Mill House

Mill House is a house, originally a mill house, dating probably to the 16th century, with alterations and extensions in the 17th and later centuries, and modernisation around 1975. The construction is primarily cob on rubble footings, with brick and rubble stacks topped with 19th-century brick, and a wheat reed thatched roof. Built across a steep, south-east facing slope overlooking the foundations of a former watermill, the right end is terraced into the hillside, with the rest of the building built up on an exposed stone plinth, which has been patched in places with 18th-century brick. The original design was as a three-room-and-through-passage house, including an inner room towards the south-west (left of the front), extended by one bay in the 19th century. A hall stack backs onto the passage, an axial stack stands to the inner room on what was formerly the gable end, and a 20th-century axial stack is located in the service end. Cob internal partitions are present. A newel stair turret is situated to the rear of the inner room. The house is two storeys high, with the service end containing rooms over a stable or byre in a basement terraced into the hillside. The front has an irregular six-window arrangement. The right half of the front wall, encompassing the passage and service end, projects slightly forward. A passage door, immediately right of the break, has a flight of stone steps leading down to ground level. To its right are two 19th-century three-light wooden casements to the service end, above a stable/byre door, and to the left of a similar two-light casement window. To the left are a narrow single light and a three-light casement to the hall, and a two-light casement to the inner room, all similar to those in the service end. Dormers with thatched gable roofs above have 19th-century casements with small rectangular glass panes. The three-light window over the hall retains a 17th-century ovolo-moulded lintel. A 19th-century extension is at the left end, featuring a two-light casement. The line of the eaves is irregular and the roof line drops sharply right of the hall stack. The roof is hipped at each end. The interior has 20th-century plasterwork and fittings which conceal the original fabric of the service end, and a flat-roofed rear outshot added around 1975. The hall contains an 18th-century brick fireplace with a cambered oak lintel, incorporating a large side-oven to the left. Two mid-17th century crossbeams are chamfered with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, and the two-bay roof above is supported on a side-pegged jointed cruck truss. The roof space is inaccessible, but the timbers are reported to be smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire in the hall. A 17th-century oak doorframe to the rear of the inner room leads to a contemporary oak newel stair in a cob turret. This turret includes an oak two-light, ovolo-moulded window frame, as well as a contemporary oak three-light window with ovolo-moulded mullions over the rear passage door. Neopardy Mill was first recorded in 1249.