Cae Howell

A late 16th-century farmhouse, largely rebuilt in the late 19th century with later additions and alterations. The farmhouse is timber-framed with rendered and painted brick infill, partially replaced by 19th-century purple brick, and has a slate roof with fishscale bands. It was likely originally cruciform in plan and of a central lobby-entry type, but now includes a mid-20th century two-storey flat-roofed addition to the rear.

The original timber framing survives to the right gable end, which is jettied to the first floor and attic. It features moulded and chamfered bressumers supported on carved corner brackets with thin colonettes, the attic bressumer displaying quatrefoil and other carved decoration. The original framing shows close-set vertical posts with a middle rail; circular shapes intersect with narrow rectangular panels to the first floor, with vertical posts and a serpentine brace below the window; and concave lozenges to the attic. Original triangular-chamfered wooden mullioned and transomed windows are present on the ground and first floors, with 7 lights at the lower level and 5 at the upper level. A small Tudor-arched window is in the attic. Carved brackets at a 45-degree angle to the left and right on the ground floor, and another now internal to the rear, indicate that the front and rear walls were originally also jettied. Lighter rectangular panelling survives on the front wall to the right but is probably later than that to the gable end.

The front has 20th-century casements to either side of a central two-storey gabled porch, likely on the site of an earlier timber-framed structure. This porch has a 20th-century casement to the first floor and a four-panel door (with glazed upper panels) under an outer 20th-century gabled brick porch. A central brick ridge stack has four diagonally set shafts. A Salop Fire Insurance Plate numbered 13161 is located to the left of the first-floor window on the right gable end.

Inside, the right ground-floor room has deep-chamfered cross and spine beams with a dragon beam to the rear right corner. The left ground-floor room features a richly moulded cross-beam ceiling with run-out stops and a moulded dragon beam to the rear left corner. An 18th-century wooden wall cupboard to the rear right corner has a pilastered round-headed arch with a 'keystone'. A wide central stack with a staircase is behind the room on the right. Chamfered ceiling beams are on the first floor, and timber framing is said to partly survive beneath plasterboard to the original back wall. The double-purlin roof, visible in the roof space, has king-struts (missing to the left truss) and raking struts supporting principal rafters; short straight windbraces are also present. Wide boarded floorboards are found on the first floor and in the attic. Building foundations were reportedly discovered beneath the lawn to the front of the house. A 20th-century addition to the rear is not considered to be of special architectural interest.