Summary
A house, at one time an inn, with origins in the C17 and with later additions, and a late C18-early C19 barn, ancillary linking building and pigsty.
Reasons for Designation
The Old Cricketers, a house, at one time an inn, with origins in the C17 and with later additions, and a late C18-early C19 barn, ancillary linking building and pigsty, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the house is good example of the local vernacular traditions, retaining timber framing and good quality galleted masonry;
* Historic interest: the house retains a significant proportion of historic fabric from its different phases of development, hence has the potential to reveal further information about the patterns of building in the locality;
* Historic use: the ensemble of house, barn and linking range, possibly a former brew house, illustrate the former commercial use of the building as an inn;
* Ancillary buildings: the unusually well-preserved and increasingly rare pigsty provides an insight into the ancillary functions commonly associated with a house of this type;
* Group value: themselves a picturesque ensemble, and with further group value with other listed buildings in the vicinity.
History
The Old Cricketers is a multiphase house thought to originate in the C17, though smoke-blackened roof timbers suggest the possibility that it was an earlier open hall house, which, in the C17 was modernised with a chimneystack, winder stair and ceilings inserted.
It is presumed to have begun life as a timber-framed building, which was ‘improved’, probably in the C18 or early C19, with the principal elevation rebuilt in stone with brick dressings. The southern end of the building, distinguished by the rendering to the elevation, is an extension likely to date from the early to mid-C19. There is a cellar under half of the building and that was extended too, and a set of steps for dray deliveries inserted on the south end, suggesting that the building was at that time in use as an inn. It is known to have ceased use as such at the end of the C19.
The weathered timbers on the internal wall of what is now (2015) the back sitting room suggest that elevation was once exposed. Scarring on the masonry shows the line of an outshut, likely to have been added shortly afterwards. The outshut was extended upwards, creating two gabled projections containing rooms at first-floor level, and modifications to the timber frame of the main range were made to provide access to these. The truss in the stair hall has been modified: within the central two bays of the frame the tie beam has been partially cut, possibly to raise the heights of doorways into what would have been two rooms, which were later united and the partition to the corridor added, at which point the tie beam was fully cut and a section removed from the west end to create full-height access to the new corridor. The footprint of the building has not changed since the 1870 Ordnance Survey maps, however, the single-storey rear projection appears to have been heavily modified or rebuilt.
The barn postdates the main house and may have been used as stabling and a coach house for the inn. The linking range closes the forecourt but does not provide an internal passage. It may have served as a brew house when the building was in use as a pub, or possibly an external kitchen or wash house. There is a pigsty to the rear which was in place by the time of the Ordnance Survey map of 1870.
Details
A house, at one time an inn, with origins in the C17 and with later additions, and a late C18-early C19 barn, ancillary linking building and pigsty.
MATERIALS: the house is mainly constructed from roughly coursed Bargate stone with galleting, brick dressings and hung tile, with substantial elements of timber framing. The roofs are tiled, except for that of the western extension which is slate, and the chimneystacks are brick. The barn and linking range are built from similar materials. Windows to both buildings are timber. The pigsty is a combination of rubble stone and limestone.
PLAN: the house has an irregular, roughly T-shaped footprint with the main range orientated south-west to north-east parallel with, but set back from, Passfield Road. The main range gives the appearance of a lobby entrance plan with a central stack and front door (now blocked), subsequently built upon. It is a single cell deep with extensions to the rear and to the south. The barn stands on the roadside to the north and has a small additional range linking it back to the main house and enclosing the forecourt.
EXTERIOR: the principal, road-facing elevation of the HOUSE is a single storey with attic. The northern three-quarters of the façade is painted stone, and the section to the south is rendered, indicating the line of an extension. The C20 front door is to the far right, and there is a second door on the line of the extension. There are three windows to the ground floor; on the right an original opening survives with a segmental brick arched head, and has a window with three casements of six lights. Left of this is an eight-over-eight pane sash window with an exposed box in a modified opening: the earlier brick arch is visible within the masonry. In the southern extension is a second sash of the same form. There is a storey band of two courses of brick. The roof has two pitched dormers, each with three-light, four-pane casements and tile-hung gables and cheeks. There is a thick central stack constructed from narrow brick.
On the rear elevation two, two-storey half-hipped gables project from the main range on the northern end of the building and to the right is a single-storey hipped range which adjoins the main range beneath a catslide roof. The use of differently sized and coursed stone masonry indicates different dates for the gable extensions. At attic level there are exposed timbers in the gables. Brick is used for quoins and windows and door architraves. The wide rear door is in the right gable. Windows are irregularly sized and spaced; all are casements. In the roof to the main range is a small box dormer to the right of the pair of gables.
The north-east elevation is the half-hipped gable end of the main range of the building and the return of the rear projection. On the ground floor of the main range there is a double casement window within a modified segmental arched opening. The gable is hung with straight and scalloped tiles, and has an eight-light casement in a partially blocked aperture. There is an external chimneystack built upon the rear projection, and to the right of this the roofline of a former single-storey outshut is visible in the masonry.
On the south-west elevation there is a sash window to the ground floor, and a dormer to the attic, both of which are in the style of those found on the front elevation. A modern velux provides access to the cellar.
Between the house and the barn is a small, single-storey pitched LINKING RANGE. This has a half-glazed door with four lights, and a large 18-pane window. There is a brick chimneystack on the north-west elevation.
The half-hipped gable end of the BARN faces onto the forecourt in front of the house and is flush with the linking range. There is a carriage entrance with a timber lintel and a modern garage door. The south-east, road-facing elevation has three regularly sized and spaced windows of four lights beneath the eaves. To the rear there is a timber plank door and a two-light casement at ground level, and three brick-lined breathers beneath the eaves. The north-east gable end is blind.
INTERIOR: the central chimneystack on the main range of the HOUSE has a room on either side and initially would have formed the lobby to the front door. The room to the north contains much exposed timber framing to the rear and north walls, and the ceiling has a thick spine beam with chamfers and stops, and chamfered joists. The wall framing has been modified, with added timbers and infill. There is a large brick inglenook, also modified, with a bread oven, and two timber-lined niches on the lobby face.
A narrow bay forms the hall to the north and contains the C20 stair (not of special interest). To the rear of this, within the northern gabled projection, is a small sitting room with framing on the internal wall that is heavily weathered, indicating it may once have been an external wall. Doors in this section of the house are timber plank and have wrought iron strap hinges with delicately shaped ends. South of the central stack the ground floor is a large single room, now in use as the kitchen, with a decorative scheme in an C18 classical manner, with a dentil box cornice and arched alcoves with moulded architraves and shelves. The cross beams in the ceiling are concealed beneath moulded plaster.
At the back of the building, is a single-storey range leading to the toilet within the southern gabled projection. In the latter the timber framing of the original rear wall is exposed. The space to the rear of the central stack, where a winder stair may once have been, is dry-lined hence concealing fabric which may give clues to the original layout.
Upstairs a spinal corridor runs along the rear wall of the main range and has exposed timber framing for its length; it provides access to a series of rooms along the front of the house, and a room in each of the rear gabled extensions. The bedrooms along the front are partitioned by the infilled roof trusses which are of a queen post type construction, ceiled below the collars. The truss in the stair hall bears the marks of substantial modification, within inserted and blocked openings, signifying alterations to layout of rooms and circulation.
The rooms to the rear are at a lower level than the main range, and are reached through low doors with a step down. Doors are constructed from wide boards and some retain historic timber latches. The form of the timber framing at the junction between the two rear rooms and the main range differs, indicating the extensions were not coeval.
The BARN has three bays with trusses consisting of a tie beam with raking struts and clasped purlins. There is evidence of a blocked doorway converted to a window on the north-west elevation.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: to the west of the barn is a pigsty. It has low walls of roughly coursed stone that slope upwards to a rear wall with a crude timber monopitch canopy supporting a modern corrugated roof (not of special interest). There were originally two enclosures separated by a low wall (which no longer survives),one of which has a stone chute depositing into a trough.
A modern carport, not of interest, stands detached at the front of the house.
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 08/06/2016
