Summers Hall Farmhouse

House. Dating back to the 15th century, it was altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. The house is timber-framed and has plaster walls, a roof of handmade red clay tiles and slate. It originally comprised a 2-bay hall facing north, with a 16th-century axial stack in the left bay, and two 2-bay crosswings. 19th-century extensions were added at each end, with slate roofs, and further extensions to the rear. The front has ground floor windows, dating from the late 18th or early 19th century, with 16, 12, and 16 lights, and one splayed bay with 4, 16, and 4 lights. First-floor windows are also from the late 18th or early 19th century, with 12, 12, 9, 9, and 12 lights. A late 18th or early 19th-century 6-panel door has glazed upper panels, a moulded doorcase, and a hood. The front wall of the hall has been raised approximately one metre to create a plain parapet with a flat roof projecting about one metre beyond the pitched roof. The crosswing roofs are hipped at the front. The interior is mainly plastered, but retains the medieval structure, which is exposed in a first-floor front room in the right bay of the hall. Here, the front wallplate of the hall shows the rebate for a shuttered hall window; one diamond mortice is visible below, and some diamond mullions may remain in place, plastered over. The left side wall of the right crosswing features close-studding with curved tension bracing trenched to the outside. The hall has a jowled post and central tiebeam, cut for a doorway. Above the ground floor, the binding beams of both crosswings are boxed in, and in the right bay of the hall, a 16th-century inserted floor now has transverse and longitudinal beams that are also boxed in. The 16th-century large wood-burning hearth facing to the right has been reduced to accommodate an 18th-century fireplace. The hall roof is largely intact, with a central crownpost and 4-way bracing, all smoke-blackened, and an 18th or early 19th-century softwood roof above it. The left crosswing roof has crownpost construction, but the crownpost and collar-purlin are missing. The right crosswing roof appears to retain the original crownpost structure. The upper part of the 16th-century inserted stack was rebuilt in the 18th century. A late 18th or early 19th-century staircase has a wreathed handrail. The house was comprehensively restyled internally and externally towards the end of the 18th century, but retains the medieval arrangement: the entrance hall is still on the line of the original cross-entry, one of a pair of service doorways remains a door, the doorway from the hall to the parlour is in its original position, and the medieval roofs are largely intact. The size suggests it was originally a manor house.