| Description | Littletown, Warley. Mid 17th century rural house.
'Long, traditional stone house with stone roof. 2 storeys. Various mullioned windows (some very long) to main south front. 2 storeyed gabled porch. Continuous drip moulding to east part of front. Lean to at rear'.
(English Heritage listed building description. Date listed 03/11/1954. Date amended 23/11/1973. http://list.english heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1261484. Web site accessed 15/01/2014).
Littletown was the subject of an archaeological assessment by Colum Giles in 1980 as part of the WYAS/RCHME Rural Houses Survey. The photographic images and sketch plan produced by the assessment are held by YWAAS (Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1980). The fieldwork report is transcribed below:
'This is a stone house, dating probably from the middle of the 17th century. It is of two storeys, faces south and has a linear plan of three cells with a continuous outshut at the rear.
The south front retains much of its original detail. The masonry here is in well coursed gritstone. The windows to housebody and parlour have recessed splayed mullion windows; elsewhere the windows have splayed mullions flush with the surface of the wall. A continuous hood mould unites the windows to housebody and parlour. In the early 18th century a two storey porch was added to protect the main entry. The original south doorway has a segmental lintel with a chamfered surround. It opened into a passage running right through the house. Despite the late nature of the north doorway, this is likely to represent the original plan. To the east of the passage lies the house body. This is heated by a fireplace on the wall backing onto the passage. Both fireplace and wall, however, are additions. The wall is only thin, and the straight joint between it and the front wall of the house show that it has replaced a timber wall. This timber wall formed the reredos for the firehood which was the original means of heating the room. Surviving from the firehood are the bressumer (with mortises in its west face for the bearer beams of the hood) and the heck post supporting the north end of the bressumer. The heck itself would have been of timber, but this too has been replaced by a stone screen.
To the east of the housebody is the parlour heated by an (probably) original fireplace on the north gable wall; the fireplace has a square head and a chamfered surround. The parlour is ceiled not with the usual beams and joists, but with very heavy joists running east west. Below the passage lies a room which was probably unheated originally but which had a stack added in, perhaps, the 18th century. The rear of the house has a series of featureless service rooms. The doorway from housebody to the central room retains it original pegged wooden surround; the lintel is shaped. A doorway leads down to a cellar near the north east corner of the housebody but it is not certain that the cellar is original.
The first floor shows some timbers in the outshut construction which have clearly been re used from a timber framed structure.
The barn [PRN 12145] immediately to the south of the house shows signs of 17th century masonry, but in the 19th century the walls were raised and the barn re roofed'.
(Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1980. 'Littletown, Warley'). |