Building record OCC 021 - Benningham Grange, Benningham Green

Benningham Grange is a substantial timber-framed ‘Yeoman’ farmhouse of the late-16th century which preserves a number of fine architectural features, including a rare spit-jack in its chimney and original painted decoration. Remarkably, a weather-boarded outbuilding to the rear, which latterly served as a cart-lodge and granary, contains another domestic house of the same period, albeit of slightly smaller scale. This second building may have formed a ‘unit house’ for semi-independent members of the family (akin to a modern granny annex) and is of great historic interest. While the outbuilding is complete, with a central hall flanked by a parlour and service bay in the standard Elizabethan pattern, the main house has lost the service bay or cross-wing that originally adjoined its right-hand (southern) gable. Its present ‘L’ shape dates from the late-18th century when a new parlour was added to its northern gable and a service wing built behind the old hall (S1).