By kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery
Two bays remain of a fine three bay medieval barn of good scantling timbers with a crown post tie converted to raking queen posts and clasped purlin roof structure. Attached is a large seventeenth century bay which was probably a granary over a cart shed. This was early converted to a house, with the inglenook hearth at the back and a little forward wing… The barn has recently been floored. There is a cellar under the~ barn.
Pump House is set behind a barn, now a shop, and is parallel with the causeway to the Church. The path to the house passes in front of a large stone house with hipped and gabled roof, set at right angles to Pump House. These three buildings – Pump House, the row of shops, and the stone house – form three sides of a square, and was this perhaps a farmyard square?
Pump House is an attractive building with a stone gable end facing the road with a decorative row of bricks over the window and blocked door. The first floor is timber framed. The wide window has been reduced in size. Beside it are a long catslide roof and a newly built porch extension, in keeping.
The west side has an added, protective stone wall to the eaves, and a gabled roof. This end wall cuts back the barn which has lost its end bay. The east end has a bread oven extending from its chimney. Beside, is the pump~ and a door which is now blocked. This entrance led directly into the living room. The random-laid stone wall to the ground floor has timber framing above set in mid 17th century square panels with slight curved corner tension bracing. The wooden first floor cill carefully laps over the wooden cill to the back of the house, indicating that there was always a stone wall below. But inside there is no lower wall on the road side where the mid-post is set on a brick base. It is possible that there had been a stone wall here, which was removed when the modern opening-up included the small service room under the little wing. The stair to the rooms over respects this partition, which is no longer there.
The back of the building shows clearly the barn stretching beyond the large outside chimney – it is boarded. Inside, the barn has recently been floored over and the upper room extends into the roof space. The central tie remains with raking queen posts now. There are short chisel-cut carpenters’ assembly marks which indicate a later adaptation of a crown post tie, because the central empty mortice remains. There are jowl posts and arching braces up to the tie. The end truss of the barn shows sockets for the rafters at collar level, indicating a half hipped roof to the original barn. This roof was extended when the next building was added. Why the end bay of the barn was given a cellar is not known.
DBRG ref 3045
Pump House (10) probable development
Pump House (11) interior photos