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The crooked beam

If you’re outside Bishops House on the south side [nearest the road] look up at the top of the wall, towards the centre. You’ll see a curious curve in the horizontal beam at the top of the wall.

 
Now come inside and you’ll see the same thing in the beam at the top of the wall in the central room upstairs. We think that when the house was first built and an upstairs floor added, there was no way to get to it from the ground floor.
 
So they cut a door in the wall and put a wooden staircase on the outside of the house. After some time this went out of use and is now blocked up. That curving cut in the timber is all that’s left. This door would only have been 1.7 m [about 5ft 7in. high].
 
 
 
 

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