Oldhay Farmhouse

Oldhay Farmhouse

This former farmhouse dates from perhaps the 15th or early 16th century, with alterations and extensions made in the 17th century. It is a cruck building constructed of coursed rubble stone with a slate roof.

The structure consists of a hall with a through-passage, an inserted stack, and an added rubble service bay to the right, with an end stack also to the right. It is one storey and attic, spanning four bays. The exterior features two three-light 19th-century casements to the left (one to each bay), a late 19th or early 20th-century raking-top loft opening to the right, and above and to the left of the main entrance a small three-light oak-framed diamond-section mullioned window. The entrance is positioned right of centre beneath a gabled rubble porch, probably of the 18th century, now roofed in corrugated iron with longitudinal stone benches inside dating to the 19th century. The doorway features a 19th-century ledged door under a sharply pointed four-centred arch.

To the rear of the left bay is a three-light mullioned oak window with 17th or 18th-century leaded iron casements, fillets on the outside and slots for intermediate mullions. The rear of the second bay from the left has an 18th-century ledged door and a larger window formerly of five lights with diamond-section mullions. A 17th-century rear projection masks the rear of the entrance bay and contains in its right end wall, beneath a label, a contemporary four-light diamond-section mullioned oak window divided by a king mullion with smaller ones on each side.

The interior retains remains of four pairs of crucks with blocking pieces. The left pair is a collar cruck, its interstices infilled with rubble to form part of the left hand gable end. The second pair of crucks from the left features a chamfered flat door-head beneath the front underside of the cruck tie-beam, and a square-headed doorway centrally positioned at first floor level above the tie-beam, with the bottom of the doorway cut down into the tie to about a third of its depth.

The second bay from the left contains three longitudinal flush bead moulded 17th-century floor joists, a design identical to that on a beam found abandoned outside which is inscribed "T S 1654". The rearmost of these three joists is positioned immediately in front of the rear window of this bay and cuts across its head. A fireplace with a massive chamfered stone lintel and cheeks has been inserted into the third bay from the left, positioned hard against the remains of one cruck blade that separated the third and fourth bays. To the front of the stack, the inside of the three-light window next to the main entrance is blocked off, presumably having once lit a staircase. The through-passage, now blocked by a 19th-century partition, is interrupted by straight 19th-century stairs to the right of the fireplace and stack, and leads into the rear extension via an opening directly opposite the front entrance with the same type of four-centred head.

The rear extension features a half-truss, half-tie-beam construction bearing on the main rear wall and supporting a raking strut and principal rafter, producing two bays. The right hand bay is separated from the third bay by a pair of full cruck blades with a central upper door frame on its tie-beam. The floor level here is slightly lower than in the earlier crucked part. The ceiling joists run from front to back with run-out chamfers; one joist bears on the walls above the front door head and rear window head.