Listed Building: WATTISFIELD HALL, GARDEN WALLS AND GATE PIERS (281838)

TM 07 SW WATTISFIELD CHAPEL ROAD 3/93 Wattisfield Hall, Garden 15/11/54 Walls and Gate Piers (formerly listed as Wattisfield GV Hall and two farms) II* Farmhouse, formerly manorial. Early C17. Timber-framed and rendered with plaintiled roofs. 2 storeys and attics. The main house is in a single long. range with central entry and gable-end chimnney-stacks. Both stacks are in red brick, set externally, on the left with 5 shafts, on the right with 3. 2 similar stacks on the rear wall each have 2 shafts. All these stacks are similar in style: the high octagonal shafts have moulded bases and starred caps, and were clearly intended as a display feature, although they do relate to 12 hearths in the house. 5 windows to the upper floor of the front, 4 to the lower, all tripartite early C19 sashes with vertical glazing-bars only. One of the upper windows is in the 2-storey porch containing the entry: this porch is jettied on 3 sides, with the upper part of the 2 corner posts projecting from the plaster; 4-light side openings each have heavily turned C17 balusters; rectangular doorway; flat-topped roof with hipped sides. Entrance door inside with 6 raised fielded panels. On the rear wall the chimney-stacks are set between 3 short gabled wings with projecting tie-beams, rendered. The central wing has an original 6-light oriel window on the upper floor with ovolo-moulded mullions and transome, now blocked by the insertion of a stair against it. At the left end of the front, a later C17 extension of similar height and in matching materials, with a gabled rear the same size as the rear wings. This is divided off from the main house and unoccupied. Attached to its south-east corner is a small single-storey C18 outhouse in red brick, laid in English Bond, with a tumbled gable incorporating an end chimney-stack and pantiled roof. Interior with little timbering exposed; 5 wide bays to main house; ovolo-moulding to some main beams. A fine series of fireplaces throughout the house. The rear stacks each have a hearth on ground and first floor, all with shallow, almost flat, brick arches and chamfered surrounds. Both gable end stacks have fireplaces to each floor and to the attic: on the left ground floor room the hearth is immense, perhaps originally for a kitchen, with the shallow arched opening repaired in C20 render. The right end of the house had the most ornate fireplaces with square surround and an inset 4-centred depressed arch, all ovolo-moulded. The house seems to have had more than one early C17 phase, but its present internal layout reflects C19 changes, and the earlier form is difficult to deduce. The present stair, in the central rear wing, is clearly an insertion with 2 sections of resited Jacobean balusters and Edwardian newel-posts. Part of an older newel stair remains for the attic storey. Roof, formerly lighted by windows in the apex of the rear wing gables, in 11 irregularly-spaced bays, with 2 rows unstepped butt purlins. Ownership of the manor and site is well-documented, and the present house is thought to have been built for John Osborne, who bought the manor from Sir Robert Jermyn in 1592, and died in 1619. Joined to each end of the house, and surrounding the front garden on all 3 sides, is a high wall with gate piers: C17 red brick laid in English Bond, topped by a course of inward-sloping coping bricks with a roll-moulding above. The widely-spaced gate piers, square, rusticated in bands, with shallow conical tops, are on the street frontage, in line with the porch. Listing NGR: TM0083473872