Ivy House Farmhouse

Ivy House Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from around the early 15th century, with significant remodelling in the later 15th century and again in the late 16th or early 17th century. Further extensions were added in the 18th and 19th centuries. The structure is timber-framed, with sections faced in brick and others rendered, and it has a plain tile roof with gabled ends. A large brick axial stack featuring arched panelled sides and a smaller brick lateral stack on the west side are prominent external features.

The original layout consisted of two bays of a medieval house, open to the roof and originally heated by open hearth fires. In the late 16th or early 17th century, floors were inserted and an axial stack was added, heating the hall on the west side. A two-storey, two-room cross-wing was constructed at the left (west) end. Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the house was extended to the east. The south front has an asymmetrical arrangement of windows: 1:2:1:1. The left-hand section is a two-storey gable-ended cross-wing with a 12-pane sash window on the first floor and a 20th-century casement below. The central section has low eaves and includes an 18th or 19th-century four-light casement, a 20th-century three-light casement, a glazed door, and 20th-century flat-roofed dormers. The right-hand section has higher eaves and a single-storey extension on the extreme right with 20th-century windows. The rear (north) elevation features a gabled cross-wing on the right, with low eaves at the centre and raised eaves on the left; it mainly incorporates 20th-century casements.

Inside, the hall retains a chamfered axial beam and joists with hollow step stops, and a large blocked fireplace with a chamfered timber lintel. A plank door to the left of the fireplace has wrought iron strap hinges. A small room to the right has a chamfered axial beam with step stops and unchamfered beams across the corners, supporting a cruck truss above. The front and back rooms in the left (west) cross-wing display exposed wall framing and boxed-in axial beams. Two cross-wing chambers also have exposed wall framing and tie-beam trusses.

A particularly notable feature is the full cruck truss in the hall chamber, with chamfered arch braces tenoned to the collar and cruck blades which join at the apex via a small yoke with an arched soffit and a square-set ridge-piece. This truss was originally open but now has wattle-and-daub infill, both sides blackened by smoke. It also has tenoned side purlins and curved wind braces. An earlier cruck truss, also open, is located to the east. Both are smoke blackened. Common rafters have been replaced in the main range. The roof space of the cross-wing was not inspected.