Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 02/03/2020

SX78137450
1781/0/10004

ILSINGTON
HIGHER SIGFORD
Swete Sigford

(Formerly listed as Sweet Sigford, previously listed as Sweets Sigford, ILSINGTON,)

13.12.01

II*
House; now abandoned farm building. Circa late Medieval; remodelled circa mid-late C16 and later C17; shippon circa early C19. Local limestone rubble and dressed granite. Gable-ended roofs clad in corrugated-iron sheets. Stacks truncated below roofs.

PLAN: two-room and cross/through-passage late Medieval house with hall on right [north east] open to roof and heated from an open hearth fire and service room on left [south west] with chamber above and over passage, and with cellar below. In about the mid-late C16 an axial stack was built at the lower end of the hall backing onto the cross/through-passage, while the hall remained open to the roof. Circa late C17 a floor was inserted into the hall creating a chamber above and winder stairs were built beside the stack to the hall and low end chambers. The storeyed low end was probably truncated at this time and in about the early in the C19 the shippon was rebuilt with a loft above. The house was abandoned in the C19 and has been used as a farm building.

EXTERIOR: two storeys. South east front: house to right has tall hall window and very small stair window to right, cross-passage at centre with dressed granite jambs and lower end on left with large ground and first floor openings and smaller cellar opening below, all without frames. Shippon set back slightly on lower ground level to left with tall doorway on right and two small ground floor window openings on left. Gable end of shippon without openings. High north east gable end of house has small first floor window with possibly re-used Medieval wooden three-light frame with triangular headed lights, the mullions missings. At rear [north west] the shippon at lower level on right is set back slightly and has no openings; house on left has small window below eaves on right with straight joint in masonry below possibly jamb of passage rear doorway.

INTERIOR: cross-passage has plank-and-muntin screen on low side with chamfered shouldered arch doorway and rebated doorway to right and exposed unchamfered joists. Axial stack has granite ashlar back onto passage with chamfered plinth and cornice and large hall fireplace with monolithic chamfered granite jambs on both sides and large slightly cambered chamfered timber bressumer; chamfered plinth at back of fireplace and granite domed oven under newel stairs to left which rise to hall and lower end chambers with chamfered timber door-frames with cranked heads and mason's mitres. Hall has deeply chamfered cross-beams with hollow step stops and bead arris mouldings to joists. Granite flag stone hall floor. Tall hall front window with splayed reveals. Chamber over low end has fireplace on low side, its stack corbelled out into shippon and with granite jambs and chamfered timber bressumer with hollow step stops; splayed window openings at front and rear.

Roof over hall has truss with some smoke-blackening, yoke at apex and mortices for collar and mortices and trenches for purlins and trenched diagonal ridgepiece. Circa C18 roof over low end with three trusses with collars lapped and pegged to principals and one re-used principal with redundant mortice for collar.

Cellar at low end has remains of plaster, unchamfered joists, probably re-used Medieval small three-light chamfered timber window, and doorway on low side wall and blocked opening in rear wall by rear left corner. Shippon has floor beams, but loft floor removed; C20 shippon roof structure.

Swete Sigford is a very rare example of a Medieval two-room and through-passage plan house with an open hall and a three storey service end.

SOURCE: Thorp, J.R.L., Keystone Report K654, March 2002.

Dated 5 August 2002

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17536200

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey