Grimbles

Details

HADLOW ASHES LANE TQ 64 NW 6/3 Grimbles 3.3.76 II

House, once 2 cottages, originally a farmhouse. Late C16/early C17 (maybe earlier origins), converted to cottages in the mid/late C19, reunited and modernised circa 1976. Essentially timber-framed but much of the ground floor level is underbuilt with C19 Flemish bond brick employing decorative burnt headers; framing still survives at this level in the rear wall. Above first floor the framing is clad with peg-tile; C19 brick stacks and chimneyshafts; red tile roof including bands of shaped tile.

Plan: 4-room plan house facing south. Parlour at left (west) end heated by an axial stack backing onto the adjoining unheated room. It and the large room right of centre are now united to one. The room right of centre is heated by an axial stack backing onto a small unheated right (east) end room. This is the C19 cottage layout, each cottage having one heated and one unheated room. Both stacks are C19. There were 4 cells before and it is not exactly clear where the earlier fireplaces were. The most likely site is in the room left of centre where no early carpentry is exposed. It is a large space for fireplaces. Maybe the stack was timber-framed. If it were here then the house assumes a conventional late C16/early C17 layout; parlour to left, hall/kitchen in the middle and unheated service rooms to right. The back door is original providing direct entry into the hall/kitchen. Present front doorway is directly opposite. However, the central joist of the putative hall/kitchen suggests there was once an axial partition here. Maybe the stack only heated the parlour and there were 2 service rooms. The right end room might be an addition to a 2-room plan house.

2 storeys with attics in the roofspace and secondary lean-to outshuts on the left end and across the rear.

Exeterior: Attractive symmetrical 4-window front of C19 iron-framed casements containing glazing bar patterns of intersecting hexagonal panes, Central doorway contains C20 door behind a contemporary gabled porch. Tall and steeply-pitched roof is half-hipped each end and contains 2 front gabled dormers with C19 wavey bargeboards.

Interior: The basic structure is essentially late 016/early C17. External framing is exposed inside the outshots at the parlour end; large framing with curving tension braces, and the end wall includes a blocked mullioned window. No carpentry is exposed in the room left of centre and the slender joists of the unheated right end room look like C18 or C19 work. The hall/parlour has heavy scantling joists, the centre one with mortises from a former partition. The wide fireplace is C20, the joists run through to the crosswall behind. The parlour axial beam and the one in the chamber above are chamfered with step stops. The attic rooms are plastered but it seems there are tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins. The right (east) bay roof might be secondary since the purlins are at a different level to those over the rest of the house.

Listing NGR: TQ6215649549

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

430333

Legacy System:

LBS

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