Rook Hall Farmhouse

Rook Hall Farmhouse is a house dating from the 16th to 17th centuries, with alterations in the 18th and 20th centuries. The house is timber-framed, with plastered walls and a roof covered in handmade red plain tiles. The main range has three bays facing northeast, with a central stack creating a lobby-entrance. A rear range remains from a late medieval house, forming a T-shaped plan. A small, single-story extension is located on the right side, with further rear extensions of various dates. The house is two stories high, with attics. The front elevation features two early 19th-century sash windows of 16 lights on each floor, and one 18th-century window of 12 lights above the front door. The windows contain crown glass. The central double front doors have three fielded panels, set within a plastered doorcase featuring rusticated jambs, a pulvinated frieze, and a moulded, dentilled pediment. The front elevation is slightly asymmetrical. Four square shafts emerge from the roof, with an ovolo-moulded cornice, becoming octagonal above the cornice and topped with spiked caps; these have been restored. The main range exhibits jowled posts and straight bracing at the first floor level, interrupting the studding. Two main studs are in each long bay, enclosing the windows. Interior features include chamfered axial beams with lamb's tongue stops, face-halved and bladed scarfs in the wallplates, straight tiebeams, one additional tiebeam, and a pair of principal rafters in each long bay. The roof is a clasped purlin roof with near-straight wind bracing. The rear wing comprises the service bay of a late medieval house, and one bay containing a newel stair. An incomplete carved inscription on the front girt of the right bay of the main range includes the numerals 75 and three unidentifiable initials, potentially indicating a marriage in 1575. These initials have not been identified due to the loss of relevant parish registers. The structural features of this range suggest a date of around 1600 or in the early 17th century.