Church Farmhouse

HOLWELL GURNEYS LANE TL 1633 (West side)

9/18 Church Farmhouse 11.2.75

GV II

Farmhouse. W crosswing c.1500 (presumably associated with former hall range extending to W), late C16 range added on its E side, C18 brick internal chimney to this range, mid C19 brick W block replacing medieval hall range. Renovated 1975. Timber frame on high brick sill, roughcast. Yellow brick W block. Steep old red tile roofs. An irregular 2-storeys house, set back from lane, facing S into yard. E range has 2 windows to each floor and is jettied to front and rear. Flush casement windows of 3-lights and 2-lights on each floor. 4 curved brackets below jetty on S. Projecting gabled W crosswing has a 2-lights and single-light window on ground floor and a 3-lights window on 1st floor. Higher 2-storeys W block set back and projecting to rear has a gabled porch and canted bay to front. The interior of the older parts have exposed timbers. The W crosswing has close-studded walls, clasped-purlin roof, curved wind- braces, and a 3-light original ground floor window later blocked by the E range. This has 2 rooms on each floor, separated by a lobby and staircase, the lower W room a new hall heated originally by an internal timber-framed chimney, with an unheated parlour at E. When built the W crosswing will have been for service rooms and the medieval hall demoted to a kitchen. Only when the chimney was renewed in brick in C18 was a fireplace provided for the parlour also. Blocked doorway on 1st floor with 4-centred arched head formerly from stair. Close-studding and diamond-mullioned window in parlour. Upper rooms in jettied E range both have fragmentary wall paintings stylistically of c.1600. W room has repeated representations of panelling, with panels enclosed in strapwork. Central motif a diamond enclosed in an oval. Dado and elaborate frieze. The E room has a large scale repeat pattern in black on white of a 16-petals rose enclosing an 8-petaled centre. W block comprises a narrow entrance and stair hall, and 4 large heated rooms on 2 floors around a central chimney stack. (Pevsner (1977)209: RCHM Typescript).

Listing NGR: TL1654133412