Waddon Thatch

Waddon Thatch is a house dating back to the 17th century, with later internal remodeling and alterations undertaken in the 1940s and an extension added at that time. The exterior is whitewashed and rendered, with stone to the first floor level and cob above, while the 1940s work is constructed from concrete block. The thatched roof is gabled at the right end and hipped at the left, with a projecting stack on the right end and an adjoining corbelled stack serving a first-floor room on the right.

The original part of the house consists of a single-depth range, two rooms wide. Evidence suggests a former passage or lobby entrance existed at the rear, leading to the house rather than the front. The design of the building is unusual, perhaps indicating that the left-hand room was never heated, or that it originally had a stack on either the rear wall – buttressed externally – or on the axial wall, backing onto a passage. The right-hand room would then have functioned as a hall or kitchen with storage at the lower end. In the 1940s, an adjoining outbuilding was incorporated into the house with the addition of a second storey, and a thatched wing was added to the rear right, creating an overall L-shaped plan.

The front facade is asymmetrical, with a one-and-three window arrangement and timber guttering. A thatched porch on posts stands at the left-hand end. The left-hand ground and first-floor windows are 3-light windows from the late 17th century, featuring octagonal mullions and square leaded panes, with original stanchions intact. The window above the porch and the right-hand first-floor window are 3-light windows from the early 18th century, also with mullions and square leaded panes. A 20th-century 3-light casement window with three panes per light occupies the ground floor on the right. The left-hand end, largely dating from the 1940s, features a first-floor 3-light mullioned window (a copy of the adjacent 17th-century window) and a ground-floor 3-light casement window with three panes per light.

Inside, the roof has two jointed cruck trusses with threaded purlins, a threaded ridge, and collars mortised into the principals. Most original rafters and battens remain. The right-hand ground-floor room has a chamfered cross beam with run-out stops close to the partition wall, an open fireplace with stone jambs, a replaced lintel, and the remains of a bread oven. The staircase is located in the left-hand room, adjacent to the former partition. Several plank doors survive, one featuring HL hinges. The house is a well-preserved example of vernacular architecture with interesting internal features.