Queens Folly

Details

TQ 64 SW PEMBURY LOWER GREEN ROAD

5/384 No 64, Queens Folly (formerly known as Brick Cottage)

II

House. Dated 1626 with minor later modernisations. Completely timber-framed on coursed sandstone footings, framing is clad with peg-tile. Brick stack on sandstone ashlar base and staggered brick chimneyshaft of early, if not original brick. Peg-tile roof.

Plan: 3-room plan facing basically south. A large axial stack between the left (west) and centre rooms serves back-to-back fireplaces. The left end room was the parlour and the centre room was the kitchen. Early winder stair to rear of the stack. There may have been an original lobby entrance behind the slack but, if so, no evidence is exposed for one. Certainly there is no room for one in front of the stack. Maybe there was always, as now, direct entry into the kitchen. Small unheated right end room was a service room, probably the buttery, dairy or pantry. Partition between the old kitchen and service room has been removed. Present kitchen in secondary outshots across the back. In fact the original kitchen was 2 bays and the former service room one bay whilst the arrangement of the 2 bedchambers above is the reverse. This makes a rather small kitchen chamber and it may be that the fireplace there is secondary.

House is 2 storeys with attics in the roofspace and lean-to outshots across the whole of the rear.

Exterior: Irregular front fenestration with 3 ground floor windows and a single centre first floor window. Like those around the rest of the house these are C20 casements with a diamond pane leaded effect. Front doorway is right of centre; a C20 Tudor arch containing a contemporary plank door with coverstrips. Roof is gable-ended, stepping down over the right end section (2 bays inside). At the left gable end (overlooking Lower Green Road) the gable is carried on a moulded beam enriched with guilloche and including the carved date 1626 along with the initials IMI.

Interior: Original carpentry appears to be well-preserved. The wall framing is of large scantling with curving tension braces. The front parlour is a good room for a house of this status. It has an intersecting beam 4-panel ceiling, the beams chamfered with scroll stops. The fireplace here is stone ashlar with a chamfered Tudor arch to the oak lintel. Similar ceiling and smaller fireplace to the chamber above. Ceiling over the kitchen has a chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam with a similar axial beam from it to the chimneybreast. Fireplace is plastered with a cambered and chamfered oak lintel. Joists here and over the former sevice room are chamfered with step stops. Fireplace to kitchen chamber is small, brick with a plain oak lintel. Roof of 5 bays, the service end (eastern) 2 bays at a lower level. Despite the change in height roof appears to be of one build and is carried on a series of tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and queen struts.

Queens Folly is a well-preserved, attractive and dated early C17 house of modest status.

Listing NGR: TQ6299841486

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

437928

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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