Boundys

Boundys is a house and former bakery of early 16th-century origin, remodelled in the 17th century with 20th-century renovations. The former bakery at the left end is probably late 19th or early 20th century in date.

The building is constructed of whitewashed rendered cob and stone, with a thatched roof half-hipped at the ends and fitted with two projecting rear lateral stacks. The bakery has an asbestos slate roof, gabled at the ends with a stack at the junction with the house. The plan is T-shaped, with the house occupying the right side and the bakery in a crosswing at the lower left end. A single-storey rear addition to the bakery, built in the 20th century, is weatherboarded with a corrugated iron roof.

The building stands two storeys high with an asymmetrical 1:2 window front. The left hand end displays the projecting gabled front of the bakery crosswing. The eaves thatch of the main range is attractively curved and swept down at the right hand end. A 19th or early 20th-century plank front door is positioned to the right of centre, giving direct access into the middle room (the 17th-century hall).

The original late medieval house was an open hall, floored over in the 17th century. The extent of the late medieval structure is unclear due to roof timber replacement at the left end, but two bays at the right end are smoke-blackened, indicating their original position above the right-hand rooms of the range. Fragmentary smoke-blackened battens to the left of a formerly closed truss may be re-sited or may indicate that the late medieval house extended to the left end, with the lower end being floored first with a thick cross wall and closed truss inserted, leaving the hall open until it was subsequently floored. A rear lateral stack and adjacent newel stair were later added. The inner room to the right is also heated by a rear lateral stack, though this may be a post-17th-century addition. There is no sign of the former passage. The bakery crosswing appears to have truncated the lower end room, which is unheated and has a rear outshut.

Windows display various 18th, 19th and 20th-century insertions. The inner room to the right is lit by a 2-light casement with 3 panes per light. The hall has a large 4-pane fixed window above which is probably an 18th-century 3-light casement with 8 panes per light and square leaded panes. The left hand room of the main range has a ground floor 2-light casement of 3 panes per light and above it a 2-light casement of 6 panes per light. The crosswing at the left end has deep eaves, two 20th-century windows in the front gable end and a loft doorway on the right return. The bakery shop sign survives in the gable. The left return of the crosswing displays a variety of 20th-century timber windows with glazing bars. The rear elevation of the main range is particularly attractive, with the projecting hall stack flanked by a rounded stair turret on one side and the remains of a rounded bread oven on the other.

The interior contains considerable survival of 16th and 17th-century carpentry and joinery. The hall features chamfered scroll-stopped axial beams, a 17th-century fireplace with stone rubble jambs and a scroll-stopped lintel, and a plank and muntin screen to the inner room, exposed on the inner room side only where the chamfered muntins have straight cut stops. Part of the head beam of the screen has been replaced. The newel stair in the hall has timber treads, and the turret has been cut through the foot of a jointed cruck truss. On the first floor, a chamfered stopped 17th-century doorway connects the room over the inner room with the room over the 17th-century hall.

The two right hand bays of the roof are smoke-blackened and retain most of the late medieval rafters, battens and smoke-blackened thatch. One jointed cruck truss has a diagonally set ridge with collar mortised into the principals, which are mortised at the apex with trenched purlins. Some smoke-blackened battens survive in the left hand bay, which has recently had most of its timbers replaced.

Boundys is an evolved house of late medieval origins forming part of a good group at Church Green.