Farmhouse At Finches Farm (Opposite Stevenage Road)

Finches Farm is a farmhouse located on the east side of High Street in Walkern, dating from the late 17th century and extended in the mid-19th century. The structure features a timber frame set on a stucco plinth with roughcast, and a red brick southeast wing that faces south. It has steep hipped roofs covered with old red tiles, and a catslide extension over a rear outshut.

This large house, which has two storeys and attics, faces west and includes a hipped rear stair turret and a two-storey later rear wing. The entrance is now through a parapeted red brick porch at the south end, although it was likely originally designed as a lobby-entry with a central chimney plan. A large 18th-century central chimney serves a corner fireplace in the south parlour and the hall in the centre, featuring a vaulted alcove on the sides of the stack on the ground floor. The northern room is still fitted and floored as a dairy, with a chimney inserted at the northwest corner.

The west front is nearly symmetrical, featuring three hipped dormer windows on the roof slope with two-light casements, four flush box sash windows on the first floor with 6/6 panes, and three windows on the ground floor. These include a two-light casement in the dairy, a rectangular hipped bay window with triple sashes in the middle room, and a similar triple sash window in the parlour. There is also a canted grey brick sash window on the south end. The front door, located in the porch, is half-glazed with coloured margin lights.

Inside, the farmhouse contains two 17th-century doors made of overlapping moulded planks leading to the dairy and game larder, a closed-string oak newel stair with square balusters that rises through three floors, and generally features two-panel late 18th-century doors.