Moorhall Farmhouse

Moorhall Farmhouse is a timber-framed farmhouse built in the late 17th century, standing in open countryside near Bromyard in Whitbourne. The building retains its original timber frame largely intact, despite significant additions and alterations dating from the later 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

The house has two storeys with a timber frame incorporating wattle-and-daub and brick infill, covered by a gabled roof of plain tiles. It originally contained three large rooms on each floor with a central and two gable chimney stacks. In the 19th century, a series of service rooms for the farm were added along the north side beneath catslide roofs.

The south front, which serves as the entrance elevation, has been largely rebuilt in the 19th century in brick laid in English garden wall bond at ground-floor level. Above this are 14 by 2 frames of small framing with angle braces to the left corner and at right of centre. A further row of cells was added in the late 18th or early 19th century, and the roof pitch on this side was made more shallow. The six-panelled 19th-century door is positioned left of centre, with ground-floor casements of three lights dating from the 20th century. The first floor has early 19th-century casements of two lights on the right and three lights on the left, set higher in the wall. The western gable end has a central chimney, and partial removal of render here reveals brick at ground-floor level and framing cells on the first floor, showing clear evidence of the roof being raised, including the original principal rafter set at a steeper pitch. The eastern gable end is rendered with an outshut to the ground floor. To the left of this is a ground-floor projection of coursed sandstone rubble, partially rendered, probably formerly a bread oven. The rear northern side has extensive outshuts with catslide roofs and a single-storeyed gabled projection to the right.

The present entrance hall appears originally to have been the kitchen. It contains a sizeable hearth with ingle-nook and a cross-axial beam with steep chamfers fitted with meat hooks to both sides. Long diagonal passing braces extend to either end of the northern outer wall of the original building. 19th-century fittings at ground-floor level include terracotta floor tiling, six-panelled doors and joinery in the present dining room, which probably formerly functioned as a parlour, including fitted cupboards and an alcove. Both staircases date from the 19th century. At first-floor level, the timber frame is evident in the external walls, where jowled corner posts with squared angular tops can be seen, and in the dividing walls. One dividing wall has a heavy cranked tie beam with carpenter marks. A wind brace extends to one corner of the roof on the northern slope. Two rooms retain wide floorboards, and two bedrooms have cast-iron ducks-nest grates with plain wood surrounds.

The characteristic features of the late 17th-century date include the pegged small framing combined with long passing braces, the squared tops to the jowled posts and the deep chamfer to the cross-axial beam in the former kitchen space. The original wattle-and-daub infill was largely replaced by red brick in the 18th or 19th century and then rendered. In the late 18th or 19th century the roof was raised on the south front by one row of small framed cells. At the same time the front was re-fenestrated and given a new front door. Matching joinery was added to the ground-floor parlour at the south-western corner. The 19th-century additions and alterations provide clear evidence of evolving farming practice and the gentrification of this vernacular building.