Olivers Farmhouse

Olivers Farmhouse is a manor house dating from the late 16th century, with alterations made in the 19th and 20th centuries. It features a timber frame that is plastered and has a roof made of handmade red clay tiles. The building consists of four bays arranged approximately east-west, facing north, with external chimney stacks located at the west end and behind the second bay from the west. There is a one-bay service range at the rear of the east bay, which has an end chimney stack. The farmhouse is two storeys tall with attics.

The ground floor has two boarded doors with plain lights above and five 20th-century casement windows. On the first floor, there are three additional casement windows and two 19th-century cast iron casement windows. The roof features three gabled dormers, each with one fixed light and one wrought iron casement, dating from the late 17th to early 18th century, along with some early glass.

Inside, the structure has heavy studding and jowled posts, with all main frame members being chamfered and featuring lamb's tongue stops. The central posts of the two-bay ground floor 'hall' have carved jowled heads. This room includes a binding beam and twinned bridging beams in each bay, all of which are moulded, while the joists are of horizontal section, chamfered with bar stops. The attic floor is original and features chamfered axial beams with lamb's tongue stops. The roof is constructed with clasped purlins, high arched collars, and arched wind bracing.

The south ground floor fireplace has been rebuilt, but the fireplace above it retains an original brick depressed arch. An estate map from 1738 by John Bowra, owned by George Unwin of Toppesfield Hall, shows the house with a rear stair tower at the west end of the 'hall', which is supported by structural evidence. The heights of the storeys are notably exceptional, measuring 2.67 metres on the ground floor and 2.46 metres on the first floor. A plaster shield of arms found in the upper west wall belongs to the Symonds family of Great Yeldham, with Richard Simon holding it in 1627, as noted by Morant.