Tofts Farmhouse And Attached Garden Walls

Tofts Farmhouse and the attached garden walls are a farmhouse and garden walls built in the mid-18th century, with early 19th-century and later alterations. The house is constructed from coursed squared sandstone, featuring a plinth and ashlar dressings, topped with a Welsh slate roof that has stone gable coping and stone chimneys. The garden walls extend from the left end of the house and to the right, enclosing the garden with a combination of brick and stone, finished with flat stone coping.

The exterior of the farmhouse is two storeys high and has a five-window range. The central entrance features a six-panel door with a four-pane overlight beneath a flat stone lintel, with plain reveals. The windows are C19 sashes, some of which have been renewed, and they have similar reveals and lintels, with glazing bars and painted projecting stone sills. The steeply pitched roof has end gable coping and chimneys with band cornices, along with inserted glazed roof panels.

Inside, there is a half-glazed inner door with glazing bars, and the ground-floor front left room has raised and fielded panelled shutters. The front right room features a stucco cornice and fluted frieze. There are six-panel doors with panelled reveals throughout. The central dogleg stair, likely from the mid-19th century, has a close string, thick stick balusters, a turned newel, and a rounded handrail.

The garden walls are primarily stone, with a brick section on the left where an outhouse was once attached. The left side of the walls is ramped up to the brick section, which has a boarded door under a flat stone lintel, adjacent to the house.

Historically, the farm likely supported the needs of the expanding market created by the nearby ironstone mine developed by the Pease family in the mid-19th century. This farmhouse is an unusually complete example of a developed farm.