Molescombe House

Molescombe House is a substantial dwelling of 17th-century or earlier origin, extended in the 17th century and partly remodelled and rebuilt in the 18th century. It stands as a three-storey building on an asymmetrical five-window west front.

The exterior is constructed of local slate rubble, with the right-hand south end finished in slate hanging. The roof is an asbestos tile mansard with large natural slates covering the end gables, sprocketed eaves with moulded wooden cornices, and short stone rubble gable ends. The building has axial stacks with slate weathering (one with a 20th-century brick shaft) and a tall stone rubble lateral stack at the back with a weathered cap.

The principal front elevation displays blocked windows to right and left of centre on the first and second floors. Windows are 18th or 19th-century 16-pane sashes in segmented stone with arch openings and slate sills. Those on the right are tripartite sashes with margin lights, and some have been restored. Two doorways punctuate the front: the right-hand entrance has a round arch with a semi-circular gaslight with later baluster-type spokes and an 18th-century fielded panel door; the left-hand entrance features a segmental stone arch and a 20th-century French casement. The slate-hung south end displays 18th or 19th-century 16-pane sashes on the ground and first floors and a 12-pane sash on the second floor, all with slate sills. At the rear, the centre breaks forward in two stages, each with very tall 18th-century mullion-transom stair windows with glazing bars. A lower two-storey wing to the right has a hipped slate roof with early created ridge tiles. Its end and side windows are small, with ovolo-moulded timber lintels featuring bar stops. 19th and 20th-century two and three-light casements with glazing bars, and a doorway with a plank door and glazed porch, appear on the right-hand (north) side of the rear wing.

The plan comprises a three-room main range with an entrance stairhall between the centre and right-hand rooms. The right-hand room has a lateral stack at the back; the centre room is heated from an axial stack on its left side; the lower left-hand room was the kitchen, heated from a gable-end stack. Behind the lower left end stands a two-storey kitchen wing with a large axial stack backing onto the main range and a smaller unheated room at the end. The rear wing is 17th-century and appears to be an addition to the main front range, which itself appears to be a substantial 18th-century remodelling or entire rebuilding of an earlier, possibly pre-17th-century range. The traditional plan of the earlier structure has not been completely abandoned, but appears to have been realigned on a slightly different axis, possibly after an intermediate 17th-century phase. A partition formerly providing an axial passage at the back of the centre room connecting the lower left end room with the stairhall has been recently removed. Apart from this, very few alterations have been made to the house since the 18th century.

Interior details include the rear wing kitchen, which has closely-spaced chamfered cross-beams with bar stops, a large fireplace with a cambered dressed slate arch, and a 17th-century studded plank door with scratch moulding, wrought-iron hinges and a drop handle. The former dairy has later thin chamfered beams. The roof space of the rear wing is not accessible, but the feet of straight principals are visible.

In the main range, the kitchen at the north end features a large fireplace with a large chamfered slate-on-edge lintel, and a brick-lined bread oven with a stone surround on the right side and a circular recess on the left side, which might have originally contained a newel stair. The small central room (now a dining room) has an 18th-century chimneypiece, an imported early 19th-century grate, and a china cupboard with shaped shelves. The right-hand (drawing) room features an early 18th-century moulded plaster ceiling with a moulded window panel displaying diamond-shape cresting, a moulded cornice and vases of flowers in the corners, an imported bolection-moulded chimneypiece and flanking china-cupboards with shaped shelves. An 18th-century open-well staircase rises to the second floor with moulded string, turned balusters and moulded handrail ramped up to column newels and Chinese Chippendale balustrades across the stair window. The ground floor retains fielded six-panel doors; the first and second floors have an almost complete set of 18th-century chimneypieces and two-panel doors and two-panel cupboard doors, some with hanging pegs inside. Most of the panelled window shutters on the ground floor survive. The roof over the main range is of mansard construction with 18th-century principals featuring pegged halved joints and saddles.

Molescombe was the seat of the Wakehams in the 18th century.