Farmhouse Betlow Farm

Betlow Farm is a manor house, now operating as a farmhouse, with origins in the mid-15th century. Originally built as an open hall house, it has been substantially modified over subsequent centuries, with a central chimney and floor inserted over the hall in the later 17th century, a low link added to an eastern crosswing in the 18th century with timber frame panels filled with red brick, the south front cased in brick in the early 19th century and a south extension built at that time, and the eastern crosswing largely demolished with the south extension altered in the later 20th century.

The building is constructed of timber frame on a low brick sill (renewed), with exposed red and blue brick infill panels visible on the north and east elevations. The west side is finished in roughcast and features two buttresses, while the south front is cased entirely in red brick, as is the later red brick south extension. The roof is covered in steep old red tiles, hipped on the lower south extension.

The main frontage faces south and comprises a long two-storey structure with an attic, connected by a single-storey axial link to the remaining west side of the timber-framed two-bay crosswing, with a single-storey later extension at the east end of the south front. The south-facing facade has three windows to each storey and a door positioned in front of a large internal chimney located at the centre of the ridge. This front elevation features a dentilled brick eaves course and stucco flat arches to the ground floor. The first-floor windows are three 2-light recessed Yorkshire sliding casements with small panes. On the ground floor are two 2-light casement windows and a canted flat-topped bay window to the left of the door with sash windows. A small square window sits above the door. The entrance is a 6-panel flush-beaded door with a moulded flat hood on shaped brackets. A broad boarded door in the rear wall is positioned opposite the front door.

The north wall displays four flush casement windows on the first floor, with a blocked window in the western bay, and three similar windows on the ground floor. An 18th-century 3-light leaded casement opens to the east link, with a similar window to the attic in the east gable. The exposed timber framework on the north wall comprises five bays: three of equal width at the east end, a rather shorter entrance and chimney bay, a bay containing a full-height post set about one metre from its western bay-post (possibly defining a structural cross-passage), and a wide western bay whose ground floor contains a single large panel of 18th-century brickwork, apparently the back of an internal rear-wall chimney now capped off.

The interior retains the exposed framework of the original open hall house with smoke-blackened roof and storeyed bays at each end. The hall comprises two unequal bays, with the chimney now positioned in the eastern bay. An elaborate open truss has blocking pieces filling the spandrels of the arched braces, butt purlins with curved wind-braces, and an arched-braced collar open truss. All members are chamfered, with arched braces extending to queen-struts above the collar. Other trusses feature queen struts, butt-purlins with curved wind-braces, and arch braces to the tie beam. A partition includes a double-curved tension brace. The posts are heavily jowled. A deeply chamfered axial beam with scroll stops is carried on a crown-post with a cable-moulded band. A central stack with two ground-floor fireplaces was inserted into the hall in the 17th century, with a first-floor fireplace added around 1700.

Late 16th- or early 17th-century wall painting survives in a bedroom, consisting of framed texts and a repeat trellis-work pattern of geometrical character with interlaced flowers below. The text panels have a guilloche border, with flowers rendered in reds, pinks, and greys.

Historically, Betlow Farm was the old manor house of the Manor of Betlow, which was annexed to the Manor of Tiscot around 1625.