Description

OFFLEY HIGH STREET
TL 1427 (East side)
Great Offley

12/90 No. 33
9.6.52 (Court House (formerly listed
as Post Office)
GV II*

House. Late C14 open hall house with contemporary 2-storeys jettied
crosswing on roadside to W, early C17 chimney and floor inserted in hall
and front wall below jetty rebuilt leaving shallow jetty. Restored and
rear crosswing added 1972-3. Timber frame roughcast, with upper floor of
wings dark weatherboarded. Steep old red tile roofs. A 2-bays medieval
hall with base-cruck central truss, spere-posts define cross-passage at
E end with service rooms presumably on site of modern rear crosswing.
Front range had central entrance on W with evidence for 2 rooms
separated by a passage in the middle. Rooms probably a parlour and a
shop. Chimney inserted in lower bay of hall backing onto cross-passage.
The W front has a roughcast ground floor and dark weatherboarded 1st
floor with a shallow jetty on 2 curved brackets. 2 windows to each floor
and central entrance. 2-lights flush casements and horizontally boarded
door. Gabled dormer to S roofslope of hall range. Interior has exposed
frame and roof with hall only half floored now. Collar purlin roofs
contemporary in both old parts with short square crown-posts with caps
and bases of 3 chamfered mouldings, 4-way bracing, smoke-blackening
(slighter in crosswing), and splayed and tabled undercut scarf joints
with central square peg in arcade plates and shared wallplate/tie-beam
at junction of ranges. Curved wind-braces from backs of heavy,
base-cruck truss with collar and arched braces supporting collar
carrying crown-post. Spere posts have pronounced jowls. Similar
collar-purlin roof to W cross-wing of 2-bays with taller posts with same
ornamental square part with cap and base moulded and heavy
square-section 4-way bracing. Added purlin and inclined queen-post in
each slope. Marks on heavy flat irregular cross-joists of floor for
jetty-beam further back within room. Mortices for brackets to front now
gone, and for a central passage giving onto a room on each side. Stair
in position of present winding stair in NE corner of wing. Chamfered
lintel to open fireplace in hall. A fine and complete C14 hall house.
(Pevsner (1977)265: RCHM Typescript).

Listing NGR: TL1434427014

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17555200

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

• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)