39 Mill Street

39 Mill Street has always been a farmhouse or divided into cottages. Until 1911 the farmyard was where the garden is now.

The room to the right of the front door was originally a hall reaching to the roof with an open fire in the centre.  In about 1600 it was modernised by the erection of that great new invention, the ‘chimneystack’.  At the same time the present ceiling was put in, creating a bedroom above.  The hall had an inglenook fireplace for cooking.

The parlour, to your left, has a smaller but grander carved hearth, befitting the status of the room.  The jettied cross wing was probably added at the same time, though if you look up you will see the date 1762 in the plaster.  This refers to a date when the house was replastered, not built, because the timber structure is much older.  In fact it was last replastered in 1983, which is commemorated on the rear gable.  The exterior decoration, called pargetting, is impressed in the plaster when wet.

Nurse Armitage lived here before us.  She modernised the house by putting in a toilet and bath; but we still have a ‘copper’ ready, which would once have been used to heat the water on wash day.

 

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