Toils Farmhouse And Attached Barn

SE14SW BINGLEY OTLEY ROAD SE126416 (west side of)Lane Head

2/106 Toils Farmhouse and attached barn

II

Wrongly marked Middle Farm on O. S. maps. Laithe-house. c1770. Hammer-dressed stone, dressed quoins, stone slate roof. 2 storeys. 5-bay barn to left of 2-cell central baffle-entry house. House: doorway with monolithic jambs has cyma-moulded surround which rises to form false ogee lintel; single-light window above has similar surround with false-arched lintel. To either side on both floors a 3-light flat-faced mullioned window with recessed mullions with inner chamfer and chamfered surround. Central stack offset from ridge. Barn: segmental-arched cart entry with skewbacks and composite jambs. To left, mistal doorway with monolithic jambs and chamfered surround. Coped gable with kneelers to left. Left bay now part of house. Extension to house, to right, in keeping re-uses original coping and kneelers.

Interior: housebody has fireplace with monolithic jambs and segmental- arched bressumer with incised voussoirs, stop-chamfered spine beams and floor joists with ogee stops. Parlour has similar beamed ceiling. It is recorded that John Wesley stayed here on several visits to the area between preaching in Bingley and Ilkley in 1776. Formerly the window had an engraved piece of glass with a portrait of Wesley and an elegy to death dated 1776. This glass is now preserved in Eldwick Methodist church.

An outbuilding has re-used datestone c1777 the house may be of similar date.

Listing NGR: SE1263241573