Old Drift House

Old Drift House was built in the 1500s using a timber frame, wattle and daub walls and a thatched roof – all still in place.  It has no foundations and has moved this way and that for some 500 years.

It was originally a weavers' cottage and part of the very profitable wool trade that flourished in the 1400s and 1500s and produced Kersey Cloth, a rather rough and coarse material.  When the wool trade went into decline in the 1600s because of the competition of finer cloth, people became very poor and the house was divided into 3 dwellings.  It remained as such until the 20th century when relative prosperity returned and allowed the house to be restored to a single dwelling.  

Although thoroughly modernized now, remnants of the past are still evident.  The toolshed at the bottom of the garden used to be the loo that would have been emptied every so often by a cart that came up the lane at the side; the well at the back door was in use until the 1950s and still works; and the bread oven in the dining room was discovered during renovation in the 1970s.

You can see a small glass frame in the entrance hall containing bits of pottery, buttons and shells discovered more recently while relaying the ancient brick hall floor.  The shells are oysters, considered a poor man’s fare in those days.  And you will be impressed with the thermal qualities of thatch that keeps the house beautifully warm and cosy in winter, yet surprisingly cool and comfortable in summer even on the hottest days.

All these features combine to create a very homely atmosphere in a property dating back to a bygone era.