Fir Tree Cottage Woodbarns Farmhouse

Woodbarns Farmhouse and Fir Tree Cottage

A house now subdivided into a house and cottage, originating in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with extensions dating from the early 18th century, early 19th century, and 20th century. The building underwent alteration in the early 19th century.

The structure is timber-framed, partly clad with early 18th-century red brick in Flemish bond and partly plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. The main range faces south-east, with a central stack, an original wing to the rear left, and an original stair-tower in the rear angle. A 20th-century single-storey extension extends to the left of the rear wing. An early 19th-century rear wing stands to the right of the stair-tower. The building rises to two storeys at the main range. A late 16th-century wing of one storey with attics projects to the right, accompanied by a single-storey ancillary range to its rear right dating from the 18th or early 19th century, and a single-storey front extension of 1935. Fir Tree Cottage comprises the right part of this wing and forward extension; Woodbarns Farmhouse comprises the remainder.

The principal south-east elevation is symmetrical, featuring on the ground floor two early 19th-century tripartite sashes of 4:12:4 lights with flat arches of gauged brick and some crown glass. The first floor carries two similar sashes and a central sash of 6+6 lights with similar arch. A central early 19th-century six-panel door occupies the ground floor, with the bottom panels flush and the others fielded; the door is surmounted by an overlight with saltire glazing bars and has a reeded sill, panelled reveals, pilasters, and a flat canopy on profiled brackets. A moulded brick cornice and plain parapet crown the elevation, which is topped by a hipped roof. The brick facade continues part-way around the left elevation, with one early 19th-century sash of 8+8 lights on each floor, featuring segmental arches and some crown glass; the remainder is ashlared plaster. All rear roofs are hipped. A single early 19th-century sash of 6+6 lights appears on the ground floor at the rear of the rear right wing; other windows are 19th and 20th-century casements.

The main house interior displays heavy studding with straight and cranked bracing trenched to the inside, and chamfered axial beams with lamb's tongue stops at both floors, some of which are boxed in; joists are ceiled to the soffits. Two large wood-burning hearths with 0.33-metre jambs stand back to back. The left hearth features a chamfered mantel beam with lamb's tongue stops, inserted internal splays, and cement pointing. On the first floor, to the rear of the stack, are three early 18th-century closets, each with a serpentine fretted grill above the door; two of the doors are original, ledged with grooved vertical boards and fitted with butterfly hinges, while one is four-panel. A clasped purlin roof has purlins of the rear left wing tenoned to the principal rafters of the main roof. Original wattle and daub survives in a framed partition separating a floored attic to the right of the stack from the remainder. An 18th-century small wrought-iron casement appears in the right attic. Several six-panel doors with 18th and early 19th-century brass locks are present, as are plain boarded doors with wrought-iron fittings. The right wing contains unjowled posts and heavy oak framing, mostly concealed by modern finishes. Twenty-first-century grates are installed.

The holding is recorded in the will of John Sylvester the elder, yeoman, dated 1559–60. The house appears in the Walker map of 1601, viewed from the north-west (towards the farmyard, now the rear), depicted as a single-storey range with two doors and two windows, a higher bay to the right with a chimney and one window, and a gabled two-storey cross-wing to its right. The present house appears to retain all elements except the cross-wing, which has been replaced by the present main range, now reoriented to face south-east.