Description

PAYHEMBURY
ST 00 SE
3/88 Pound House
-
-
II

Small farmhouse. Late C17, possibly an earlier core, renovated in 1986. Plastered
cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stack topped with C19 brick; thatch roof,
tile to the cartshed.
Plan: 3-room lobby entrance plan farmhouse facing north-north-west, say north. The
centre and left (east) rooms are the main rooms and the axial stack between them
serves back-to-back fireplaces. Since the rooms are so similar it is not possible
to determine which was the parlour and which was the kitchen. The lobby entrance is
in front of the stack. The corridor along the front of the centre room is an
original feature. It now contains the C20 stair. A similar corridor ran along the
front of the left room but the partition was removed in 1986. The right (west) room
is now used as a kitchen. However before 1986 it was some kind of cellar or store
and open to the roof. The house was once 2 cottages, each with a separate front
doorway and it is tempting to interpret the house as originally as pair of 1-room
plan cottages. Nevertheless the owner claims to have unblocked the original lobby
entrance doorway and that early documents refer to the place as a farmhouse. It is
2 storeys with a secondary lean-to cartshed on the left end.
Exterior: irregular front fenestration with 2 ground floor windows and 5 first
floor windows. These are all C20 casements with glazing bars but vary in size and
materials; some are timber, some are iron-framed and the latest are uPVC. There are
thatch eyebrows over the first floor windows. The lobby entrance doorway is a
little left of centre. This was reopened in 1986 and a reused C19 door was put in.
The roof is hipped both ends.
Interior: is well preserved and contains mostly original late C17 carpentry detail.
Both main rooms are very similar. Both have a large brick fireplace with a
chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel. The crossbeams are both chamfered with
scroll stops. The end of the crossbeam in the left room is now supported on a post
but that in the centre room still rests on the corridor partition. The doorway in
this partition contains an original 2-fielded panel door. The roof is 3 bays. One
truss is an A-frame, (probably a replacement), the other is a side-pegged jointed
cruck with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collar.
This is an interesting example of a small late C17 house.

Listing NGR: ST0836202177

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26390349

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

• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living