Sockburn Farmhouse

SOCKBURN SOCKBURN LANE NZ 3407 (West side, off)

19/40 Sockburn Farmhouse 20/3/67

GV II

Farmhouse. Mid C18 for Thomas Hutchinson; late C18-early C19 wings; left wing altered c.1965. Narrow brick in irregular English garden wall bond; mainly black-glazed pantiled roofs with old brick chimney stacks. Reversed U-plan: main block with wings set back at right-angles on returns.

2-storey, 5-bay main block. Central 6-panel door and patterned fanlight in round-arched stone surround with impost blocks. Replaced sashes, in original openings with projecting stone sills, under rubbed-brick segmental arches, the heads infilled with narrow brick. Steeply-pitched hipped roof has swept eaves and stone ridge tiles. Tall lateral stacks with top bands. Lower 2-storey, 2-bay wing at right: scattered sashes; steeply-pitched roof, hipped at right, with heightened lateral stack above right return. 2-storey, one-bay wing at left altered c.1965 with French window; roof hipped at left and lateral stack above left return. Each wing has a 2-bay return with replaced sashes. Rear: central round-arched 12-pane stair window flanked by 12-pane sashes. Imported 6-panel door in open-pedimented doorcase on rear of left wing. Interior altered in late C19.

Later additions on rear of right wing and late C20 wall linking left wing to dovecote (q.v.) are not of special interest.

Historical notes: the home of Thomas Hutchinson (died 1789) the celebrated breeder of shorthorn cattle. William Wordsworth met his future wife, Mary Hutchinson, at Sockburn farmhouse in May 1799.

(Mary Moorman, William Wordsworth Volume I The Early Years 1770-1803, 1957).

Listing NGR: NZ3477207234