Monument record ALP 013 - Mill House, Alpheton

C15 Listed (S1) timber framed house. Originally open hall - smoke blackened roof timbers in hall roof, which has solid braced cross beams supporting crown post (very similar to Edgar's Farmhouse - see SKT 006). Later brick chimney, very large & ornate, inserted on E side of hall (against passage). Moulded brick decorative features go very high demonstrating open hall retained. Claimed date of 1460-1470 by owner for chimney (S2). Luminescence dating of 3 chimney bricks gave dates around 1500 (S4).
First storey floor inserted later (early 1600s?) obscuring moulded fireplace bricks. Further details in (S2).
Circa 1987-8: Restoration of floor tiles in chimney by owner (see 'Not to be published on web' tab for finder/s and/or findspot/s) led to excavation within large inglenook fireplace revealing large feature/hollow to W, infilled with `hard packed floor earth with scattered layers of fresh water mussel and oyster shells' (S2) and 6" to 1' to the E of this a single post hole circa 6" diameter by 6" deep, `dug into virgin soil'. This would have been (from memory) about 3' in from the house wall timber framing. Said to have been filled with `dust' - no finds from either `feature' (S2)(S3).
2002: This large house of three elements, a hall and two cross wings, is thought on stylistic grounds to date from the late-fifteenth century. It was found to contain oak, ash, and elm timbers in its framing. The oaks from the primary structure were found to be very fast-grown, and could not be dated. A single component of a floor inserted in the hall was found to have used a timber felled in spring or summer of AD 1617, slightly later than had been previously proposed. Although this phase is only represented by a single timber, this major component has to be primary to that phase and is unlikely to have been re-used from elsewhere (S5)