Brook Farmhouse

Brook Farmhouse is a house dating from c.1400, with extensions added in the 16th, 18th, and 20th centuries. It is now divided into two cottages. The house is timber-framed, with plaster walls and a roof covered in handmade red clay tiles. It originally comprised a two-bay hall aligned northwest-southeast, with a parlour or solar bay to the southeast. A late 16th-century axial chimney stack is located in the northwest bay of the hall, and a further stack, dating from the 18th or 19th century, is in the southeast bay. A two-bay northwest crosswing was added in the late 16th century. An 18th-century rear extension is positioned behind the main axial chimney stack, and a single-storey lean-to extension was added to the southeast end in the 20th century. The house has one and two storeys, with attics. There is one six-panel door and one four-panel door, both with glazed top panels, and four 19th or 20th-century casement windows. Dormers on the first floor include two with gabled roofs. A gablet roof is at the southeast end. The 16th-century external chimney stack at the northwest end has been rebuilt in the 19th century with two diagonal shafts. Original ovolo-moulded bargeboards remain on the gable of the crosswing. Inside, the house features jowled posts, a chamfered transverse beam with step stops at the southeast end, and a late 16th-century inserted floor in the hall, together with a chamfered axial beam with lamb’s tongue stops and plain joists of horizontal section. Deep arched braces to the central tiebeam meet in the middle; the tiebeam and one brace were severed to create an inserted doorway. A crownpost is octagonal, with curved braces to a collar purlin. Collars and rafters over the hall are heavily smoke-blackened, with some rafters reset near the southeast end. The original smoke vent at the southeast gablet is of particular interest. The crosswing roof has high collars clasping side purlins. There has been some rebuilding at the sides of the main hearth.