Old Thatch

SX84SW 8/230 21.12.88

STOKENHAM Widewell Old Thatch

GV II

House. Circa early C16, remodelled in C18 and with C20 alterations. Roughcast stone and possibly cob, painted stone rubble at rear. Thatched roof, gabled at lower right hand end and hipped at left end and with eyebrow eaves. Axial and gable end stacks with rebuilt brick shafts. Plan and Development: Basically a 2-room plan. The hall on the left has been divided axially and now has a small kitchen at the front. The hall's axial stack backs onto what was originally the cross or through passage into which a WC has been inserted at the back. On the lower right side of the former passage there is a straight staircase. The large lower right end room has a gable end stack but might have been unheated originally. Originally at least the centre of the house was open to the roof and heated from an open hearth fire since there is the remains of a smoke-blackened truss over the present staircase (the higher end of the lower right hand room). The house was re-roofed in the C18 and it was probably then that the floors were inserted. The hall's axial stack might be an earlier insertion but the lower end stack appears to be much later. The small outshut on the front of the lower end is probably C19 and the single storey extension behind the higher end is a C20 addition. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 3-window east front. Small C20 2-light casements without glazing bars. Doorway at centre with C20 glazed door and C20 thatched porch. Small single storey outbuilding projecting on right. Rear elevation also has C20 casements but large, small C20 single storey extension on right and large raking buttress on left corner. The lower north end has C20 casements on ground floor. Interior: The left hand room (hall) has slate-on-edge fireplace lintel in the axial stack and closely exposed chamfered waney cross-scantling and late C20 fireplace. The roof was largely replaced in the C18 and has collars lapped and pegged to straight principals, but one earlier smoke blackened principal of a truss survives on the lower side of the former cross-passage at the back; it originally had threaded purlins.

Listing NGR: SX8156942072