Ravensnest And Attached Farm Buildings Ravensnest And The Beeches

Ravensnest and Attached Farm Buildings

This house and farm complex is marked on Ordnance Survey maps as Ravensnest Farm. The main house dates from the late 17th century with alterations made in the late 18th century and mid 20th century. It is constructed of coursed squared sandstone with a slate roof.

The house is arranged in a T-plan with chimneys positioned on the ridge of the main range and at the junction with the cross-wing. The north facade features a cross-wing at the left comprising two storeys plus an attic storey and one bay. Its windows are of two lights separated by mullions and have architraves and moulded cornices. The ground-floor window sill has been lowered. At the apex of the roof sits a cornice above an inscribed plaque which is now illegible. Straight joints in the stonework of the main range to the right suggest it may originally have been a single storey with attic dormers.

The bay to the left of the doorway has two-light mullioned windows with architraves, again with a lowered ground-floor sill. To the right of the door, which has a quoined surround, is a glazing bar sash window set within the surround of a blocked mullioned window, with a second blocked mullioned window to its right. The first floor has two casement windows with stone surrounds. At the far right, built partly into the slope of the ground and showing evidence of alteration, is a further bay with a plain window on the ground floor and a window with stone surround on the first floor.

The left-hand (east) wall of the cross-wing has two bays with two-light mullioned windows with architraves. Between them is a third bay, inserted around 1950 in a similar style, containing a first-floor window and ground-floor doorway. The rear wall of the cross-wing has similar two-light windows serving a stair. The south wall of the main range has irregular fenestration including a window set within a 17th-century moulded door surround with triangular head. On the first floor is a plaque inscribed 'I ? GR 1796'.

To the south lies a courtyard enclosed on the north by the house and on the other three sides by stables, cow-houses, and other farm buildings. These are attached to the house and continuous except for an entrance on the west side.

The eastern range has a stone slate roof and is of a single storey with three doorways having stone surrounds and two windows between the two right-hand doorways. At the left the building is lower where it adjoins the house, with a window and doorway to its right.

The south range is also single-storey with a roof of slate or artificial slate. It has a doorway with quoined surround with windows to left and right, and two further doorways with stone surrounds to the right.

The west range is taller with a roof of slate and concrete tile. The ground floor has six windows with a doorway to the right of the second window. The first floor contains two pitching holes. A lower section to the right has two windows and a doorway with a lintel inscribed 'I - 79 I'.

Also on the west side of the courtyard, adjoining the house, is a two-storey building with coped gable which includes a doorway in its east wall.