Brinkheugh Farmhouse And Outbuilding To East

Brinkheugh Farmhouse and outbuilding to the east are a complex structure with a rear wing dating back to the 16th or early 17th century, and a front block built in the late 17th century. The farmhouse demonstrates group value owing to its significant architectural and historical interest. The front of the farmhouse is constructed of roughly-squared stone, with returns in coursed rubble, while the rear wing is of large rubble on a boulder plinth. The outbuildings are built of rubble, with cut dressings. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate, with end stacks rebuilt in brick on old bases. The house has a double-span plan, with an attached outbuilding to the east of the rear wing.

The south elevation features two storeys and five bays arranged symmetrically. It has rusticated quoins. The central entrance has a six-panel door set within a bolection-moulded surround and entablature, featuring a swan-neck pediment enclosing the initials IBM (James and Margaret Bilton) and a worn date of 16.. Twelve-pane sash windows are set within surrounds with swept convex moulding and cornices. The gables are coped, with moulded kneelers, and there are end stacks. To the right is a single-storey, two-bay outbuilding with a blocked fire window and two blocked two-light windows, with a coped right gable. The left return displays the gable end of the bastle, above an 18th-century outshut. At first-floor level are two small, chamfered windows, one blocked but with old iron bars, and a nine-pane fixed window; a blocked, chamfered light provides access to the attic. The right return shows a blocked doorway in the gable of the main block, and the gable end of the bastle revealing the original upper door and window openings, both under relieving arches and now blocked. The rear elevation exposes the bastle’s boulder plinth, two late 17th-century inserted windows, the lower one mullioned, and a small blocked chamfered window on the ground floor to the left. Original bastle openings, and a window re-set on the north of the outbuilding, all feature stop-chamfered lintels.

Inside, a large western ground-floor room in the front block, now subdivided, has a six-panel door to an eastern room in a bolection-moulded surround under a broken pediment. There are panelled double doors to the stair in a similar surround with a cornice. An arched cupboard between panelled pilasters is also present. The eastern room includes an old fireside cupboard with H hinges. The bastle part has walls 1.15 metres thick, and a late 17th-century open-well stair was inserted into the west part, featuring closed strings, turned balusters, a moulded handrail, and panelled square newels with low pyramidal tops. The kitchen in the east part of the bastle has old, close-spaced ceiling beams, and a cupboard with shaped fielded panels and H hinges. Two-panel doors on the first floor are in bolection-moulded surrounds; similarly-moulded stone surrounds the bedroom fireplaces, with a moulded wood overmantel and an old cupboard alongside in the west bedroom. A small timber newel stair, probably late 17th-century, leads to the bastle attic. A blocked bastle byre door is visible from within the outbuilding.