Cadbury House

Cadbury House is a house with 17th-century origins, significantly altered and extended around 1830, with 20th-century renovations. The front elevation is whitewashed and rendered to the level of the first-floor windows, above which there is 19th-century timber framing with local stone infill. A right crosswing is constructed from 19th-century stone rubble with dressed quoins and stone dressings. The roof is tiled, gabled at the left end and ends of the wing, with front lateral projecting stone stacks, a lateral stack in the front right corner between the wing and main range, and two rear lateral stacks.

The original layout of the house before the 1830s remodelling is largely lost, although the present main range, running west to east, likely contains the core of a single-depth cross or through passage plan at the west end. Evidence suggests a pre-19th-century rear left outshut. The plan now consists of a main range with two rooms at the left (west) end, an entrance into a 19th-century stair hall to the right, and an 18th-century crosswing at the right end. The 1830s remodelling, in a free Elizabethan style, included an attic storey and a narrow rear service block which absorbed the earlier outshut. Unusual features include a narrow passage dividing the two left-hand rooms, blocked at front and rear, and a lack of a fireplace adjacent to the front lateral stack. The left end of the house has served as the service end since the 19th century.

The exterior is two storeys and attic, with an asymmetrical, picturesque four-window front and a one-window crosswing. The crosswing has pierced bargeboards to the gable. A front door is located on the right, in a chamfered Tudor arched doorway, adjacent to the crosswing, with a projecting stone stack in the angle between the main range and crosswing featuring paired diagonally-set brick shafts. There are three gabled roof dormers with three-light casements and glazing bars. Other windows include one 16-pane sash, casement windows with glazing bars, and two modern casements to the left of the lateral stack. The two windows in the crosswing are mullioned and transomed.

The two left-hand rooms contain corner fireplaces; the left-hand room’s fireplace has ovolo-moulded jambs of volcanic stone. A deeply chamfered crossbeam has no stops and replaced joists, possibly re-sited. The adjacent room has a roughly chamfered crossbeam. The early 19th-century right end of the house features a stick baluster staircase with a ramped handrail and turned newel post. The rooms in the crosswing have good Gothic plaster cornices, with coeval chimneypieces in the front room and a replaced chimneypiece in the rear room. Some first-floor rooms have plain 19th-century chimneypieces, one with a good Gothic iron grate. Surviving 18th-century joinery demonstrates a Georgian refurbishment phase. The house is notable for its attractive use of materials.