Southings Farmhouse

Southings Farmhouse is a 16th-century or earlier former open hall house, with significant alterations and additions dating to the 17th and 19th centuries. The building was originally brick-cased in the 18th century. It is located on the west side of Clements End Road, Great Gaddesden. The building faces south and encloses the north side of the farmyard.

The house originally comprised a large, three-cell hall-house with a single long bay for the hall. A west wing contained an unheated parlour with a cellar underneath, and a wide cross-passage occupies its own structural bay to the east. Originally, there were axially-divided service rooms in the east end bay. The layout was altered to a lobby-entry plan with the construction of back-to-back fireplaces within a stack that occupies only the western half of the former cross-passage. Partitions around the former service rooms were subsequently removed to create a single space.

The south front has irregular window placement, with the upper floor lit by small casement windows and three swept dormers. There are four windows on the ground floor, and a door now leads into the east part of the cross-passage, with a garden door to the north. The cross-passage is spanned by two heavy chamfered beams that frame cross-beams, enclosing a central space which now contains a 17th-century chimney. The building's timber frame is exposed on the first floor on the south side, with red brick infill panels, which are sandier on the south.

Inside, the framing is exposed, including wide-spaced studs, framing for blocked windows on the upper floor of the east bay, curved tension braces in walls, jowled posts, cambered tie-beams, and a clasped-purlin roof with long curved wind-braces. The square-butted scarf joint in the wallplate is also of note. The floor over the hall is supported by a chamfered axial beam jointed to chamfered cross-beams with mason-mitred junctions. The large hall fireplace has been narrowed, with a previously existing chamfered lintel and oven on the north flank.