Description

TQ 75 SE
3/225

OTHAM
OTHAM STREET (east side)
Synyards, and path between front door and road

25.7.52

GV
I
House. Later C15, C16 and circa 1663. Restored 1905 by P.M. Johnston. Timber framed with plaster infilling. Plain tile roof.

Wealden, with open hall of two roughly equal-length timber-framed bays and storeyed end bays, that to left longer. Both end bays formerly subdivided into two rooms on ground floor. Two storeys, attic and cellar on stone plinth. Right and left end bays jettied, left jetty returning on moulded dragon post. Close-studded. Higher midrail to right hall bay. Broad low window cill across left hall bay. Short arch braces; to each end of flying wall-plate, and springing from each side of an unusual central post under the plate. Post jowled towards house, clasping plate, and resting on short bracketed spur protruding from central truss post just above midrail.

Steeply-pitched hipped roof with gablet to right. Multiple brick stack in front slope of roof, to left end of hall. Later filleted brick stack in front slope of left end of right end bay. Gabled dormer resting on flying wall-plate over right hall bay, sides rising to moulded tie-beam and fillet. Moulded bargeboards.

Three-light ovolo-moulded mullioned window, with inverted heart and date 1663 painted on plaster. Five-light ovolo-moulded mullioned window with carved fillet over, between tie-beam and flying wall-plate. Irregular fenestration of three windows; one two-light latticed casement to centre of each end bay, and window to centre of left hall bay of six narrow round-headed lights, three with ogee-moulded mullions to each side of central stud, and with deep plain wooden head. Similar, but smaller, six-light window to ground floor of left end bay. Four-light ogee-moulded mullion window to right of left hall flay. Blocked four-light diamond mullion window to ground floor of right end bay. Further diamond and ovolo-moulded mullioned windows to gable ends and rear. C16 rectangular bay window on chamfered stone base towards front of left gable end, with six-light ogee-moulded mullioned and transomed window with side-lights. C16 canted eight-light ovolo-moulded mullioned and transomed bay window on stone base to right gable end, brought from a Maidstone house in early C20. Broad boarded door in moulded four-centred arched architrave with hollow spandrels, and with brattished and moulded fillet over, to right end of hall.Short C19 rear return wing to right, ground floor red brick in Flemish bond, first floor weatherboarded, with hipped plain tile roof.

Interior: exposed framing. Moulded four-centred arched doorway with hollow spandrels to rear of cross-passage. Pair of similar service doorways with ground-cill retained under them to right end of hall, within close-studded partition under moulded end-of-hall beam. Moulded, brattished left end of hall beam with plank-and-muntin partition under. Long moulded cill to hall window. Evidence for stairs to rear of each end bay; later cellar stairs now in that position in left end room. Chamfered midrails and chamfered window cill to left end room on both floors. Moulded principal posts to central truss, but tie-beam moved into left hall bay to avoid 1663 dormer window. Tie-beam cambered and hollow-chamfered, morticed for braces towards centre. Crown-post, with restored moulded capital, transferred to inserted axial tie-beam. Inserted floor to hall with chamfered beams.

Hall fireplace with chamfered stone jambs, low vase stops and cambered chamfered bressumer. Brick chimney breast with tapering inset straight-joints. Moulded four-centred-arched stone fireplace with rose, leaf and knot to spandrels, to ground floor of left end room. Differently-moulded four-centred-arched stone fireplace with hollow spandrels to first floor of left end room, with wall-painting to chimney breast of lion and dragon facing each other over vase of fruit and foliage. Further concealed wall-paintings to north and west walls of same room, said to depict merman and mermaid. C16 panelling to various parts of ground floor.

Path: ragstone path about 5' wide and 70' long between front door and road.

Listing NGR: TQ7973453120

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Synyards at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7662947

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

• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  For the Record