The Pant including attached former Quaker Meeting House

The Pant including attached former Quaker Meeting House

This building comprises a 16th-century hall-house with an attached 17th-century Quaker Meeting House, representing two distinct phases of construction united within a single complex of high architectural and historical significance.

The 16th-century hall-house is timber-framed with a slate roof and two tall rendered stacks; the stack to the right is distinguished by a star-shaped flue. The one-and-a-half-storey southwest front is rendered and fitted with 20th-century transom-style windows with small panes. An off-centre ground-floor entrance doorway to the right is sheltered by a 20th-century porch with a monopitch roof and glazed door. On either side of the porch are 20-pane windows. The first floor features three similar 20-pane windows set within gabled dormers that spring from below the eaves.

The northeast elevation is remarkably unaltered and displays the timber-framed walls of the medieval house. A sill beam rests on a low stone plinth with two tiers of square box-framed panels above. Wall posts at each end are notched below the wall plate to hold the tie beams of former gable crucks. The cross-passage doorway, positioned off-centre to the left, is boarded with applied fillets. To its left is a 17th-century wooden three-light window with ovolo moulding, and to the right a 17th-century two-light stair window also with ovolo detail. Further right stands a 17th-century three-light window with diamond mullions serving the hall. The northeast gable is rendered with 20th-century metal-framed windows on both ground and first floors.

The Late 17th-century Quaker Meeting House is attached at right angles to the lower end of the 16th-century house. It is constructed in English bond brickwork with a slate roof and a tall rendered lateral chimneystack to the northwest. The building rises to two-and-a-half storeys with a basement. A continuous ogee and ovolo moulded string course runs across the first-floor level, and each end-gable bears additional string bands at eaves level and in the gable head. Window openings have skewback lintels with brick voussoirs and 20th-century transom-type windows with small panes.

The southeast front ground and first floors each contain two window openings. The basement has a centre boarded door with a small glazed panel and a small two-light mullion window to the right. The left gable at ground-floor level has a 20th-century boarded door and 20th-century bay window, with blocked openings on the first and attic floors. The right gable features a 20th-century attic window; the first floor retains a fine late 17th-century leaded two-light window with transom and a smaller two-light window to the right; the ground floor has a 20th-century window and a smaller single-pane fixed light to the right.

Interior

The exceptionally well-preserved interior of the 16th-century hall-house has survived with minimal alteration. The building follows a three-unit plan with a cross-passage. The front doorway opens into the cross-passage which runs across the kitchen, formerly the service room at the lower end. The kitchen contains chamfered ceiling beams with hollow and fillet stops (Wern-hir pattern) and a quarry tile floor. On the left, a boarded door with a flat head and chamfered frame opens into the stone-flagged hall, which was originally open to the roof but now contains an inserted late 16th-century floor. The ceiling beams are chamfered with similar hollow and fillet stops. A broad fireplace opening features a deep chamfered timber lintel. Inset into the side wall of the stack is a timber rail inscribed with the date 1687 and the initials I B, probably of John Beadles. To the left of the fireplace is a boarded door serving the fireplace stair.

The hall retains a well-preserved 16th-century post and panel partition with chamfered posts and diagonal stops. To the left is a Tudor-arched doorway with a chamfered wooden frame and boarded door with strap hinges, opening into the parlour at the upper end. The parlour is notable for its exposed timber framing on the north wall.

On the first floor, the timber-framed trusses of the medieval hall are visible. Both gable crucks have been destroyed, but a pair of crucks survive in the chamber above the kitchen. The chamber above the hall contains a fine preserved partition truss with upper V struts above the collar and studs running between collar and tie-beam. The tie-beam has been cut through to accommodate a doorway, presumably inserted when the open hall was floored in the late 16th century. This chamber also contains a small fireplace with a hob grate and plain surround, and a wall cupboard with butterfly hinges.

The principal ground-floor room of the Quaker Meeting House features an ogee moulded fireplace surround with a timber lintel and painted stone jambs, and exposed square-section ceiling beams, also painted. The corresponding room on the first floor has a similar fireplace surround but with brick jambs, chamfered ceiling beams with unusual scroll and torus stops, a moulded door surround with similar stops, and a creased door. The attic was not seen at the time of resurvey.