Marchants Farmhouse

BOVINGDON LEY HILL ROAD SP 90 SE (West side) 5/40 Marchants Farmhouse -

GV II

Farmhouse. Early C17 front range, later C17 rear wing, front range cased in flint and brick in C19 with new porches and windows. Timber frames, front facade of flint with brick dressings, N end roughcast above flint ground floor, red brick with some blue headers to ground floor of rear wing with exposed timber frame above with square panels and cill height rail. Steep old red tile roofs. A 2-storeys T-plan house facing E set back from road. The front range has a 2-cells, central-chimney, lobby-entry plan. The lower rear service wing originally unheated provided a new entrance and staircase against the older house entered from the N, a buttery, dairy and milk house, with ladder access to space over to accommodate farm hands. E front almost symmetrical with 2 windows to each floor and central porch. Upper windows are 3-light corbelled oriels with small gables over. 3-light flush transomed casements to ground fooor. Gabled part-glazed porch to Gothick front door. Axial 3-flue chimney with corbelled top. 3 structural bays to rear wing with small-pane sash windows to timbered 1st floor. Casements below. Gabled hood to door in N angle with front range. Dairy at NW has window with top-hung external shutter. SW part has stable door for use for horses in C19 entered from farmyard to S. Interior has axial floor beams in front range chamfered and stopped, wide open fireplace in hall, cupboards in part of narrowed fireplace of smaller parlour. One heated chamber on 1st floor. Chimney inserted in rear wing only in C20. Owner has deeds, the earliest said to be of 1611. (Roberts(1975)No.38).

Listing NGR: SP9994502578