The Ashes

The Ashes is a house dating from the mid-16th century with late 16th-century wall paintings, subsequently altered in the 18th century and later.

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION

The house is built of roughly squared and coursed pink sandstone (Greystoke Pink) with red sandstone quoins and dressings. The east elevation and north gable have been subsequently rendered. The roof is covered in Lakeland slate with sandstone chimney stacks.

PLAN AND EXTERIOR

The building is rectangular with thick walls, oriented north-south, with a secondary continuous rear outshut. The main east-facing elevation stands on a rough plinth and has two storeys and five bays beneath a pitched roof of graduated Lakeland slate with coped gables and end corniced chimney stacks.

The ground floor has four windows with round-arched lights in double-chamfered surrounds and small sunk panels in the spandrels. All have individual hoodmoulds with label stops—these windows are characteristic of the mid-16th century in Cumbria. The first floor has five square-headed stone mullioned windows with a continuous, interlinked hood mould. Their surrounds have a small step and single chamfer, and they appear less weathered than the ground floor windows. Each floor has a three-light window at the south end and others of two lights.

The central ground floor bay has an off-set entrance with a top-glazed four-panel door in a square-headed chamfered stone surround. The form of its head suggests it formerly had a triangular arch. The lower quoins at the south-east corner have been cut diagonally, and small sockets for bars suggest the former presence of a small window here. This may have been set within an angle between the main house and a now removed south range. A corresponding rendered feature in the same position on the north-east corner possibly indicates a similar feature associated with a now removed north range.

The right return is partially rendered. Where exposed stonework is visible, parts of two windows can be seen: a first floor single-light square-headed window in a chamfered surround and a larger window of similar form at attic level, possibly lighting a former stairwell. The left return is exposed red sandstone with a pair of small square-headed windows at attic level either side of the chimney stack. The rear elevation (now internal to the outshut) has three small original windows—one at ground floor and two at first floor. The rear outshut has three 20th-century windows to each floor, all fitted with double four-light casements, and a single large semi-circular ground floor window to the right end.

INTERIOR

The house is entered from the east doorway into an east-west cross passage with a parlour off to the north and a hall off to the south. The north door jamb is rounded in plan, but that to the south is located hard against the partition between the hall and the passage, suggesting some alteration. The opposing door into the outshut at the west end of the cross passage appears modern in character.

The hall has a stone-flagged floor and a high-quality oak beamed ceiling whose principal moulded beams have hollow double chamfers. They are set north-south with heavier moulded axial joints with shallow arched soffits and sunk panels in the spandrels forming panels of smaller joists. The hall also features a large shallow segmental-arched stone fireplace that is chamfered with stops to each jamb, a spice cupboard recess, and what may be the remains of a newel staircase next to the fireplace. During restoration work, further remains of early wall paintings were uncovered within this room, part of which remains visible between the main windows. The oak ceiling continues through to the passage, which has evidence of a former stair trap, indicating that the passage partition wall is an insertion. The parlour has an 18th-century plaster ceiling and cornice, two boxed-in ceiling beams with panelled soffits, and a fireplace with chamfered surround that appears to have had a shallow triangular arched head within a square frame, later cut away. An enclosed blind passage divided from the north end of the parlour by a substantial wall may have formerly housed the original staircase. The rear outshut houses an old stone stair. Doors throughout are mostly of wide plank boards with strap hinges.

The first-floor partitions are relatively modern, but original early ceiling beams are visible throughout. There is a chamfered Tudor-arched fireplace in the north gable wall, and the remains of 16th-century Grotesque work wall paintings to the north and west walls. The paintings are arranged in panels to the right and left of the fireplace and to the chimneybreast, extending into the sandstone window frame. They are framed by top and bottom borders and depict fantastic foliage and beasts including two grotesque head profiles to the right of the fireplace and a dog's head with foliage to the west wall. The paintings are thought to have continued around the room, with further remains surviving behind plastered walls.

ROOF STRUCTURE

The original five-bay king post roof structure with carpenters' marks remains in situ. The slender king posts have broad jewelled heads and raking struts. Additional outer principals were added when the eaves level was raised in response to the addition of the rear outshut. These timbers are reused and have peg holes and mortices. Dendrochronological dating has established that all of these timbers date to the mid-16th century.