The Bakehouse

SX 88 SE 6/23

ASHTON HIGHER ASHTON The Bakehouse

30.6.61

GV II House. Circa early C16 origins remodelled circa early/mid C17. Whitewashed and rendered, probably cob and stone rubble; right end stack and axial stack; thatched roof, gabled at ends. Plan: 3 room and through passage plan (front door to passage blocked), lower end to the right, hall stack backing on to passage, unheated inner room. The house originated as a late medieval open hall arrangement and appears to have been floored in 2 phases with the inner room jettied into the hall. C20 rear lean-to. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 4 window front, the eaves thatch eyebrowed over the first floor windows; entrance to through passage now replaced by second window from the left. 2 light C19 or early C20 timber casements with glazing bars except for the similar 3-light hall window. Present entrance is a rear doorway into the inner room. Interior: Good survival of interior features. The plank and muntin screen at the higher end of the hall survives, the muntins chamfered on the hall side with pyramid stops at hall bench level. The hall has a slender moulded jetty beam and no other cross beams except a half beam with a chamfer and scroll stop at the fireplace end; long scratch-moulded axial joists between jetty and half-beam. Moulded brackets, probably C17, are fixed between the half beam and the replaced lintel of the open fireplace which has 1 granite and 1 stone rubble jamb. Thick cross wall between lower end room and passage; lower end room with roughly-chamfered axial beam and a probably C18 or C19 fireplace, C20 stair against rear wall, position of C17 stair possibly adjacent to hall stack. The lower end wall of the hall has a closed truss above with an exposed section of smoke-blackened wattle and daub; closed truss above jetty. First floor room above inner room retains part of a moulded C17 plaster cornice. Roof: Not thoroughly inspected but of jointed cruck construction and heavily sooted above the hall, complete with sooted rafters, battens, thatch and diagonally-set ridge. The lower end closed truss is sooted on the hall side and the timbers over the inner room also appear to be smoke-blackened; roof space over lower end not inspected at time of survey (1986). An attractive evolved house in a prominent position in Higher Ashton. Group value with Pitmans (q.v.) opposite and No 1, Ridgeway.

Listing NGR: SX8565884672