Description

DEBENHAM HIGH STREET (west side)
TM 16 SE
6/110 No.56 (formerly listed
9.12.55 as Oakcroft; House
adjoining Oakcroft on SE
side)

GV II

House. A late C14 single-ended Wealden-type house with early-mid C16 wing to
rear. The later upper end of this house is now within No.54 adjacent (qv.
Item 6/109). Restored 1974-6. Timber framed and rendered, exposed studding
at front. Mid rail has remains of embattled ornament. Pantiled roof. 2
storeys and attic. Jettied service cell with exposed joist-ends; traces of
one carved buttress shaft. Flying wallplate has original brackets. Each
floor has 2 oak mullioned windows of 1986. To extreme left a re-used C16-C17
battened plank door. A second doorway to right is now blocked. Stack has
axial shaft. Interior. Former open hall is of raised-aisle form. Low tie
beam with shafted soffit, formerly knee-braced to wallposts. This carries
tall cross-quadrate arcade posts with massive braces to the upper tie beam,
meeting at the centre. Side ties to wallplates, that to rear with 2 braces,
that to front extending to flying wallplate to which the truss is symmetrical.
Evidence for an upper crown-post truss: this, together with the arcade plates,
is missing, the roof a much later reconstruction re-using many sooted rafters.
At the upper end of the hall is a knee-braced tie beam with evidence for
studding above but not below. This implies the house was built against an
earlier wing. A later rebuild of this wing has a crude scarf joint with the
C14 wallplate which has failed. Largely intact studding. Rear wall has
cross-entry doorway with 2-centred arch and 6-light hall window with square
mullions. Plain joists at service end with evidence for axial division. C16
inserted floor has chamfered joists. Stack inserted in lower bay of hall, in
2 phases; fireplace in service end has lintol formed from re-used timber
showing pegholes for medieval doorhead. Rear wing, in 2 1/2 bays, has widely-
spaced studs, irregular plain joists and a side purlin roof replacing one of
crown-post type.

Listing NGR: TM1744263112

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26283685

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)