Upper Red House

Upper Red House is a large, substantial house of probable late 17th century origin, with later alterations and extensions. The main block is constructed of English bond brickwork, colourwashed, with a 20th-century tile roof and stone tile eaves. A central brick stack with a 20th-century brick flue rises from the roof. The symmetrical south front features a brick plinth and string course, with small hipped dormer windows in the roof to the right and left. A two-and-a-half-storey central porch, under a similar hipped roof, provides access to a camber arched entrance doorway with an inner plank door and chamfered wooden frame, featuring unglazed oculi on either side. Window openings are segmental arched, with shallow stone sills. The porch has a 6+6 pane casement window on its first floor, matching the similar windows on the first floor of the main house and the corresponding 3+3+3 pane casements below. The west elevation incorporates a gabled wing of former cider house to the left and the side elevation of the main house to the right. Windows on the ground and first floors of the side elevation are 20th-century 3-light mullions with iron casements and small rectangular leaded panes. A hipped dormer window lights the attic. The cider house is one-and-a-half storeys high and has a dormer with a raking monopitch roof. It features a plank door with chamfered wooden frame, a 20th-century 3-light mullion with a flat head, and two small square single pane windows above each other. The east elevation includes a basement with a 3-light window with square section mullions, iron stanchions and a massive 17th-century Tudor arched entrance doorway with a plank door. The ground floor has a 2-light window, the second floor a 3-light mullion window (matching those previously described), and the attic a hipped 2-light dormer. Rear elevation windows also have square section mullions with iron stanchions, incorporating a well-preserved 17th-century ogee moulded mullion on the upper floor. The former cider house on the right has two 2-light windows with iron stanchions.

The interior has a lobby entry leading to principal ground-floor rooms to the left and right. A room to the right has a chamfered transverse ceiling beam with scroll stops; a stone-flagged room to the left features similar beams and chamfered ceiling joists with straight cut stops. A deep oak fireplace lintel includes a hearth recess with a bread oven in the angle and a crane, with two strap-hinged doors to the left of the fireplace. A boarded door leads to a basement stair, while a 17th-century creased door provides access to a narrow winding staircase, which divides at a half landing. First-floor rooms also have chamfered ceiling beams. A rear corridor contains the aforementioned well-preserved 17th-century ogee moulded mullion. The attic provides habitable space, and the collar truss roof is hipped at each end, with morticed principal rafters secured by unusual wooden ‘shoes'. The basement has a broad entrance passage with a post and panel partition on the right, and a cellar with a brick arched vault, brick floor and a large cask stand. The former lofted cider house, now the kitchen, features chamfered ceiling beams and jointed crucks for roof principals.