Brick House Farmhouse

A house dating to around 1623, built in red brick with an irregular bond and peg-tiled roof. The building is rectangular in plan with an internal stack positioned off centre to the east, a front door in a porch, and a stair tower to the rear of the stack. A rear wing extends from the north-west end.

Exterior

The south front elevation is 2 storeys with an attic, divided into 3 bays each with a facade gable. At the junction between bays 2 and 3 from the north-west stands a tall stack with 6 diagonally set shafts on a base with an ovolo-moulded cornice. A 2-storey porch with a gabled roof projects forward, featuring a semicircular-headed doorway with brick torus-moulded imposts. The door is 20th-century boarded with 17th-century style ironwork and a central grille.

A brick string course runs between ground and first floors, continuing around the porch. Each bay contains a single window at ground, first floor and attic levels, all 20th-century replacements but designed in 17th-century style with oak mullions and intermediate minor iron bars. These copies a surviving 17th-century example at the east end. Ground and first-floor windows contain 4 lights, attic windows 3 lights. The porch has a 3-light window on the first floor and single-light windows on each side at ground floor.

The north elevation features a stair tower that rises to the attic, constructed in brick with weatherboarded timber-framing at attic level and a simple gabled peg-tiled roof. The tower contains one blocked 2nd-floor side window and one 20th-century restored lower mullioned rear window with the string course lifted over it. A 20th-century 2-light casement window sits on the ground-floor east side in the original aperture.

A projecting wing at the west end is rendered and contains a first-floor doorway on its east side. It holds an 18th-century stack with tumbled brick shoulders set against the rear wall of the principal house block. Between the stair tower and west wing are 18th or 19th-century lean-to additions with peg-tiled and slated roofs. A 20th-century brick addition to the rear of the west wing is pebble-dash rendered with 2-light casement windows and French windows. A 20th-century lean-to at the east end has a peg-tiled roof, one plain door and one boarded door with an upper glazed light.

The west end elevation displays a gable end of the house with the wing and extension beyond. End gabling matches the south front with single 20th-century windows in 17th-century style on 2 floors and attic (4 lights on ground and first floors, 3 lights on attic level). A fully glazed conservatory spans the ground floor. The extension has 20th-century red brick walling with a 20th-century 3-light casement window containing small leaded rectangular panes, together with a 20th-century brick and timber gabled porch with peg and flat tiles, glazed sides with 4-light windows each, and a plain door. A further 20th-century pebble-dash rendered and pantiled extension to the north features one 2-light and two single-light casement windows, two boarded doors and one boarded stable-type door.

The east end elevation shows the original house gable end. It retains an original ground-floor 4-light mullioned window with mullions of lozenge section, flattened outer and inner arrises and glazing rebates, with minor iron intermediate mullions. The first-floor window is 20th-century, 4 lights, and the attic window 20th-century, 3 lights, both in early 17th-century style. The string course from the front elevation continues across this face.

Interior

The building employs a classic 3-celled lobby entrance form. Principal joists display lamb's tongue stopped chamfers on ground and first floors, with similar treatment in the west rear wing. Eight original door frames with lamb's tongue chamfer stops remain, indicating the expected circulation around the house and stair tower.

Central fireplaces occupy the ground floor (20th-century rebuilt) and first floor (blocked). The attic fireplace is not known within living memory. The stair tower contains an original newel post, with exposed upper interior framing. The attic roof is of butted side purlin and butted rafter construction with collars. Stout side purlins of the end frames are joggled up.

The rear wing comprises 2 bays with a central partition and a wind-braced side purlin roof. The ground-floor fireplace is rebuilt but retains a bread oven. The wing is probably contemporary with the house and was possibly a kitchen at the low end, originally timber-framed but now brick-walled.

The soffit of the porch arch contains 2 bricks with inscriptions baked into the clay: one bears a W, possibly an M for Mary to protect the house from evil, and the other shows the date 1623. The brick bond combines English and Flemish types—an experimental construction characteristic of the date.