College Farmhouse

This is an early 15th-century open hall house with a crosswing added around 1600. It was later enlarged in the 17th century by one bay to the left and refenestrated in the early 19th century. The house is timber-framed and rendered with roughcast, with plain tiled, steeply pitched roofs and a ridge stack built of red and yellow gault brick. A side stack serves the crosswing. The original plan was likely of an open hall, probably with a floored end bay, which was converted to a hall and crosswing layout with a lobby entry around 1600. At that time, the hall was floored, and a stack was inserted. The hall itself is a single storey with an attic. It features two dormers, one with a sixteen-pane hung sash window. There is one early 19th-century hung sash window with sixteen panes and panelled shutters, and a half-glazed front door. The crosswing is two storeys high, with the first floor jettied. The jetty beam is boxed in, and each storey has a hung sash window with sixteen panes, alongside later louvred shutters.

The interior is a well-preserved example of an open hall converted to a lobby-entry plan, incorporating a floor, stack, and crosswing. The hall has two bays showcasing arch bracing to the tie beams. Much of the original wall framing is concealed. The roof is of crown-post construction, retaining some of the original rafters despite the stack’s insertion. The display truss contains a tall, octagonal crown-post with a square splayed capital, an octagonal astragal, a torus, and a splayed square base; the roof is smoke-blackened. The 16th-century crosswing has a two-bay roof with a clasped side purlin. The collar purlin of the crown-post roof extended beyond the open hall and was cut during the crosswing’s construction. The ground floor room in the crosswing has unmoulded joists of substantial size, laid flat, forming the ceiling.