31, High Street

House at 31 High Street, Bruton

This is a town house of late 13th-century origins, substantially reconstructed in 1453/4 and partly rebuilt in the 16th or 17th century, then remodelled in the 18th century. The building is timber-framed, largely rebuilt in stone rubble, partly rendered, with a pantile roof and a gabled cross-wing on the left. It has a stone axial stack with a tall brick shaft.

The plan comprises a hall and through-passage on the right (north-east) with a cross-wing on the left (south-west). Tree-ring dating has established that the beam in the cellar of the cross-wing dates from 1272–1318, though the cross-wing itself above was reconstructed in the mid-15th century (tree-ring date 1453/5). The hall and through-passage range was rebuilt in the 16th or 17th century as two storeys with a stair turret at the rear of the hall. In the 18th century the entire house was remodelled, when an axial partition was inserted into the hall to form a hall at the back and a parlour or kitchen at the front. A single-storey extension was added behind the cross-wing in the late 19th century. It is uncertain whether the house originally extended further north or whether the through-passage led to a service range at the back.

The exterior presents two storeys. The south-east front has three bays with a slightly projecting gabled cross-wing to the left. The cross-wing features 9-pane sashes on the ground floor and a canted oriel above with a sash and cornice continued over small flanking 4-pane sashes. The main range to the right has a 2-light casement with glazing bars on the ground floor and a wide through-passage doorway on the right with panelled double doors. Above the doorway is a carved stone corbel head, probably removed from the demolished Bruton Abbey. The rear (north-west) elevation shows a projecting stair turret on the left, a small gable on the right above a late 19th-century flat-roof single-storey extension, and various small casements, sashes and a glazed door to the left of centre.

The interior contains 18th and 19th-century joinery including panelled doors and dado in the hall at the back. The former hall has deeply chamfered cross-beams with stops and an exposed unchamfered beam at the high end associated with the timber-framed cross-wing. A fireplace in the stack backs onto the through-passage, flanked by a Victorian fireplace with cupboards with panelled doors. Newel stairs occupy the stair turret at the rear of the hall. The hall chamber preserves the exposed timber-frame wall of the cross-wing with tension-braces and traces of smoke-blackening from the open-hearth fire of the former open hall. The cross-wing shows some exposed timber-framing on the first floor, including wall-framing with curved tension-braces and a chamfered jowled post on the south-west side, and a coved ceiling in the front chamber.

The three-bay roof of the former hall has collar-trusses with cranked collars, wind-braces, curved tenoned or threaded purlins, a diagonal ridgepiece and re-set common rafters, with possible traces of smoke-blackening. The two-bay cross-wing roof, tree-ring dated 1453/4, has a truncated north-west bay with chamfered arch-braced trusses, straight collars with raking struts above. The principals are jowled at the top to form ogee-pointed apexes; the common-rafter couples are possibly re-set. The cellar of the cross-wing contains a large chamfered cross-beam, tree-ring dated 1272–1318, supported at the north-east end on a massive chamfered curved brace rising from the floor and mortice-and-tenoned into the soffit of the beam. The south-west end of the beam has a scarf joint (splayed and tabled with under-squinted abutments, secured by folding wedges and eight face-pegs); the brace is missing and supported on a pier. Mortices for floor joists that are re-set above remain visible. Stone winder stairs lead to the ground floor.