Bush House, Including Garden Walls Adjoining To The South-East And South-West

Bush House, including garden walls adjoining to the south-east and south-west

House, formerly a farmhouse. The plan suggests 15th or 16th century origins, but the earliest datable fabric is early to mid-17th century. A kitchen wing was added in the mid to late 17th century, followed by major refurbishment in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The building was modernised in the early 19th century and again around 1920, the latter including Queen Anne style joinery detail by Dart and Francis.

The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with cob stacks topped with 19th century brick, and has a thatch roof.

The house is built to a T-plan with the main block facing south-west and incorporating a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. The inner room at the north-west end has a gable-end stack. The large hall features an axial stack backing onto the passage, and the service end room at the right end has a gable-end stack. A former 2-room plan kitchen block projects at right angles to the rear of the hall, with the second room containing a large gable-end kitchen stack. The main block was reroofed and refurbished in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which has left no evidence of the earlier structural development. The earliest features are found in the hall and date from the early to mid-17th century. The kitchen block is entirely mid to late 17th century. The house underwent some rearrangement in the early 19th century, when the former service end room was rebuilt as a parlour and a service hall added behind. A main stair was probably built at this time, blocking the back of the passage, though this was rebuilt around 1920.

The house is 2 storeys throughout. The exterior displays a regular but asymmetrical 5-window front of early 19th century 16-pane sashes. A garden wall projecting forward divides the fenestration into a 2 and 3-window section. The right 3-window section is symmetrical about the passage front doorway, which contains an early 19th century 6-panel door with panelled reveals and a flat-roofed Doric porch. The main roof is gable-ended. The rear block includes a couple of oak-mullioned casements with rectangular panes of leaded glass at first floor level, which may date from as early as the late 17th century. The eaves on the north-west side, facing onto the rear courtyard, are carried down over a pent roof.

Internally, the hall contains early to mid-17th century features including a stone rubble fireplace (partly relined with brick) and an oak lintel with ovolo moulding and bar run-out stops. The two crossbeams are soffit-chamfered, one with step stops. The mid to late 17th century kitchen block has plain soffit-chamfered ceiling beams and a large fireplace with a soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel containing a large blocked oven. The floor here is cobbled. The service end parlour has early 19th century carpentry. Throughout the building, the roof consists of A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars; those of the main block are augmented with blacksmith's nails. A considerable amount of late 17th, early 18th and early 19th century joinery detail is evident throughout.

A low granite stone rubble wall projects forward from the front, topped with rounded granite ashlar coping and incorporating a stone mounting block on the outside. To the south-west of the house, the garden is enclosed by a high plastered cob wall with thatched coping, much of which has been replaced by brick along the front.

Bush House is an attractive property and forms a group with its courtyard of thatched farmbuildings.