Moorfell Farmhouse And Moorfell Farm Cottage

Moorfell Farmhouse and Moorfell Farm Cottage are a farmhouse, now divided into two dwellings, likely dating from the early 17th century, with alterations and extensions of uncertain date. The building is constructed from coursed sandstone rubble with quoins, and has a stone slate roof. It has a linear plan, approximately four bays long, with the right-hand (east) half projecting slightly.

The front elevation has a doorway around the centre of each half, likely dating from the 18th century, with plain surrounds. The left half features a double-chamfered mullion window on each floor to the right (five and four lights), and a 19th-century coupled window on each floor to the left. The projecting right-hand half has large quoins at the right-hand end and at a vertical joint to the left of the door, with larger masonry between these up to the first-floor sill level, hinting at an earlier construction of this section of the front wall. It also has a chamfered flush mullion window on each floor to the right of the door (originally four lights, now altered to two), and a 19th-century coupled window at ground floor and an inserted window above in the section to the left of the joint. Gable chimneys are present; the left chimney corbels from the first floor, and a ridge chimney runs in line with the vertical joint of the right-hand half.

The left-hand gable wall has an inserted door near the rear, a small chamfered window near the front, and a blocked three-light chamfered mullion window above this. The rear wall, built of apparently continuous masonry, features a doorway (altered to a window) with a chamfered surround and humped lintel, positioned in line with the front door of the right-hand half. Several irregularly spaced small windows are also present on the rear wall—four at ground floor and two above.

The interior reveals features suggesting that the original building was a three-unit house, with the present second and third bays originally being the housepart and firehood areas respectively, around an axial chimney stack. A lateral partition is present in the centre, with remains of a wide fireplace arch (the head replaced by a beam, but with a semicircular relieving arch exposed at first floor level) flanked by semicircular-headed doorways, all chamfered on both sides. A semicircular-headed doorway, with a moulded surround, is located at the front of the partition wall of the third and fourth bays, suggesting a former main entrance beside the fireplace. Two doorways are present in the partition to the first bay, both with moulded surrounds—the front one triangular-headed and the rear one segmental. An axial beam remains in the first bay, featuring a grooved soffit and vacant mortices of a former service-end partition.