Westfield Farmhouse And Westfield House And Attached Doorway

Westfield Farmhouse and Westfield House and Attached Doorway

This house, now divided into two dwellings, dates from the late 16th and early 17th centuries with 17th-century additions, probable late 15th-century remains, and 19th and 20th-century alterations and subdivisions. The building consists of timber-frame cased in large blocks of coursed squared stone, with a stone slate roof.

The complex plan appears to have originated as a hall with through-passage and a crosswing on the left, to which a second crosswing was added on the left (these two crosswings now form Westfield Farmhouse). The right-hand section was extended to the rear in the early 19th century; the right-hand part (Westfield House) was altered and raised in the early 19th century when subdivided into two cottages.

The east-facing entrance front is of two storeys with four bays, the two on the left being flush crosswings. A chamfered doorway to the through-passage, with an ornamental device on the lintel, sits in a pent porch with a chamfered doorway abutting the right side of the right crosswing. Most windows are double-chamfered mullioned.

The left crosswing features a 19th or 20th-century recessed flat-faced five-light mullion window with a tall five-light window under a hoodmould above. The gable has a shaped kneeler, coping and finial. The right crosswing marks the junction between the two wings and has a seven-light window and two-light fire window to each floor, all with hoodmoulds; the lower fire window has one stanchion. This gable also has a shaped kneeler, coping and finial, with a hole for a gutter spout between the two gables. A stack stands to the outer side of each wing.

The two right-hand bays form the facade of two cottages, each with a 20th-century glazed door on the right and a four-light flat-faced mullion window to the left on each floor, all openings with plain stone surrounds. The roof is hipped to the right with a stack to the left.

Attached to the front left corner is a 20th-century wall containing a 17th-century quoined chamfered ogee-headed doorway. The lintel is incised with a dated panel reading "NM IM/1666" with scrolls.

The rear of the right-hand portion (crosswings) has a four-light flat-faced mullion window to each floor of each wing, plus a later doorway and inserted first-floor lights on the left (masked by a circa 1980 garage). A shaped kneeler appears on the right. The left-hand portion has a gabled bay projecting on the left. To the right of this is a door and three-light chamfered window with a five-light double-chamfered mullion and transom window above. The left return is rendered with an external stack. To its right on the first floor is a projection (said to be a garderobe) with a two-light chamfered mullion window. To its left are two-light chamfered mullion windows, the ground-floor ones tall and possibly 19th or 20th-century. The right return has a 20th-century door with a two-light flat-faced mullion window to the left and the same above. To its right is a four-light chamfered mullion window with a three-light window above, the lights arched and with sunk spandrels.

Interior

Westfield Farmhouse: The right crosswing's front room has a large segmental-arched fireplace with skewbacks and decorative mouldings, and massive spliced spine-beams with broad stopped chamfer indicating a former bressummer. The back room has a similar fireplace with cyma-moulded cornice and spliced stop-chamfered spine-beams and joists. On the first floor, the front room has a small fireplace with twist moulding to the arris and a king-post truss with A struts. Flanking this wing are spliced former wall plates with morticed soffits, and at its rear, at the junction with the extension, is a tie beam with mortices in the soffit for former wall timbers and seatings for former rafters.

The left crosswing's ground-floor front room has a low shallow-arched chamfered fireplace and stop-chamfered spine-beams. The rear room has a low segmental-arched fireplace brought from the Westfield House end, and in the right wall is a wooden triangular-arched lintel with one edge joggled and central moulding brought forward from its position in the right-hand wing. Rooms above have concealed A-strutted king-post trusses.