C20 casements with glazing bars but vary in size and materials; some are timber, some are iron-framed and the latest are uPVC. There are thatch eyebrows over the first floor windows. The lobby entrance doorway is a little left of centre. This was reopened in 1986 and a reused C19 door was put in. The roof is hipped both ends. Interior: is well preserved and contains mostly original late C17 carpentry detail. Both main rooms are very similar. Both have a large brick fireplace with a chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel. The crossbeams are both chamfered with scroll stops. The end of the crossbeam in the left room is now supported on a post but that in the centre room still rests on the corridor partition. The doorway in this partition contains an original 2-fielded panel door. The roof is 3 bays. One truss is an A-frame, (probably a replacement), the other is a side-pegged jointed cruck with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collar. This is an interesting example of a small late C17 house.

Listing NGR: ST0836202177