Fiddlers Croft 250 Metres Along Drive Beside Stonehouse Farm

House. The early 17th century brick house is situated 250 metres along the drive beside Stonehouse Farm. A northern section contains plasterwork dating to about 1603 (as recorded in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments typescript). A later southern section was likely built by John Sabine around 1644 (according to Minet, 1914). The house was occupied by Nicholas Pamphillon, a violin maker, around 1726 (as documented in the Hertfordshire Record Office). A low-built, plastered and pantiled modern wing was added around 1922.

The house is generally of red brick in English bond, featuring ovolo-moulded brick mullioned windows, and has steep red tile gable roofs. The south front wall was later faced in Flemish bond red brick, incorporating buttresses and a projecting central gabled room above the front door. This section features modern panelled pargetting and a double frieze depicting violins above the door. The original northern part runs east-west, with one room on each floor flanking a large central chimney that rises above the roof in two square shafts, one on each side of the ridge. There is an external ledge at first-floor level, and two-light brick mullioned windows. The lower rooms have ogee-stopped and chamfered cross beams.

The added southern part runs parallel and overlaps two-thirds of the northern section; its floors are significantly higher. It has a central chimney with three octagonal shafts aligned east-west, generally three-light mullioned windows, axial stopped and chamfered beams, and no external ledge. An entrance and staircase are positioned in the northeast corner within a wider extension of the northern section and a tile-hung link connects the roof lines. A round-arched opening leads to the front door, a three-light window illuminates the stairwell, and a two-light window is set into the east gable of the landing. Three-centred arched fireplaces, chamfered and plastered, are found in the west first-floor rooms of both sections.

The upper west room in the older northern section has a near-complete scheme of decorative plasterwork on the upper walls, likely commemorating the Union with Scotland around 1603. Details include an elaborate fleur-de-lis with choughs pecking berries above, smaller fleur-de-lis at the cardinal points, a palmette frieze on the west wall, a central rose motif and fat thistles on the chimney. A lion rampant with bezants in the top right and bottom left corners, within a border above the door, also appears. Similar large fleur-de-lis and lion rampant panels are seen over staircases, and the lion panel on the south chimney of the upper landing, likely replicated around 1922. The house is probably associated with the Capel family, who resided at Hadham Hall until around 1668.