Shelton Farm House

Shelton Farm House

Shelton Farm House is a timber-framed farmhouse of 17th-century origin with substantial 18th and 19th-century alterations. The building represents an evolved rural dwelling that reflects changes in taste, expectations and living conditions over several centuries.

The house is constructed as a box-framed timber frame, with 19th-century ashlar re-facing applied to the front and garden elevations. The rear wing retains rendered and painted finishes. The roof is laid with gabled clay tiles featuring decorative ridges, with stone and rendered brick chimney stacks throughout.

The plan is irregular and evolved, comprising a front (east) cross range of three bays with a projecting porch, a long rear wing running east-west, and a further projecting gabled wing on the south side (garden elevation). Several single-storey lean-to structures are attached to the rear.

The exterior displays a mixture of fenestration from the 18th and 19th centuries, including sliding sash windows and timber casements. Windows in the stone-clad ranges of the front and garden elevations have decorated projecting flat-headed drip moulds supported on carved brackets. The two first-floor windows on the south gable of the front range are modern replicas. The front elevation is symmetrical, with two four-light sash windows flanking a central single-storey stone porch with flat roof, open stone portico, plinth, decorated string course and solid parapet. The upper floor has three four-light sliding sash windows. The rear range includes a partly enclosed single-storey veranda with plain tile pent roof supported on timber posts along its entire north elevation. On the south side, a rendered single-storey lean-to building with plain tile roof adjoins the rear range, with a modern conservatory positioned between this and the south wing.

The roof displays decorative polychrome fish-scale tiles on the garden elevation and red plain tiles elsewhere, with blue decorative ridges.

Internally, flagstone floors survive throughout the ground floor of the rear range, and timber-frame partitions of plain box framing remain in both the rear and front ranges on both floors and in the attics. Elements of the original roof structure are preserved. A large inglenook fireplace with timber bressumer stands in the front range, and a stop-chamfered cross beam is present in the dining room. The remains of a brick bread oven survive in the west gable of the rear range. A sixteen-light sash window in the north gable and deep skirtings and cornices in the front range indicate 18th-century renovation work.

The projecting south wing, front porch, ashlar re-facing of the front range, and partial raising and recovering of roofs are believed to date from the 19th century. Both staircases were renewed during this period. The porch contains a highly decorative encaustic tile floor by Maw & Co., and the master bedroom features a fire surround with decorative polychrome tiles also by Maw & Co., dated circa 1875. Smaller fireplaces in the first-floor rooms of the rear range are recent insertions. Original timber-framed roof structures survive in parts of the building, best preserved in the front range within later attic bedrooms. Scorch marks from rush taper lights remain visible on some upright roof posts. The roof of the rear range is of later construction date.

The house is designated Grade II as a substantially intact 17th-century timber-framed building and a good example of an evolved farmhouse reflecting changing domestic conditions over time.