Building record WSS 035 - Millcroft, Mill Road

Millcroft lies in a small linear hamlet overlooking a tributary valley of the River Blyth approximately 1 km south-east of Wissett parish church. An eponymous windmill formerly lay in close proximity and the hamlet was known in the 19th century as Mill Street. The grade II-listed property is a timber-framed and thatched cottage encased in late-19th and 20th century red-brick that was divided into a pair of tenements until a major refurbishment of the mid-20th century. The listing description of 1986 dates the building to the early-17th century but mentions the ‘remains of an earlier core’. In fact the structure is an unusually well preserved 14th century open-hall house with an intact sooted roof and is of considerable historic interest.

Medieval houses are notoriously rare in this part of Suffolk as quality timber appears to have been scarce, and the framing here is largely of elm rather than oak. The original sooted rafters are sufficiently narrow and waney to have required a ridge-piece in the typical manner of the region (but almost never seen elsewhere in Suffolk), and the structure was almost certainly supported by queen posts although the key evidence is hidden by plaster. The front wall was partly rebuilt in the 17th century but the rear wall retains evidence of the hall window along with widely spaced studs and archaic solid wall-braces that are more characteristic of the first half of the 14th century than the second. An early date is also indicated by evidence of a rare ‘floating’ tie-beam in the upper bay of the hall some two feet from the main truss. The rear roof plate also preserves a 14th century-style splayed scarf joint but this appears to be a later alteration. The low end of the hall is intact, with evidence for a blocked stair door and at least one service door, while the present doorway to the 20th century lean-to front porch occupies the position of the original cross-entry. The parlour bay to the left of the facade (north-west) was rebuilt in the 17th century when the high-end chimney and a ceiling of elm joists were inserted into the hall. The building appears to have retained its original rectangular outline when the slightly damaged Wissett tithe map was drawn up in 1839 but was already a pair of cottages owned by John Crabtree who leased the adjoining two acres of land to one of his tenants as a hemp land (i.e. a field or croft growing flax for the famous Halesworth linen industry). The indenture by which Crabtree purchased the two cottages and land in 1835 with a barn and cow shed is in the possession of the current owner. Small extensions were built to the rear of both cottages before 1883 but the present lean-to kitchen replaced the larger of these at the end of the 19th century when the building was clad in red-brick. The kitchen was extended and substantially rebuilt in the mid-20th century, probably when the cottages were combined, and a small front porch was added at the same time. A large single-storied brick extension was built against the right-hand gable to accommodate a swimming pool after the Ordnance Survey of 1972, and this was converted into bedrooms and further extended to the front as part of a major refurbishment in the late-1980s or 90s. Most of the brick facade was renewed at the same time, and the porch was also enlarged and rebuilt. This last refurbishment considerably altered the building’s external appearance, particularly as the flatroofed addition was provided with a trompe-l’oeil thatched roof in imitation of the medieval roof.