Carr House

Carr House is a house dating to 1613, originally Carr House Farmhouse, and altered subsequently. It is constructed of handmade brick with a diaper pattern of blue headers, large irregular stone quoins, and a slate roof. The house is arranged around an E-plan, with five bays. It is two and a half storeys high and symmetrical, featuring a three-storey gabled porch and slightly-projecting wings now under the same roofline (except the porch). The porch has an open outer doorway with a square head that breaks into a massive rectangular lintel displaying a lengthy inscription in raised lettering, a hoodmould, and full-width stone mullion windows on each floor. The second and fourth bays are set back, and the broad facades of the wings each have a single stone mullion window of four lights at ground and first floors; the ground-floor windows have hoodmoulds, and the upper windows have a moulded dripband. The windows throughout incorporate slightly-recessed moulded mullions and diamond-lattice glazing. A vertical channel links the windows of each wing, reportedly a technical means of limiting window tax. The left-hand gable wall steps inwards towards the rear, incorporating a stair turret. This gable has a three-light chamfered brick mullion window to the attic, and two similar windows in each face of the stair turret, the lower one at the rear having been altered to a door and the upper one blocked. Projecting further to the rear, beyond the stair turret, are two massive hearth-wings to the second and third bays, each surmounted by a rectangular chimney, bearing two and three diagonal flues, respectively, with a two-light firewindow at ground and first floor on the side wall. The right-hand gable has an inserted door at ground floor and a three-light mullion window at attic level.

The interior retains post and rail partition walls, 1/4-round-moulded beams, and an upper cruck roof. There is an inglenook fireplace in the central hall, with a cambered timber bressummer. A framed newel staircase survives, as do remains of fireplaces to a chamber over the hall and a chamber over the third bay.

The datestone inscription reads: "THOMAS STONES OF LONDON HABER DASHER AND ANDREW STONES OF AMS TERDAM MARCHANT HATH BUILDED THIS HOWSE OF THEIR OWNE CHARGES AND GIV ETH THE SA ER JOHN STO ME UNTO NES ANODOM THEIR BROTH NI 1613 LAUS." The house is associated with Jeremiah Horrocks (died 1641), Curate of Hoole and astronomer, who is said to have observed the Transit of Venus from this house.