The Wool House, attached outbuildings and garages

The Wool House, with attached outbuildings and garages

The larger part of a former farmhouse, previously two and then three cottages, built in Cotswold vernacular style. The main structure dates from the early to mid-17th century, with later-17th century additions. The complex includes a range of outbuildings: a former barn, well house, and agricultural building (now garaging). The flat-roofed 20th-century extension to the rear of the house is excluded from the listing. Within the garages, the interior partitions and external doors (the southernmost element of the outbuildings) are excluded, but the stone piers between each bay and the remainder of the structure are included.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of coursed and random rubble limestone. The chimneys are built of brick and rubble, with rebuilt and ashlar sections. The roof is laid in stone slate.

Plan and Layout

The structure comprises a single-depth main range orientated roughly east-west, with outbuildings returning to the left and right, and a later-20th century extension to the rear.

Exterior

The main range has a central section of two storeys and attic, with two-storey ranges to the east and west. The outbuildings form a short two-storey and single-storey rear wing at the east end, and a long range of single and two-storey outbuildings to the west end.

The main elevation faces north. A full-gabled section to the right of centre has single-window fenestration, each with multi-paned timber casements. The central section displays a three-light, recessed, chamfered, mullioned casement to the ground floor, with similar two-light windows to the upper floor and attic, all fitted with hoodmoulds. The right corner of the gable is corbelled out above the lower adjacent roof of the right-hand section. To the left of this bay, the entrance is set under a stone lintel and houses a plank door.

The large, slightly later two-storey addition to the left has two half gables and two-window fenestration with three-light 20th-century restored mullioned casements to the ground floor and two-light windows in each gable. A small single stair-light with hoodmould is positioned to the right. Ridge-mounted chimneys stand at each end of this eastern addition; that to the east gable end projects with a corbelled stack. The section to the right has one half-gable with single-window casement fenestration.

The eastern return wing is constructed in two stages: the first of one-and-a-half storeys with a timber casement to the ground-floor east side and a west-facing half gable; the lower, single-storey second stage is blind to the east with a partially open front, half-clad in weatherboard.

The rear elevation is irregular. The main range has a gabled half-dormer to centre and a 20th-century roof light to the left end. A flat-roofed extension to the left of the rear of the main range has 20th-century timber casements and door.

The long outbuilding range to the west is built on land rising away from the house. Closest to the house is a low single-storey section with a cellar underneath. A tall rubble chimney with paired ashlar shafts and moulded caps stands at the junction with the front range. Next, set higher, is a possibly former domestic section with a two-light upper-floor mullioned casement and a ground-floor, off-centre doorway under a chamfered timber lintel.

Adjacent to the south is a longer range with two large, low windows to the right. The former well house stands here, and the left end, formerly a barn, is now a garage and workshop with a wide double doorway under a timber lintel to the right and a timber casement window to the left.

At the far southern end, slightly lower than the cartshed range, is a long single-storey, six-bay range, probably originally an open-fronted shelter or implement shed, later a milking shed, dating from at least the first half of the 19th century and now used as garaging. The main elevation to the east has dressed stone uprights between double plank doors in each of the five openings thus created, with a rubble-stone bay with dressed quoins to the far left. The rear of the garages range, of rubble stone with dressed quoins, is blind except for a doorway under a timber lintel to the far right.

Interior

The main range houses the principal rooms. That in the eastern end has had its internal dividing wall removed. This room has exposed, chamfered transverse beams and fireplaces at either end. The eastern fireplace features a moulded Tudor-arched limestone surround with stepped high stops. Both this fireplace and the other ground-floor fireplace were reportedly moved from the first floor to the ground floor in the later 20th century. The western end fireplace has no surround. A winder stair rises to the north of the chimney breast.

To the west, the central section has a very heavy exposed axial ceiling beam with chamfers and exposed, chamfered joists. The moulded limestone fireplace is roughly square. In the western end wall is a shallow, blocked opening under a timber lintel. A door to the right of the fireplace leads down to a cellar which runs under the present kitchen, stone-built with segmental-arched roofs, various recesses, and a small opening and chute to outside at ground level.

The westernmost room has a transverse ceiling beam with deeper chamfers and stepped stops, and a dog-leg stair rising to the first floor. All three sections have different floor levels.

The first-floor rooms have exposed, chamfered ceiling beams to match those in their respective ground-floor sections. One room retains a 17th-century plank and batten door on pintles.

The kitchen is housed in the first single-storey section of the western range to the rear. Its fireplace has a very shallow stone arch, and the exposed roof structure is a 20th-century replacement.

Outbuildings

Beyond the house, the first outbuilding is unimproved and contains a large, rectangular tightly-jointed limestone tank, formerly used as part of the water supply for the farm, mounted on a stone plinth. The roof trusses are formed from paired principal rafters with tie beams and two rows of purlins.

The former cartshed range has a similar roof structure of paired principal rafters with tie beams and two rows of purlins.

The roof of the garages range is formed from paired principal rafters with tie beams, threaded purlins, and a ridge plank.

Historical Sources

The building is documented on the Arlington tithe map and apportionment of 1840. It is illustrated in Old Cottages in the Cotswold District (1905) by Davie, W.G. and Dawber, E.G., and is discussed in Buildings of England: Gloucestershire 1, The Cotswolds (1999) by Verey, D. and Brooks, A.