The Old Church House

THE OLD CHURCH HOUSE

This house probably originated as a church house, likely dating to the early 16th century. It is reputedly mentioned in a deed of 1518. The building was remodelled around the early 17th century, with an outbuilding extension added around the late 17th or early 18th century. It is constructed of local limestone rubble with a steeply pitched slate roof, hipped at the right end and half-hipped at the left end.

The house follows a three-room plan, with the lower end to the left and a smaller inner room to the right. A partly blocked full-height early 16th-century window stands directly opposite the doorway, which is positioned left of centre. The early 16th-century window placement suggests either the existing doorway is not original or there was a direct entry into the hall. If the house was originally partly or entirely open to the roof, floors were likely inserted around the early 17th century. A solid wall partition separates the hall from the unheated inner room. The hall is heated by a front lateral stack, while the lower left room has a gable end stack. The chamber above the hall was heated by a rear lateral stack, and the chamber above the lower left room by a front lateral stack. The inner room has a seventeenth-century doorway indicated by a lintel with bar stops, leading to the outbuilding added at right angles to the front of the right-hand end.

The exterior presents two storeys with an asymmetrical five-window range. Ground floor windows include twentieth-century three-light casements, with two positioned in later doorway openings. A doorway to the left of centre has a twentieth-century plank door and door frame, with a slated pentice roof supported on chamfered timber cantilevers covering the doorway and left-hand ground floor windows. A projecting front lateral stack to the right of centre has a tapered top with weathering.

The rear elevation shows the top half of a hall window surviving to the right of centre, featuring a two-light wooden mullion window with roll mouldings, four-centred arch lights, timber spandrels, and leaded panes. A doorway has been inserted into the bottom half of this window, though the stopped chamber lintel above is too long for the opening. Large masonry raking buttresses flank either side of the doorway. To the left of centre, a rear lateral stack with set-off and rebuilt shaft is visible. Various twentieth-century two-light casements with glazing bars and timber lintels occupy other areas. The right-hand wing extends at right angles from the front, dating to around the late 17th or early 18th century. The outbuilding's inner western side is partly open but fitted with a twentieth-century garage door and hipped slate roof, with a twentieth-century two-light casement on the first floor of the end wall.

The interior of the lower left-hand room contains a chamfered hall-beam in the gable end wall and a cross-beam with head beam to a now-removed screen. A very long fireplace lintel with step stops and stone rubble jambs sits below, while front window lintels are chamfered with scroll stops. The hall contains two cross-beams with multiple roll moulds and bar stops, the stops buried in the rear wall. A front lateral fireplace has a chamfered lintel with bar stops and stone rubble jambs. The solid wall separates the hall from the inner room, which has a chamfered hall-beam in the end wall and a chamfered front doorway lintel with bar stops. The first floor left-hand room has a timber corbelled fireplace lintel with ovolo moulding and scroll stops on the front wall.

The roof structure features collars pegged to the face of the principal rafters and trenched purlins.