The Royal Oak Farmhouse

The Royal Oak Farmhouse is a farmhouse that was later used as an inn, dating from around 1600, with an addition made in the mid to late 19th century. The building features a timber-framed structure with plastered infill set on a painted dressed sandstone plinth, and it has been extended in painted brick. The roof is covered with plain tiles.

Architecturally, the farmhouse has close-studding framing, which includes a middle rail on the ground floor, and long straight tension braces. The first floors of the cross wings are jettied, showcasing moulded bressumers and carved scrolled brackets, with jettied gables that also have carved brackets supporting bressumers adorned with carved vine-trails and a moulded bottom edge. The layout is H-shaped, consisting of one framed bay with projecting gabled cross wings that each have two framed bays, along with an additional framed bay at the rear. The building has one storey and an attic.

Prominent features include a large dressed yellow/grey sandstone stack located off-centre to the left behind the ridge, which has a rebuilt or heightened brick top section, as well as a brick stack at the rear of the left-hand cross wing and a brick ridge stack on the right-hand cross wing. There is a large central dormer from around 1600, which has a 19th-century two-light wooden casement and a jettied gable with a moulded bressumer. The front facade has a 1-:1-:1 window arrangement, with late 19th-century two- and three-light wooden casements, some featuring triangular upper lights.

A rendered gabled porch is located at the angle of the right-hand cross wing and contains a 19th-century four-panelled door with glazed top panels. There are blocked first-floor windows from around 1600 on the returns of the cross wings, with three lights on the left and two plus two lights on the right. Evidence suggests there were once ground-floor wooden oriel windows at the cross windows, as indicated by mortices on the underside of the bressumers. The 19th-century addition to the left features painted imitation framing and segmental-headed two-light wooden casements in the left-hand return front.

At the rear, there are two gables to the left with collar and tie-beam trusses, while the right gable displays close studding. Lean-to additions are also present. The interior has only been partially inspected, but the left-hand ground-floor room features chamfered ceiling beams, and there are old boarded doors with wrought-iron strap hinges and L-and H-hinges.