Felton's Farmhouse

Felton's Farmhouse is a farmhouse, now a house, on Elmers Green Lane. It dates probably to the later 16th century or very early 17th century, and was reduced and remodelled with an addition in the 18th century, then subsequently altered. The original timber frame was later clad with sandstone and rendered, with scored stucco to the front and right-hand end. The roofs are of 20th-century interlocking concrete tiles, and there are brick chimneys.

The building follows a double-pile plan, formed by a single-depth main range (now reduced to 2 wide bays flanking a central chimney stack) with a secondary range added to the rear. The 2-storey front range has 2 windows. It features a 20th-century gabled stone porch at the left end, a 2-light casement window to the first bay, 2 similar casements to the second bay, one oblong 3-light casement at first floor of each bay, a chimney on the centre of the ridge and another at the right-hand gable. The lower 2-storey 3-window 18th-century rear range has a 20th-century gabled porch offset to the right and small 2-light casements on both floors.

The principal features of interest are in the interior. The rear wall of the front range is entirely timber-framed, and the wall-plate of the front wall shows that this also is (or was) similarly timber-framed. The framing of the rear wall comprises 2:1:2 structural bays, with a stone plinth, timber sill, full-height wall-posts, one intermediate rail and straight angle-braces to the wall-plate. The front wall-plate has pairs of peg holes for a similar series of posts, which may be concealed in the masonry.

The narrower centre bay, perhaps formerly a smoke-bay, contains the chimney stack which has a stone heck near the rear wall, with a chamfered end facing into the west room (the first bay). The top part has been rebuilt and the bressumer or stone arch of the original fireplace has been replaced by a beam at ceiling level. At ground floor, each main bay has a chamfered lateral beam; that in the first bay has broach stops. At first floor the chimney stack is framed by the roof trusses. The second bay has a large stone Tudor-arched chamber fireplace flanked by wooden Tudor-arched doorways built into the cross-frame. The doorway to the right probably indicates that access to this room was by a staircase on the north side of the stack; the doorway to the left, which is much smaller and has a board door, opens into the void on the south side of the stack.

The trusses are of principal-rafter type with raked struts. They have carpenter's marks (CCCC and CCC on the east truss, IIII and III on the west truss), straight wind-braces to trenched overlapped purlins on the north side and vacant wind-brace housings on the south side. The tie-beam of the west truss has been severed at the north end to make a small doorway into the first bay, but remains of a plank panelled partition to the side of this indicate that the frame was formerly closed in this position. This bay has a stone flagged floor.

The carpenter's marks indicate that the timber-framed range was formerly longer. This fact, combined with the quality of the framing, suggests that this was probably the largest and oldest of the surviving farmhouses at Elmers Green.

The building forms a group with a barn approximately 20 metres to the north.