Description

CHRISTOW DRY LANE, Christow SX 88 NW 2/104 Wells House including garden wall and well to south east GV II Former farmhouse including garden wall and well. Circa late medieval origins, remodelled and extended in the C17 with a further remodelling of the C19. Cob and stone, colourwashed and rendered ; slate roof, hipped at left end of main block and carried down as a hip over the wing at the right end 2 chimneys in an axial stack and front right corner stack to main block,axial stack and front right corner stack to wing, the axial stack with a granite shaft with tapering cap ; brick stack to rear outshut. Plan: Complex evolution and plan. The house now faces approximately east and consists of a single depth block at the left (south) with a 2-storey rear addition of narrow service rooms; the right (north) end of the house is deceptive; it was originally roofed at right angles to the main block and projected beyond the rear (west) wall of the main block but has been truncated and re-roofed on a north/south axis over a late medieval roof on a west/east axis. Presumably this was the original range although it is difficult to determine the plan from what is left. A larger room to the east is heated from a C19 or even C20 fireplace back to back with a massive blocked granite fireplace in the narrow rear service room ; this may be the late C16/early C17 hall fireplace, the hall originally extending further to the west. If this were the case the present east room would the former passage and lower end of the medieval house, the present main block being a C17 2 room parlour or kitchen wing added at right angles to the medieval house and subsequently extended by a probably C19 1 room plan addition at the left (south) end. The 2 storey rear lean- to is probably also C19, giving a C19 kitchen on the ground floor. The house is entered to right of centre into a stair hall taken out of the south room of the medieval house ; second stair with granite steps rises from the main block on the rear wall and is contained within the 2-storey rear block. Tiled lean-to at right end. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 3+1 window front slightly set back at the right end. Front door with porch with slate roof carried on post in the angle where the right end is set back. C20 fenestration of 2- and 3-light casements with glazing bars, C20 French window ground floor left. Interior: The front right room has renewed ceiling timbers and a rebuilt fireplace, the fireplace broken into the rear of a C16 or C17 granite stack with a blocked fireplace with chamfered granite jambs and a granite lintel. The C17 main block, to the left is now 1 room on plan (formerly 2 rooms) with chamfered scroll-stopped crossbeams (one boxed-in), open fireplace, reduced in size with stone rubble jambs and a C17 chamfered stopped lintel ; dog leg granite stair with early C19 balusters rises from the rear wall with a chamfered stopped timber lintel over the doorway. The extreme left hand room is a C19 addition, the fireplace broken into the rear of the C17 stack. Roof: Not fully inspected at time of survey (1987) but evidently of considerable interest. 1 cruck truss survives over the right end of the house, the feet are visible in the ground floor rooms and descend to the stone footings, the apex is said to be smoke-blackened. Timbers over the main block, at right angles to the sooted roof are probably C17, said to be pegged, of large scantling but not smoke-blackened. A granite capped garden wall to the garden east of the house incorporates timber doors to a well facing the road and an iron pump on the garden side. An evolved house of medieval origins : group value with the outbuilding to the north east and walled garden to the north.

Listing NGR: SX8308185395

External Links

• Wikidata Q26457460

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Recommended Books

• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)