Soams Farmhouse

This is a timber-framed farmhouse, originally dating to about 1600, with later alterations in the 18th/19th and 20th centuries. The house is constructed with a timber frame, roughly plastered and rendered, and some red brick, with a peg-tiled roof. A central chimney stack was rebuilt in the 18th century, incorporating some original thin bricks. The house has a rectangular plan with three main rooms and a rear out-shut. A secondary stack is located on the south gable wall.

The front elevation (east) now has 20th-century metal casement windows with diamond-pattern leaded lights. On the ground floor, running from north to south, are a single-light window, a timber and brick porch with a pegged-tiled roof, a four-light window, and a three-light window. The first floor has a three-light window, a small three-light window above the porch, a four-light window, and a three-light window. The south gable end has a 20th-century flush-panelled door, a chimney stack, a 19th-century fixed window with four panes, a 20th-century casement window with four panes on the ground floor, and 20th-century casement windows (one metal framed, one wooden framed) on the first floor. The north gable end has brick walling on the main house but rendering on the out-shut.

The ground floor out-shut has a two-light iron casement window, and the first floor has a two-light metal casement window, as well as a segment-headed brick window with a 19th-century iron casement containing small panes (3x4). The rear (west) elevation has an out-shot wall with irregular 20th-century casement windows, a door to the north end with a simple frame, two panels, and a glazed upper panel, and a simple 20th-century hood over it supported by shaped brackets .

The interior retains a traditional three-cell layout, with stout timber framing and a chimney bay containing back-to-back fireplaces, now partly blocked and rebuilt. There are ceiling bridging joists with lamb's tongue chamfer stops. Original doorways exist from the first floor central room to a closet and from the north end of the first floor room to the rear of the stack, where the original staircase was located. Deep middle rails on the front of the house and evidence of pegging suggest that large windows originally occupied the same positions as the current ones. Details include face halved and bladed scarfs, stout tension braces in transverse partitions, and a cyma moulded corbel in the ground floor central room, indicating a construction date around 1600. The visible construction in the out-shut is entirely 20th century. The out-shut, which was historically used as a dairy, is likely of considerable age, probably dating to the 17th century. It may have originally had a catslide roof, but later alterations likely raised the roof eave to its current height.