Stonards Farm (house), Epping

Stonards Farm is a multi-phase farmhouse with fabric dating to the early 17th century and substantially remodelled in the last quarter of the 19th century.

The house is built primarily of timber and red brick, with plain tile roofs. It is double-piled in plan, organised around a central lobby-entry in its earliest phase. The building is two storeys high with attics, three bays wide and two bays deep, with double-pile roofs forming two parallel ranges and gables to the east and west creating an M-shaped profile.

The north-facing front elevation has a red brick plinth laid in stretcher bond, above which sits a close-studded timber frame with pegged studs bearing carpenters' marks. It has 20th-century casement windows in each bay, a 20th-century timber-framed porch with a tiled roof at the centre of the ground floor, and a large brick ridge stack aligned with the central bay.

The east elevation is built of red brick in Flemish bond, formed from a pair of gables creating the M-profile. The right-hand gable stands slightly proud and has wooden casement windows. The left-hand gable has two-over-two wooden sash windows with horns and concealed boxes, and a doorway at lower right.

The south-facing garden elevation has a right-of-centre brick ridge-stack, three two-over-two sash windows at first floor and four at ground floor. At the time of inspection in 2023, the walls were covered in creeper.

The west elevation has twin gables forming an M-profile. The left-hand gable is clad in weatherboards, while the right-hand gable is built of red brick in Flemish bond with a truncate end-stack at the apex. A small brick extension with a hipped tiled roof and stretcher-bond walls stands at ground floor.

The interior reflects the multi-phased construction. The northern range at ground floor contains timber joists with lambs tongue stops, sandblasted in the 1970s. A massive back-to-back brick chimney stack rises through the centre of the northern range, with some localised repair and replacement but retaining large original openings. On the east side at ground and first floor, the fireplaces have wide four-centred arches built of chamfered brick. Early features also include plank and batten doors and wide floorboards in the attics.

The second major interior phase relates to the 19th-century remodelling of the rear and garden range. All joinery in the southern parts of the house dates to this period, including a staircase with stick balusters and ramped handrail, four-panelled doors, panelled aprons beneath windows, and skirtings. The 19th-century fireplaces have simple surrounds with cast iron grates. At ground floor, former kitchen areas retain black and red quarry tiled floors. At the junction between the two major construction phases, some exposed elements of the historic timber frame have been recycled alongside the mid-19th-century work.