Broadfield House

Broadfield House is an 18th-century house with an associated threshing barn, extended and reorientated in the early 19th century and subsequently altered in the 20th century for conversion to museum use.

The buildings are primarily constructed of brick. The main house has a slate roof, while the threshing barn has a clay tile roof. A glass pavilion is constructed entirely of glass.

The house is L-plan and faces north-east, with the original farmhouse in the western return angle. The glass pavilion is attached to the west of this structure. The threshing barn is adjacent and is orientated roughly east-west, connected to the house by a single-storey extension. There is a mid-20th-century two-storey extension to the house's southern elevation.

The principal front of the building faces north-east and is of three storeys and five bays with a central porch on stone steps. The porch canopy is supported by paired Ionic columns with cornice above, and paired Doric pilasters flank the doors. The doors sit in a moulded surround with fanlight above and are part-glazed with moulded timber panels. The central bay above the porch has a tripartite window at first-floor level with a Diocletian window above, both with stuccoed surrounds within an arched recess. A projecting moulded cornice at eaves level sits above a blocking course. The windows on this elevation are timber sashes, mostly with flat lintels of gauged brick.

A two-storey brick extension to the southern elevation has a metal fire escape stair above. The northern elevation contains a range of mostly timber casement windows, with some featuring leaded cames, including a large window lighting the rear stair.

The western elevation has a large extension constructed entirely of glass with a projecting flat roof extending from the rear of the original farmhouse, which itself has a modern flat roof although the end gable and chimney stack survive. Above the glass extension are the first-floor windows of the farmhouse, three bays with timber sashes and flat brick lintels below a projecting moulded cornice. The central bay is recessed. The return wing contains two large flat-headed window openings.

Adjacent to the house, linked by a modern single-storey extension, is an 18th-century threshing barn. The southern elevation contains large timber doors centrally under a brick arch, a smaller pair of timber doors to the west and a modern inserted window to the east. The brick elevation contains many ventilation holes.

The principal entrance from the north-east front opens into a wide hall with an open-well stair featuring a decorative cast iron balustrade rising the full height of the building. The entrance doors are protected by sliding timber shutters concealed within the walls when open. The hall floor is of stone flags laid in a diamond pattern with high timber skirtings and a decorative frieze below an ornate plaster cornice. A door gives access to the cellar containing a number of rooms with tiled floors and brick barrel vaulted ceilings. The principal reception rooms on the ground floor flank the hall and contain ornate plaster cornices and central ceiling roses, panelled doors in reeded surrounds and timber window shutters. The former drawing room also contains a frieze matching the hall style. Through an arched opening with fluted pilasters, the rooms beyond the hall in the original house have been opened up to create a gallery space, beyond which is the glass pavilion, a single open space. Two Venetian windows flank an enlarged door opening in the wall of the original building. The window frames have been reversed so that the moulded glazing bars face into the glass extension. Service rooms in the adjacent rear wing include one with an early 18th-century timber panelled door but otherwise contain few surviving features. The rear stair rises the full height of the building.

At first-floor level the layout principally matches that of the ground floor. The principal bedrooms to the front have plain decoration with simple cornices and are accessed from the central stair, which has decoration matching that at ground-floor level.

At second-floor level decoration continues up the main stair with ornate plaster cornice and ceiling rose above, giving access to further bedrooms containing little decoration but retaining original doors. In the projecting rear wing, the rear stair rises the full height of the building with stick balusters and turned newel posts, giving access to the attic storey which contains some exposed roof timbers.

The threshing barn is of three bays internally. One bay contains an inserted floor; the others are exposed to the roof which retains some original timber purlins. Part of a flagged threshing floor is exposed beneath modern flooring in the central bay; the northern doors of this bay have been sealed with modern breeze block.

The two-storey extension attached to the southern elevation of the building and the single-storey extension to the north, which connects the main building with the threshing barn, are not of special architectural and historic interest.