The Poplars

The Poplars is a former farmhouse dating from the late 15th century and 17th century. It is constructed with a timber frame and rendered exterior, topped with a roof that has corrugated iron sheeting over old thatch, hipped on the left and half-hipped on the right. The building is 1½ storeys high and features an internal chimney stack with a plain rebuilt red brick shaft.

The front of the house has two gabled dormers, each with old 2-light leaded-paned casement windows. On the ground floor, there is one 3-light and one 2-light 20th-century metal casement window, along with a single-light window on each side of the entrance door. The house has a 3-cell plan, now with a lobby entrance, and is framed in five bays.

The center of the house contains 1½ bays of a former open hall that originally had a crown-post roof. Although the tie-beam and crown-post of the open truss have been removed, the collar-purlin remains, showing mortices for braces and extensive smoke-blackening beneath thick layers of whitewash. Later plastering covers the rafters and collars.

The chimney stack, appearing in two sections, has been inserted into the hall against the line of the former open truss. Next to it, there are diamond-mullioned housings for a hall window in the rear wall plate. The inserted ceiling in the remaining full bay of the hall features a main beam with a wide chamfer and curved stepped stops, resting on a short post against the stack, which is similarly finished.

At the left end, the former service bay is still divided into two and has a 20th-century replacement ceiling. To the right of the stack, there is a noticeable break in the wall plates and a two-bay section with an exposed ground-floor ceiling, where the joists are positioned on edge. All visible studding is substantial and widely spaced, with some modern studs inserted between the original ones; there is no middle rail and tension braces are present in the end walls. The building stands on a moated site and is currently empty and derelict.