East Leigh House Incuding Cob And Stone Garden Walls To South

East Leigh House including cob and stone garden walls to south

This is a house, formerly a farmhouse, with origins in the late 16th century, possibly with an earlier core. Major improvements, alterations and extensions were undertaken in the 17th century, associated with stone plaques dated 1664 and 1678. The building was modernised in the mid-19th century.

The structure is mostly plastered cob on rubble footings, though stone rubble is exposed to first floor level in the front of the hall. Cob is exposed to the rear of the late 17th-century main block. The stair block is constructed of exposed stone rubble with some cob. The exposed stacks are of neatly-squared blocks of local mudstone topped with 20th-century brick. The roof is thatch, with corrugated asbestos covering the stair block. The house faces south.

The original core occupies the centre and left (west) end of the main block and derives from a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house. The through passage is now at the left end, as the service end room has been demolished. The hall has a slightly projecting front lateral stack. An early 17th-century kitchen block is positioned at right angles to the rear of the hall, with an end stack and oven projection. In the late 17th century the inner room was rebuilt with a stair block projecting to the rear, and another room was added to the right (east) end with an end stack. At this time the main entrance moved to the front of the former inner room, which was given a lobby and converted to an entrance hall. A 20th-century glass-walled outshot has been added to the rear of the passage in the angle of the main block and kitchen.

The front elevation is balanced but asymmetrical with four windows, comprising a variety of mid-19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars, and late 19th-century horned 8-pane sashes at the right end. The main door is right of centre: a mid-19th-century 6-panel door with contemporary flat-roofed porch. The porch features circular section granite columns with plain caps and an unusual moulded entablature including a modillion frieze. Above the porch is a small sandstone plaque inscribed "1K 1664". Another plaque set in the right end stack is inscribed "1K 1678". A second mid-19th-century 6-panel door at the left end of the front provides access to the through passage. The hall stack retains its original rubble chimney shaft, now plastered and extended with 20th-century brick. The roof is gable-ended, as is the rear kitchen block. The rear elevation includes late 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The stair block has a large 19th-century 2-light casement with glazing bars.

The rear passage doorway is late 16th to early 17th-century: an oak doorframe with flat-arched head and chamfered surround. The stops have worn away. It contains a contemporary plank door with plain strap hinges enriched with a star pattern of nail heads and preserves the original oak lock housing.

Interior: The through passage has a pitched cobble floor. The passage-hall partition is a late 16th to early 17th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen with chamfered muntins featuring late step stops. An ovolo-moulded cornice runs along the passage side, and it contains a flat-arched doorway. The large hall fireplace of approximately the same date is built of neatly-squared mudstone blocks with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel and includes an inserted cloam oven. The 3-bay ceiling is carried on late 16th to early 17th-century crossbeams, soffit-chamfered with step stops, although the half beam against the cob crosswall at the upper end appears to be a mid-17th-century replacement with soffit-chamfering and bar-runout stops. Part of the floor at the upper end is of pitched cobbles. Another oak flat-arched doorframe with chamfered surround and step stops leads from the hall to the kitchen. The kitchen has a plain axial beam and a large rubble fireplace with a plain oak lintel and an inserted or relined late 19th-century oven. The entrance hall, the former inner room, has a late 16th to early 17th-century crossbeam, mutilated but soffit-chamfered with step stops. The doors to the hall and entrance lobby are late 17th-century fielded panel doors hung on early H-hinges. The end room was refurbished in the late 19th century and no earlier features are visible. The stairs were replaced at the same time.

On the first floor, the chambers over the hall and passage show mostly late 16th to early 17th-century features. They are separated by an oak-framed close-studded closed truss which includes a flat-arched doorway with chamfered surround and step stops. An early 17th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen, its muntins chamfered with scroll stops, is now used to line the end wall. Both the closed truss and the open truss over the hall chamber are side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. They are not smoke-blackened. The doorway through the cob crosswall at the upper end of the hall chamber has an early 17th-century chamfered and scroll-stopped oak frame. The rest of the roof of the main block has been altered but most appears to be 17th-century carpentry. Towards the east end is an apparently early 17th-century A-frame truss with pegged dovetail lap-jointed collar with two sets of threaded purlins. The kitchen roof is probably late 17th-century, comprising tall A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars.

The front garden is enclosed by a 19th-century low rubble wall with 20th-century concrete coping to the west and cob with slate and corrugated asbestos coping to the south and east. Until 1921 the house was occupied by the Kingdom family according to the present owner.