Eel Farmhouse

TM09SW 84/3/10010

OLD BUCKENHAM FEN ROAD (South side) Eel Farmhouse

II

Farmhouse. Mid C15, altered C17 and C19. Plastered and colourwashed timber frame; pantiled roof. Hall house plan, floored in early C17. EXTERIOR: north front of 2 storeys; 3-window range. One 2-light and one 3-light late C18 casements to ground floor and one mid C20 3-light metal window to left. One 4-paned first-floor window. One raking dormer fitted with a 2-light casement. Blocked doorway right of centre. Rendered ridge stack left of centre. South front with 5 2- or 3-light casements, and one C20 2-light casement in raking dormer. East gable end has marks of blocked attic window. West gable end with single-storey late C19 gabled extension with one 2-light casement, a plank door and a brick stack. INTERIOR: timber frame of very heavy scantling. East ground-floor room with early C17 bridging beam with sunk quadrant mouldings and jewelled tongue stops. C20 fire insert in C17 stack, with bread oven to its left. Left and right of chimneybreast is one 2-panelled early C19 door. South stack lobby with early C17 winder staircase, and in room immediately west are both chamfered arched braces to the principal hall truss. Immediately west is hall screens passage with 2 blocked arched openings separated by a heavy principal stud. The timber arches are chamfered. Chamfered bridging beam runs from the stud to the stack. First-floor east room has tie beam on straight braces. Blocked gable-end window. Fine C17 stone fireplace bressumer: 4-centred opening with hollow and ogee mouldings, and painted spandrels (red ochre). C17 floorboards in this room and in floored hall next west. Principal hall truss of a tie beam on arched braces, with queen posts rising to smoke-blackened collar. Remains of a second such truss to east. Queen posts with chamfered corners ending in broach stops. Remainder of roof structure renewed. West room without first-floor access.

Listing NGR: TM0496691540