Parsonage Farmhouse

TL 5866 BURWELL LOW ROAD (West Side)

15/27 No 128 (Parson- 1.12.51 age Farmhouse) (formerly listed as Parsonage Farmhouse, barn GV and outbuildings) II

Farmhouse with parlour wing to east of tower-house proportions with attached late medieval barn partly derelict to west. Three building periods; late C16 farmhouse includes the end bay and gable wall of the earlier barn and possibly other medieval fragments in the strange alignment of the parlour wing and service rooms; enclosure of area to east of stair turret and service rooms early to mid C17. Alterations in C18 include a passage built through the chimney stack at ground floor and a staircase in the hall. Painted clunch. Modern interlocking roof tiles, tall C19 gault brick ridge stack, brick dressings. Two storeys and attics, cross-wing three storeys with double parapetted facade gables facing south. Main range has one first floor three-light casement window, and two twelve-paned hung sash windows with one sealed, chamfered-mullioned window. One ground floor three-light casement window and two sixteen-paned hung sash windows to left hand of round-arched doorway. Parlour wing of two 'bays' has two, three-light casement attic windows, one first floor twelve-paned hung sash window and two sixteen- paned, hung sash ground floor windows. Interior details contemporary with late C16 and early C17 include a balustered screen in passage to rear of parlour. The fabric of the barn walls survive in part and the trusses below tie beam level (see RCHM measured drawing). The quality of the barn suggests a public use such as a trading hall associated with some local industry. It was in the possession of Ramsey Abbey till the Dissolution in 1537.

Sayer W. Notes of Burwell Church Lucas C. The Fenman's World, p.97, 1928 RCHM, North-East Cambs, p.32, mon. 40 Pevsner. Buildings of England, p.312

Listing NGR: TL5846466645