The Rib

The Rib

This is a substantial medieval hall house built of coursed local sandstone rubble with Chilcote and Doulting ashlar dressings, clay pantile and slate roofs, and brick and stone chimney stacks.

The building originated as an open hall oriented west to east with a screens passage at its west end. The hall was originally flanked by service rooms to the west and a solar wing to the east, both now demolished (the service rooms as recently as the mid-20th century). To the north-east of the hall are two parallel wings dating to the early 16th century and late 16th/early 17th century respectively, with further additions from the 19th century to the north and east.

The principal north elevation is complex, displaying from left to right two gabled wings, a recessed stair bay, and a projecting two-storey porch. The two eastern gables are crowned with 19th-century ashlar chimneys set diagonally with simple caps. The second gable has a small chamfered stone-surrounded single-light window to the first floor. The west return of the earlier left-hand wing has two sash windows and evidence of a blocked four-centred window head adjacent to the first-floor window. In front of the gabled wings is a single-storey 19th-century addition with rendered walls and regularly-spaced mullion windows. The recessed stair bay with catslide roof was added in the early 19th century and features a pointed arched window with Y tracery at mezzanine level.

The porch to the right has corner buttresses and a gable finial, with its north face rendered. It contains an off-centre doorway with a four-centred arch set in a square frame with indented spandrels, the left hand inscribed with the letter 'W' and the other with an 'O' for Canon Osborn. Above the doorway is a moulded panel bearing three tournament-style shields: the left shield has crossed keys, the central one is blank, and the right bears crossed swords. Above this panel is a three-light Perpendicular traceried window under a four-centred arch with vestigial label. Most of the tracery lights retain decorated stained glass including a pair of seraphim flanked by monograms and the initials 'W' and 'O'. The carved doors and fanlight are 19th-century work. A small blocked single light appears in the gable. The west return of the porch has a blocked arch and a tall relieving arch.

The gable end of the hall displays a simple chamfered single-light window to the ground floor and a blocked window at high first-floor level. Diagonal scars in the stonework indicate the position of the adjacent now-demolished service block. The south elevation is a late-18th-century revision comprising three bays with tall two-tier buttresses between them. At ground-floor level to the far left is part of a stone relieving arch over the remains of a jamb and the head of a four-centred doorway, probably formerly the doorway to the screens passage. Each bay has two-light casement doors at ground floor; the upper floor has two-light windows with Y-tracery under vestigial labels with curl stops. The upper right-hand window originally extended over both ground and first floor levels and marks the position of the upper end of the hall. The east gable end of the hall has a sash window to the ground floor and a casement above, with a straight joint with quoins and a possible blocked archway which may have linked to the former solar wing. To the north-east of the hall is a 19th-century gabled two-storey addition with a 20th-century addition, and a 19th-century single-storey range with monopitch roof to the east.

Internally, the porch has timber panelling and a four-panelled framed ceiling with moulded beams. In the inner corner is a squinch—a section of corbelling set diagonally across the angle—possibly marking the location of a winder stair. In the south wall is a square-headed doorway with stone jambs leading from the porch to the right-hand ground-floor room. Immediately beyond the porch doorway, part of an elliptical archway with wave moulding on its exposed south face is visible and is probably the door to the screens passage. The east side of the porch has a square doorway with chamfered surround accessing the stair hall, which contains an early-19th-century open-well staircase with turned newels and stick balustrade.

At the north-east end of the former hall, set within what was originally the external north wall, is a wide four-centred stone archway with trefoil mouldings, possibly a former oriel arch. The ground floor of the former hall is now divided into three rooms. The right-hand west parlour has panelled walls and a shell-headed display case dating from the 1802 refurbishment. In the north wall of the east parlour, formerly the external wall to the hall, is a wide four-centred stone archway with trefoil mouldings and indented spandrels which may represent the remains of a 15th or 16th-century oriel to the hall. This room also has simple cornicing and a Doulting stone fireplace, probably installed in the early 19th century.

The ground floor of the two gabled wings on the north side has been opened up to create one large room featuring an eight-panelled moulded ceiling and cornice probably added when the second gabled wing was built; it is supported by a late-20th-century central post. The east wall has a window with ovolo moulding and a small fireplace with four-centred arch. In the north wall is a large fireplace with square surround which may be reset. The sash windows have fielded panel shutters. The 19th-century addition to the north of the gabled wings retains an oven and a copper; to the east is a narrow four-centred arch doorway with chamfered jambs that may be re-sited.

Upstairs, the former open hall has a six-bay roof with arch-braced principals and four rows of wind braces separated by butt purlins; the central truss has an inserted king strut. The main elements of the roof are all chamfered, and a crenellated cornice plate runs beneath the trusses at the base of the roof, below which are the remains of a quatrefoil-moulded board. The trusses are supported on timber corbels of carved shield-carrying angels except at the upper east end of the hall, now one of the main bedrooms, where the mouldings to the easternmost truss continue further down the wall with octagonal shafting and a moulded bell base upon stone angel corbels. This bedroom also has a fireplace with 19th-century tiles and a timber surround. Some restoration work was undertaken at this upper level in 1989.

The room over the porch, probably a former oratory, has an inserted fireplace in the south-west corner. The first floor of the late 15th/early 16th-century wing retains a depressed four-centred fireplace with plain chamfers descending to pillow stops. The roof over this wing is similar to but later than that in the hall and, although not inspected in 2011, is understood to have three arch-braced collared trusses and also traces of a crenellated cornice. The first-floor room in the adjacent wing of circa 1600 has a depressed four-centred arch fireplace with indented spandrels and moulded piers, with several moulded beams just below ceiling level. The roof (not inspected 2011) has chamfered wind braces rising to single butt purlins at collar height.