Middleway

Middleway is a house, formerly a blacksmith’s house, dating to the mid-17th century with a 19th-century addition. The walls are plastered cob on rubble footings, with rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brickwork, and a thatched roof. The house now has a three-room plan, facing north. The left (eastern) room is a 19th-century addition and has a stack at one end. The central room has an axial stack in what was formerly an end wall. It is unclear whether the small room at the right (west) end was originally heated by a now-blocked fireplace in the end wall, which is now a party wall with the adjoining house. The house is two storeys high. The front elevation has an irregular arrangement of three late 19th and 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars on the ground floor, and a 19th-century horizontal-sliding sash window above. A 20th-century door is located to the left of centre, although there was likely originally a door at the right (west) end. The roof is gabled. The rear elevation includes another 19th-century horizontal-sliding sash window with some original crown glass panes on the first floor. Inside, the central room retains 17th-century features, including a rubble fireplace with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops and a straight-cut stopped crossbeam. At the west end, there is an oak alternate plank screen with bead-moulded edges. The small room at the west end may have included a blocked fireplace. The apparently original A-frame roof is only partly accessible.