Hoards Park Farmhouse

Farmhouse, situated at Astley Abbots. Originally built in the early to mid 16th century, remodelled in the mid to late 17th century, and extended and altered in 1875.

The building is timber-framed, largely rebuilt in brick of English bond and English garden wall bond with some rendered sections. The attic storey is timber-framed with herring-bone pattern panels. Plain clay tile roofs feature stone-coped gable ends and moulded shaped and pierced bargeboards. The building is dominated by huge axial, lateral and gable-end stacks with multiple brick shafts, some diagonally set.

The farmhouse is planned on a north-south axis as a long building. The original timber-framed structure had a jettied cross-wing on three sides at the south end, though it remains uncertain whether the main range contained an open hall or was two-storeyed. The large lateral stack on the east side may be original or a later 16th-century insertion. The north-west wing was possibly also timber-framed originally and has a large gable-end stack. During the mid to late 17th century, the timber-frame was clad in brick, the building was lengthened at the north end with a narrow outshut on the east side, and a long attic storey was added along the full length of the building. The attic is open throughout without internal partitions, interrupted only by a large axial stack near the north end. This created an unusual composition of tiers of integral lean-tos on the east and west sides, and an imposing north gable end with a large stone mullion window to each storey. In 1875 the north-west wing was clad in brick and a further wing was built to the south-east.

The exterior presents two storeys and an attic. The west front is asymmetrical with a 1:2:1 bay arrangement and projecting gable-ended wings to left and right. The centre two bays contain late 19th-century 3 and 4-light wooden mullion windows with transoms on the ground floor. A doorway on the right of centre has a late 19th-century open porch with lean-to roof. A timber-framed attic storey is set back on the roof with a small timber-framed gable on the left of centre. The rear (east) elevation displays two tiers of integral brick lean-tos stepped back to the timber-framed attic storey above. The ground and first floors have 2 and 3-light stone mullion windows. At the centre stands a very large projecting lateral brick stack with four rebuilt brick shafts. To the left of the stack is a late 19th-century wooden lattice porch, and on the extreme right is the late 19th-century wing with a shield in the gable inscribed "Restored 1875" and bearing the initials of Foster. The left (south) return has three bays with a centre gable. The north gable end is unaltered and has ends of lean-tos to left and right, the right in one tier and the left in two tiers, with stone coping and kneelers. 3-light stone mullion windows appear on each floor with hoodmoulds; the first floor has a transom and a small blocked single-light window on the right.

Internally, the entrance hall features an encaustic tile floor of circa 1875, probably Maws tiles, and a staircase of circa 1875. A room in the south cross-wing has roll-and-hollow moulded ceiling beams, a dragon-beam and dado, probably of 17th-century reused panelling, and a painted Gothic chimneypiece. Another room also contains a Gothic stone chimneypiece. The kitchen, probably sited where the original hall was located, contains a very large blocked fireplace with an elliptical arch and a round-arched opening to the left, now a cupboard but probably originally a smoking chamber. The washroom in the north-west wing has heavy ceiling beams and a large open fireplace.