Canterbury Tye Hall Farmhouse

Canterbury Tye Hall Farmhouse

House dating from the early 16th century, mid-16th century, around 1600, and the 19th century. The building is timber-framed and brick, both rendered, with peg-tiled roofs. The plan is rectangular with two parallel blocks: a medieval block to the front and a 19th-century block to the rear, both with low-pitched hipped roofs.

The front north-east elevation is two storeys tall with a three-window range and a central stack behind the roof apex. All windows are 20th-century casements with transoms and small leaded rectangular panes. The ground floor has a central three-light window with single two-light windows on each side. The first floor has three two-light casements. At the south-east end, a 20th-century brick porch flush with the front has a hipped roof with flat tiles and a single casement window. A 19th-century stack rises behind.

The rear south-west elevation has a three-window range with two 19th-century red brick stacks rising from the roof apex between the windows. The rendered walls are scored to imitate jointed ashlar. The ground floor features a central 19th-century door now with upper glazing, glazing bars, and 3x2 panes, with two flush panels below and a three-light rectangular fanlight. On each side is one segmental-headed 19th-century window with a central vertical glazing bar in the tympanum, the lower part filled with a 20th-century two-light casement with transom. A 20th-century conservatory porch projects deeply from the central door, weatherboarded below and fully glazed above. The first floor has three 20th-century two-light casements with transoms.

The north-west end elevation has rendered walls with ruled ashlar jointing and a central doorway bridging the two blocks. A 20th-century porch in brick and timber contains a door with upper bowed glazing, glazing bars, and 4x3 panes. The inner door is 19th-century with three upper recessed lancet panels and a recessed quatrefoil above each, with three plain recessed panels below. To the south-west of the door is a 19th-century segmental-headed window with a vertical glazing bar in the tympanum and a 20th-century two-light casement with transom inserted below. Over the central door, a first-floor segmental-headed fixed window has glazing bars, 3x5 panes.

The south-east end elevation shows the north-east block with a 19th-century stack and a 20th-century brick porch in front. A boarded stable door has upper glazing of small leaded panes and a similar casement window. The main house wall has ground-floor and first-floor casements, both with rectangular leaded panes. The south-west block has a 20th-century semicircular-headed window with glazing bars, 3x4 panes and three radial panes in the head.

Interior

The front block contains three early 16th-century timber-framed bays of a hall house. The north-west bay is storeyed; the two bays to the south-east form an open hall with cambered tie-beams. The south-east bay was half removed in the early 19th century to make a staircase hall when the rear block was added.

At the north-west end, the storeyed bay end wall has a mullioned window and shutter groove on the first floor and a shutter groove for a window below. The present floor joists are post-medieval replacements, but the original joists were flat-sectioned with housed soffit shoulders.

The partition between the high end and the hall has stout studding below and above the tie-beam with Roman numeral carpenters' marks and peg holes in line, possibly for a warping frame, along with a tension brace and an original ground-floor doorway.

The central bay and north-west bay have inserted ceiling joists of around 1560. The principal binding joist is supported by a timber sling, with principal and common joists having step stop-chamfers jointed by diminished haunched soffit tenons.

A stack was inserted around 1600 through the floor in a lateral position, with joists replaced round the stack. The central tie-beam over the inserted floors was cut, and a doorway was framed on the first floor.

In the early 19th century, slender studding was added above wall plates to raise the eaves to the level of the added rear block. Areas of wall studding were replaced in the front and back walls for window and door replacement. Gouge marks in the 19th-century studding indicate the assembly sequence.

Canterbury Tye Hall Farmhouse and barn form a group.