Poplars Farmhouse

Poplars Farmhouse is a lobby-entrance farmhouse of the mid-17th century, significantly enlarged to the west in the late 17th century and again around 1720. The building is constructed of coursed oolitic limestone blocks, with the rear north elevation and east return rendered and colourwashed. The roof is of gabled slate.

The building was originally planned as a lobby-entrance house, but was converted in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to a rear-passage plan with main ground and first-floor rooms arranged in line.

The main south elevation facing the High Street displays seven window bays in two storeys. A vertical butt join between bays four and five marks the point of building division. To the east of this join is the original three-bay mid-17th century lobby-entrance house, with the entrance formerly positioned at the taller central window. The house was enlarged by two bays to the west of the butt join in the later 17th century, and again by a further two bays around 1720, at which point the entrance was relocated to bay three. A seven-light ground-floor bow window was added in 1961.

The fenestration consists of early 18th century timber two-light cross casements in bays one to four, and three-light cross casements in the eastern three bays, set under sandstone lintels. Four casements were replaced in replica in 1947. The entrance is a six-panelled late 19th-century door with leaded glazing in its upper four panels, set under a fine early 18th-century flat hood decorated with acanthus and dentil ornament. Cast-iron rainwater goods date from the late 19th century, when the house was re-roofed and given a corbelled eaves cornice. The chimney stacks—two ridge stacks and one internal west gable-end stack—were all rebuilt in the late 19th century in gault brick.

The north elevation originally featured a full-width veranda with the upper floor supported on brick piers. In 1975 this veranda was filled in and fitted with four uPVC casements and a multi-paned glazed door; the upper floor was provided with four two-light timber casements. The enclosed space is accessed via a doorway in the east return set within a recess with a semi-circular head. Each floor of the return is lit through a three-light 1975 casement. The west return is of uniform coursed limestone blocks with no openings.

To the north-west stands an early 18th-century stone outbuilding, formerly with double cart doors towards its south end. It was converted to domestic use in 1975 and fitted with three-light timber casements, three of which have a slight bow. This building is connected to the main house by a two-storey link, extensively reworked in 1975. Where this link joins the main house on the west side is a raking buttress of the same date, built against the quoins of the late 17th-century extension.

Internally, the rear passage—created from the former veranda—provides access to the principal rooms. A secondary staircase with moulded square balusters and newels was constructed in the late 19th century off this passage. The south entrance door opens directly into a small staircase hall, with the outer west wall of the late 17th-century extension exposed to the left, containing a blocked window opening.

One room lies to the west of this staircase hall; three rooms are arranged in a line to the east. The principal staircase is a late 17th-century closed-well dog-leg of oak, rising to the attic. It features a closed string with wavy splat balusters, chamfered square newels with tetrahedron finials, and a moulded handrail. A cupboard under the stairs is fitted with a plank door on HL hinges; a second doorway has butterfly hinges.

The sitting room to the west in the early 18th-century extension is entered via a late 19th-century four-panelled door. Its fire opening was rebuilt and features an exposed bridging beam and joists from the late 19th century. A heavy chamfered bridging beam runs through the second sitting room to the east of the 17th-century staircase, with a similar spine beam extending to the west. East of this room is the dining room, which contains a stone chimneypiece introduced in the late 20th century. The kitchen, now of late 20th-century character, lies further east, opening into the east end of the enclosed rear veranda.

The first floor contains a series of bedrooms arranged in line along the south elevation, accessed from a rear passageway in the upper floor of the enclosed veranda, which has been partly converted to bathrooms and service rooms. The bedroom over the western sitting room features complete full-height large-framed raised early 18th-century panelling and a moulded dado rail, along with a boxed bridging beam and three four-panelled doors on HL hinges. The remaining bedrooms retain minor details including two-panelled early 18th-century doors. Eight-inch oak floorboards run throughout.

The attic, accessed by the 17th-century staircase, is inaccessible, but the roof structure dates from the late 19th century.

The farmhouse does not appear among those recorded as belonging to either of the two post-Conquest manors that existed within the parish. It began as a high-quality three-bay lobby-entrance house in the mid-17th century; the owner reports the existence of a datestone inscribed 1647, now hidden by the 1975 alterations. In the later 17th century the house was nearly doubled in size towards the west, and a further room was added in the same direction around 1720. A major refurbishment in the late 19th century focused on re-roofing and modernisation without detracting from the building's overall character.