Highfields Farmhouse

Highfields Farmhouse is a house dating to approximately 1600, with alterations from the 18th and 19th centuries. The house suffered a serious fire around 1977 and was subsequently restored. It is timber-framed with plastered walls, a roof of handmade red plain tiles, and a rear wing constructed of painted brick with a slate roof. The main range faces southeast, with rear wings to the left and centre. A 19th-century external stack is located at the rear of the right end. A single-storey extension with a flat roof is attached to the right and rear, connecting with an early to mid-19th century house at the rear (shown on Ordnance Survey maps as number 98). A further 19th-century single-storey extension, with a hipped slate roof, now serves as garages.

The front of the house has two full-height, splayed bays, each with three 20th-century sashes of 12 lights at each end floor, and two similar sashes on the ground floor. Above the central door are three adjacent sashes, the middle one with a semi-circular head, and the outer ones with ogee heads. The main entrance is a six-panel door with a fielded design, set within an 18th-century doorcase that has 20th-century rusticated jambs, a pulvinated frieze, a dentilled and moulded flat canopy with a lead tented roof, and two moulded limestone steps. A plain parapet tops the facade. The right return has two casements with 2-centred arches and Y-tracery on the ground floor, and one sash and one casement with 2-centred heads and Gothick tracery on the first floor. The brick house to the rear right, facing northeast, has a three-window range of sashes of 16 lights with segmental arches and another sash on the first floor of the southeast elevation. It features corner pilasters and a fully hipped roof.

Records indicate that since the fire, the height of the main range has been reduced by one storey, and windows have been re-arranged. While originally reported to have been built around 1600, the original timber frame is no longer identifiable. A surviving 18th-century dogleg staircase, featuring a moulded handrail, three turned balusters to each tread, scrolled tread-ends, and a panelled dado, has been restored. Re-used 18th-century pine panelling, reportedly from Tate and Lyle, Marks Lane, City of London, has been installed in the entrance hall, along with other introduced features. The fire damage did not affect the rear wing.