Larch Tree Farmhouse And Outbuildings

Larch Tree Farmhouse and outbuildings is a mid-to-late 18th-century farmhouse, incorporating elements of an earlier structure, with minor 19th-century alterations. It stands with attached outbuildings and a boundary wall in Hazelwood, Derbyshire. The farmhouse is built of regularly-coursed squared gritstone, with brick ridge stacks, coped gables, and a blue tile roof. The linear plan is aligned east-west, with a service range to the west end. The front (south) elevation has two storeys and three bays, with a single-storey lean-to outshot to the west gable. A principal doorway is located at the west end, beneath a flat soldier arch of plain voussoirs, leading to a panelled door. Stacked window openings to the left, with flat arched heads and projecting stone sills, feature a 4 over 8 pane sash window on the upper floor and a flat-arched head on the ground floor. A secondary doorway is centrally placed with a plain plank door beneath a flat-arched head. The east end bay has stacked windows, with the lower floor opening taller than the upper floor, both featuring 4 over 8 panes. The rear elevation is now blind, but with two small blocked windows. A low-pitched outbuilding is attached to the west end, extending into a coursed stone boundary wall, two metres high, which runs south and then east. This wall incorporates a doorway into the service yard at the west end of the house and extends to enclose the front, with a central entrance gateway. Inside, a door to the west end opens onto a baffle at the south end of the main hearth, beneath a bressumer beam with deeply-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops. The beam extends across the width of the building, featuring an arched section of soffit to the right of the end baffle, providing access to the centre bay of the house. Wide ceiling joists are morticed into the bressumer. The hearth contains a complete cast-iron range, and a brick-fronted copper is set at an angle on the north wall. A slop stone, drain slab and water pump are also present. A doorway in the west wall provides access to the service lean-to, with a full set of low stone benches and salting slab. The centre room has a 18th-century hearth with jowled jambs and a massive lintel, now containing a 20th-century range. A small square spice cupboard is to the left, alongside a taller cupboard in the upper part of the recess. Fragments of structural timbers are exposed in the rear wall. A room to the east end has a cast-iron grate. First-floor rooms have planked doors and cast-iron hob grates. The farmhouse is a little-altered 18th-century building, demonstrating simple vernacular detailing characteristic of lowland Derbyshire, retaining its original plan and a remarkably preserved interior complete with contemporary fixtures.