Monks House

Monks House is a detached house, likely originally two cottages, with origins in the 15th century, subsequent development in the 18th century, and extensive remodelling in 1972. It is constructed of ham stone with cut and squared blocks, ashlar dressings, and has a thatched roof between coped gables. The east gable features an obelisk finial and stone slab chimney stacks. The house is a single storey with attics, and comprises six bays. The earliest windows are in bays 1, 4, and 6, and are plain beaded-mullioned windows within architraves, set beneath hood moulds, with 4, 3, and 4 lights respectively. Bays 2 and 3 contain cruciform windows with hollow-chamfer mouldings within wave mould recesses, lacking labels. This window style is repeated in the coped dormer windows in the upper bays 2 and 6; the former has two window units separated by a king mullion, with crocketted finials to the copings, all probably dating to the early 20th century. The lower window in bay 2 blocks a former doorway; a surviving doorway is found in a plain opening to bay 5. A lean-to addition is at the rear, featuring an 18th-century leaded casement window in the west gable. During inspection in September 1985, the property was unoccupied. The interior includes two fireplaces: a large open one in the west gable with a timber lintol and a moulded stone surround to the hall fireplace, which may be a reuse. Smoke-blackened beams indicate a core representing a two-bay hall with a jointed cruck frame, trenched purlins, and two surviving windbraces. To the rear of the ground floor are mutilated remains of two windows with trefoil-cusped lights.