Dunsaller

Dunsaller is a large house of early 16th-century origins, substantially remodelled and extended in the 17th century with an early 20th-century rear addition. The building is whitewashed and rendered rubble stone with a thatched roof, gabled at the left end and hipped at the right end. A wing is hipped to the front and gabled to the rear. Chimneys include a projecting local stone stack at the right end with a stone shaft and moulded cornice, a left end stack, an axial stack to the right of the entrance, and a rear lateral stack.

The house is arranged on a T-plan with the main range running roughly east-west and a north-south crosswing at the eastern end. This represents a complex evolution from medieval times. The main range comprises three rooms with a through passage, two rooms to the left and one to the right of the passage. The core is a medieval open hall house, apparently with two open hearths, an unusual feature that makes it difficult to establish the original lower end. Smoke-blackened roof timbers extending over the room to the left of the passage suggest this may have been the higher end of the medieval house. The medieval roof also extended over the room to the right, now heated by an axial stack that truncates the sooted timbers. The house was presumably floored in the early 17th century when stacks were added. Later in the 17th century, a north-south two-room crosswing was likely added at the eastern end as a parlour wing. The two-storey porch to the through passage is also a 17th-century addition. In the early 20th century, a brick rear addition brought the rear of the main range flush with the rear end wall of the wing, and contains the present main stair.

Externally, the building displays two storeys with an asymmetrical front elevation of four windows and two windows in the crosswing, with a gabled two-storey porch to the through passage. The outer porch door has a richly moulded wooden frame with a double ovolo on the inside and a single ovolo on the exterior. The inner doorway has an ovolo-moulded frame with urn stops and a timber door with studs. A two-light casement in the porch gable has square leaded panes. The windows in the front of the wing are 20th-century with metal frames and square leaded panes. Other windows are of various designs and sizes, including several probably 18th-century three-light casements with square leaded panes, a probably 18th-century sliding sash on the first floor to the right of the porch, and timber sashes and casements with glazing bars. The east elevation has several sliding sashes. The left return of the main range has a moulded thatched bread oven.

Inside, the room to the right of the passage is paved with 18th-century black and white stone slabs and has a partly blocked massive 17th-century fireplace with a chamfered 17th-century lintel and local volcanic stone jambs with pyramid stops. The rear of the stack, backing on to the passage, is fine ashlar masonry of local volcanic trap. The room to the left of the passage, heated from a lateral stack, has a small probably rebuilt fireplace with stone jambs and a timber lintel. A chamfered axial beam with run-out stops rests on a shoulder-headed post against the plank and muntin passage screen, which has chamfered muntins and a shoulder-headed doorway into the passage. The left hand room of the range has a plastered-over cross beam and a large 17th-century kitchen fireplace of volcanic stone with a bread oven and chamfered lintel with scroll stops. The east crosswing has been repartitioned; the southern room has a fine fireplace with moulded volcanic stone jambs with cushion stops and an ovolo-moulded oak lintel.

The roof is smoke-blackened side-pegged jointed cruck construction with a butt-ridge, two tiers of purlins, and some sooted thatch. A large-framed partition above the passage/service screen is smoke-blackened on both sides, indicating two open hearths. The roof over the present hall is of x-apex pegged construction and may be an 18th-century replacement with a higher roofline than its medieval predecessor. The eastern wing has pegged collar-rafter roof trusses with two sets of threaded purlins and a diagonally-set ridge. The principals rest awkwardly on very short jointed cruck posts which may be re-used.

Dunsaller is documented in 1238 as Dunneshalre. It is a substantial evolved house of late medieval origins.