Burton House (formerly the Post Office)

Burton House, formerly the Post Office, is a two-storey building with a cellar, dating from the late 17th and 18th centuries, with early 19th-century additions. It is an L-shaped building, incorporating a timber-framed house and a hotel. The exterior is of coursed rubble stone, now overpainted; a break in the stonework is visible from the churchyard and indicates the line of later rear additions. The building has deep boxed eaves and a slate roof, hipped to the front. Two chimneys have brick upper sections. The main entrance on the east side has a vertically hinged door with two tall glazed panels and a small overlight, sheltered by a simple leaded canopy porch supported on cast-iron columns. There are three further exterior doors, all boarded and secured with thumb latches. The building retains a remarkable complete set of early 19th-century windows, all with chamfered timber mullions and small, iron-framed panes with opening casements; larger windows have transoms. Front windows are topped with cambered stone voussoir heads and timber cills, while side windows have cambered brick heads.

The front and north sides have forecourt railings with a plain hooped top design, made by Alexander and Duncan of Leominster.

The interior is largely original. The front parlour and dining room feature dado rails, with remnants of matchboarded panelling and an elaborate 19th-century marble fireplace in the left-hand room. The staircase has plain turned newel posts, stick balusters, and a boarded underside. A small parlour includes two boxed beams, a fireplace, and a panelled alcove cupboard. The older part of the building, including the kitchen, dairy, pantry, and a former tap room, retains visible timber-framed partitions, flag floors, and large chamfered beams with run-out stops. The kitchen has a range with a mantel shelf and spit racks. The dairy contains a salting slab. Later 19th-century additions include store rooms, a back kitchen with a range, copper, and bread oven, and a back staircase. The front portion of the building has six-panel doors, while the rear has boarded doors. A 19th-century fireplace surround with a moulded mantel shelf is found in a first-floor bedroom. Pegged king-post roof trusses are present, along with one surviving earlier timber-framed roof truss, which is a plain tie-beam truss with diagonal braces.