Golding

Golding is a farmhouse with a complex building history spanning from the early 17th century to the early 19th century. The main house dates from the mid- to late 18th century and incorporates an earlier core, while a wing was added in 1668 for Thomas Langley. The building is constructed of red brick with red sandstone ashlar dressings, with plain tile roofs.

The house is arranged in a shallow U-plan with projecting gabled cross-wings. The centre range and left-hand cross-wing are 18th-century work, while the right-hand cross-wing dates to 1668. The main block rises to three storeys with 2-storey and attic cross-wings. The left-hand 18th-century part has a chamfered plinth, and the right-hand 17th-century wing has a moulded stone plinth and quoins with plat bands. Above the first-floor windows of the right-hand cross-wing is a square datestone inscribed "T L" and dated 1668. The house features a parapet to the 1668 gables, which are stone-coped. Flat-roofed dormers with 2-light casements are set into the return fronts and rear. A large brick ridge stack stands off-centre to the left with a 20th-century brick top, and an external brick lateral stack to the right has stone quoins and a 20th-century brick top stage.

The main elevation has 2:2:2 bays. Windows comprise 16-pane glazing bar sashes with stone lintels; the central second-floor sash and attic sashes to the cross-wings are 18-pane. A first-floor left-hand sash was dropped probably in the late 19th century to accommodate inconsistent floor heights, with an inserted rendered wooden lintel. The second bay from the left has painted imitation sashes. The central door is panelled with six flush panels. A late 18th-century porch has unfluted Roman Doric columns supporting reeded dosserets with dentil cornices and an open triangular pediment with arched tympanum and dentil cornice. Flanking 6-pane windows, probably inserted in the late 19th or 20th century, are indicated by a soldier course to their head. The 2-bay return fronts to the right have 16-pane sashes to the left and blocked windows to the right. The rear elevation shows 2:3:2 bays. Eighteenth-century lead downpipes with moulded rainwater heads are present.

A kitchen block adjoins at the south-east corner, dating to the 18th century. It is built of red brick on a coursed red sandstone rubble plinth with a plain tile roof, rising to one storey and attic. An integral brick end stack stands to the left. The front elevation has a 3-light segmental-headed wooden casement. The gable end to the right features a 3-light segmental-headed wooden attic casement and four steps leading up to a segmental-headed boarded door. A lean-to brick porch with parapeted verge and segmental brick archway adjoins the kitchen block.

The interior is largely of late 17th-century, early 18th-century, and late 18th or early 19th-century date. The ground-floor front room to the right is panelled with a moulded cornice. It contains a 17th-century corner fireplace with tiles, surmounted by an 18th-century bolection-moulded surround, frieze, cornice, and pilasters flanking a panel above. The first-floor front room to the right is lined with 18th-century bolection-moulded panelling with moulded cornice and contains a 17th-century corner fireplace with an 18th-century bolection-moulded surround and 18th-century cast iron grate. Fireplaces and doorways in the ground- and first-floor front rooms to the right have 17th-century chamfered wooden and stone surrounds with ogee stops beneath later 18th and 19th-century details. The first-floor fireplace has a moulded depressed arch. The first-floor right-hand room at the rear has a small 18th-century fireplace with moulded cornice and cast iron grate. The central first-floor room contains an 18th-century fireplace with fluted pilasters, husk garlands, frieze, dentil cornice and cast iron grate. An 18th-century fireplace is also present in the first-floor left-hand room. The kitchen in the main block to the left has an early 19th-century fireplace surround with panelled sides, segmental arch and moulded cornice.

A late 17th-century dog-leg staircase in the right-hand cross-wing features lozenge decoration, closed string, turned balusters, moulded handrail, and square newel posts. An early 19th-century back staircase has stick balusters and turned newels. Late 18th or early 19th-century panelled doors, panelled shutters, and moulded architraves are found throughout.

The Langley family acquired the township of Golding in 1606, and it was probably Thomas Langley who added the wing dated 1668, as indicated by the datestone. The left-hand part is probably an 18th-century rebuilding of an earlier house, possibly dating from soon after 1606, as evidenced by the large stack with a large open fireplace and inconsistencies between floor levels and 18th-century windows.

Golding is particularly notable as a largely unaltered and well-preserved large farmhouse within a good hamlet group, which includes terrace walls, a stable, dovecote, tithe barn, and cottage.