Lower Saunders

Lower Saunders is a house dating from the 16th century, with improvements made in the 17th century. It is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings, with rubble stacks and a thatched roof. The original layout was likely a three- or four-room-and-through-passage plan, facing south towards the road, with an inner room at the left (west) end. There appears to have been a lobby between the hall and the inner room, featuring a newel stair in a projecting turret at the rear. The house has a projecting end stack for the inner room, which is now disused, and a projecting rear lateral stack for the hall.

The building is two storeys high and has an irregular front with five windows, featuring late 19th and 20th century casement windows with glazing bars. There is a passage door towards the right end, which is sheltered by a 20th century thatch-gabled hood. The roof is half-hipped on the right side and gable-ended on the left, extending over the top of the stack. There is a secondary door at the left end and a 20th century window with leaded panes. The rear of the house includes a small light with old leaded glass and some small blocked window embrasures.

Inside, the oldest structural elements are visible in the roof, which features two 16th century closed trusses at the western end. The truss over the lobby-inner room partition may never have been filled above collar level, as the roof shows signs of being smoke-blackened on either side. The roof over the hall, passage, and service end dates from the 18th or 19th century. On the ground floor, any passage screen and hall-lobby partition have been removed. There is a cob crosswall leading to the service end, which has a plain-chamfered axial beam. The hall features a 17th century crossbeam that is chamfered with scroll stops, along with a contemporary rubble fireplace, where the oak lintel has a plain chamfer on its slightly curved soffit. The inner room contains a late 17th to early 18th century axial beam, which is also chamfered with run-out stops.